From: KEOWN@WINVMC.VNET.IBM.COM (Bosco Keown)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.deaf-l
Subject: words from Bryce, and others.
Date: 15 Oct 92 13:41:36 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Comments:     <Parser> W: SUBJECT field duplicated. Last occurence was retained.

WARNING: long, boring, philosophical metadiscussion. DO NOT READ!

>Golfers and bowlers get handicaps. So do race horses. The trick to
>success in these cases is to do BETTER through effort or skill than
>the handicap placed on one. These handicaps are leveling
>mechanisms in competitive scoring systems. People or horses who
>overcome handicaps are called "winners."

Look at it from another direction. In sport, it is the *stronger* competitors
who are handicapped the most in order to level the field and give everyone
a more or less equal chance of winning.

With this observation, I am able to put my deafness into perspective by
reasoning that it is just a little handicap imposed on me because I'm
maybe too competitive for the mere humans around me. :-)

Anyway, on another tack...I have crystallized a couple of ideas I had
regarding terminology ("deaf", "hard-of-hearing", "hearing-impaired",
"handicapped", "dumb", or what-have-you). Some time ago I came across
the 30-plus definitions that Eskimos have of snow. I won't put them all
here, but will include a few so you get the general idea:

Aniugavinirq:   very hard, compressed and frozen snow
Apijaq:         snow covered by bad weather
Aput:           snow
Aputiqarniq:    snowfall on ground
Masak:          wet, falling snow
Matsaaq:        half-melted snow
Mauja:          soft, deep snow footsteps sink in
Natiruvaaq:     drifting snow
Pirsirlug:      blowing snow
Pukajaak:       sugary snow
Putak:          crystalline, breaks into grains
Qaliriiktaq:    snow layer of poor quality for an igloo
Qannialaaq:     light, falling snow
Qiasuqqaq:      thawed snow that refroze with an icy surface
Qiqumaaq:       snow with a frozen surface after spring thaw
Qirsuqaktuq:    light snow
Sitilluqaq:     hard snow

Now, snow is the major component of the environment in which Eskimos
live; it is certainly fundamental to their existence. In a society
whose existence is concentrated around something as apparently innocent
(TO US) as snow, it is hardly surprising that they have enriched their
understanding of its many forms as the above Inuit words show. If I
(and probably anyone else on this list) was to visit an Eskimo community,
I would see nothing but "snow" -- yes...all the above discrete forms and
more...lumped together as "just snow". In other words, I have not been
an Eskimo long enough to see snow for what it really is.....

The analogy with the terminology *we* encounter is that more or less all
of the terms were coined by people who work with, by, or for the deaf,
the hearing-impaired, the hard-of hearing, etc. They are simply different
ways of describing what is (to the majority of the population) apparently
the same thing.

I have no objection to terminology if it enriches the language with
what are essentially specific definitions of a particular form of something.
It is only when people get too bogged down in terminology in their attempts
to be "politically correct" that I begin to think to myself "Ohmigod,
why can't these people lighten up a bit? It's not a life-or-death
situation." The innocents on the outside looking in who view me as
"hard-of-hearing" when I am in fact as deaf as a bat provide a breath
of fresh air with their naivete. It's only when they start obsessive
categorization that this whole terminology business becomes a pain in
the butt.

Bosco.

John Bosco Keown,
CICS/6000 Development,         | VNET     : KEOWN at WINVMC
IBM UK Laboratories, Ltd.,     | IBMIPNET : keown@harpo.hursley.ibm.com
Hursley Park,                  | Internet : keown@winvmc.vnet.ibm.com
Winchester, England.           | BITNET   : KEOWN at VNET
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.deaf-l