The Role of the Communicator in Abolishing Offensive Language

bonnaseo101216

As communications professionals, we’re all—generally speaking—lovers of language and people who have mysterious ways with words. This makes us good at understanding when to use and when not to use specific words and phrases. Particularly those considered to be offensive. As a deaf public relations professional, I’m already hyper-aware of the use of language around disability. But, I was still shocked to discover the “H” word on the Cision UK website was a searchable category within their latest news function. “Handicapped” is not an acceptable word to use in relation to persons with disabilities. This has been true in the UK for many years now. So what was it doing on such a high-profile website like Cision? Is the “H” Word Really Still in Use? To make sure I wasn’t alone in my offensive language outrage (spoiler alert: I wasn’t), I turned to the Spin Sucks community, and my Twitter network. I sought their help to try and establish how widespread, or not, the use of this word is. And I wanted to figure out why Cision would think it necessary as a search query. I was able to establish that in the UK, Ireland, Australia and Ghana, it’s a term not often in use.

However, it is still in practice in Romania. And a search for “handicapped” news brought up some interesting results including regional publications in Quebec, New Mexico, and the UAE. They all used the word in headlines for news articles. But, I’m sorry to say America, the number of regional dailies in the USA using this word in their news articles was, let’s just say, WOW! Considering both the PRSA and the AP Timeshare Owners Email List Style Guide clearly state that the use of “handicapped” or “handicap” is to be avoided, it’s heavily used in headlines in many state publications. (Disclosure: GDPR has prevented me from looking at these in-depth because of my EU location, so I don’t know if the word is used beyond the headline.) Thanks to Spin Sucks community member Christopher Penn, who supplied a graph compiled from data using Google’s GDELT Google News database, we have a handy graph showing how often this term has been used by different countries in the last year.



Many of those mentions were in relation to parking. But on further inspection, I found several using the term as an adjective to describe a person. disability language (Image courtesy of Christopher Penn) My research had time constraints, but sadly, it does appear the “H” word is still in semi-popular use. The next question is, how does that affect us as communicators? The Communicator’s Responsibility Where does the responsibility lie in forcing offensive language out of our lexicon for good? Arguably, you might say Cision is a facilitator. They’re not responsible for the words themselves, but simply offer a vehicle for people to find articles relating to disability. If “handicapped” is still showing up in news releases, then it’s likely a search term people will use. However… Both the Spin Sucks community and my own Twitter network overwhelmingly agreed the word has no place in modern communications. And, as the mouthpiece for client organizations, we are in an ideal position to make a permanent, positive change. This includes not enabling others to use terms that are outdated or offensive, specifically in relation to disability.