I think “abled” is the best of the options you’ve laid out. It doesn’t imply that any way to be is better or worse than another. It doesn’t make any form of ability or disability invisible. It’s short.

There is considerable diversity in how disabled people choose to refer to themselves; interacting with particularly low-income folk I tend to hear “handicap” a bit more. I never hear differently-abled, or anything-challenged (I’ve only ever heard that used as a sly way to insult without directly insulting) and so forth. The simpler the term the more people seem to accept it as an identity.

That said, when trying to find terminology for the non-marked/dominant group, there isn’t as much of a concern whether there is a strong sense of identity with that term by those people. (That isn’t to say there’s *no* concern. It’s just not primary.) I think it is a slightly different conversation.

Also, I get the sense that disabled folk identify a lot more with a term when other people use it in a neutral-or-positive, affirmative sense — rather than a patronizing sense. And we can almost always tell the difference.

Pretty much, yes.

I did a paper for a college class on the history of disease, at one point, where I tracked laws relating to the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, in England. Went all the way back to the 1500s. And you saw much of the same issue, with older/known terms becoming perjorative as the general public became comfortable with them, and the people who cared about the issue developing newer terms that would not be perjorative. Both “moron” and “idiot” were new non-insulting alternative terms, at one point.

Playing with terms helps in the short term, and in particular it helps the people who are actually involved in the cause keep it at the front of their mind that the people they care about are people and not to be insulted.

It’s less effective at changing the way the public thinks, to just play with the words, as the tendancy is to just equate the new term with the old now-insulting term.

What seems to have done the most good in recent times are laws requiring that public schools educated the disabled, and that this education include as much participation in the regular classroom as is possible. And other laws, requiring employers to make reasonable accomidations for employment, and that people who need physical assistance with daily life tasks be able to get that help coming into their own home, rather than having to go live in an institution.

“Disabled” is a difficult starting point, being a word with a prefix added. I’ve been thinking about this overnight and wondering when everyone stopped using “handicapped” in English. To me it seems more descriptive and less dismissive than “disabled”. It doesn’t have other, harsher meanings the way “disabled” does when applied to machines. And handicaps can come and go.

Did “handicapped” go the way of “oriental”, “black”, “negro” “retarded” and “spastic”? They were all technically correct, but came to be insults. Is that why people are suggesting such long descriptions? “Retarded” is now “developmentally delayed”, and you sure don’t hear kids yelling that at each other in the playground.