Words convey meaning far beyond their dictionary definitions.
In the American society, for example, "invalid" has come to generally mean someone who is helpless in a wheelchair or in a bed unable to fend for themselves, and a general drag on society.
For someone who is in a wheelchair (as my son is and my other son was), the equating of "wheelchair" and "invalid" IS an insult.
My son, for example, was paralyzed from the neck down in 1986 on his 21st birthday, and is an honors graduate and double major in math and economics, a Stanford Law School graduate, worked at the number one law firm in Washington, DC, met his wife there (a Yale Law School graduate) now have their own firm in Denver and nationally recognized in the fields of civil rights law and disability rights law, with cases in CA. TX, IL and CO,
and Andy, born profoundly mentally handicapped, who suffered a spinal cord injury in 1998, requiring the use of a wheelchair but through his diligent and very hard effort through intensive physical therapy was able to recover 95% of his walking.
Neither one of my sons is an "invalid." Yet, they both use or have used wheelchairs. Neither is "wheelchair bound" - that is a ludicrous statement. No one is "wheelchair bound". Wheelchairs ARE my son's legs - they are FREEDOM to him, not something to which he is bound.
This is NOT political correctness. This is the proper usage of vocabulary and all the meanings accrued to vocabulary beyond the dictionary.
I could forgive Max the use of the words in the way he did if he would be so kind as to give us just a little clue as to where he is from and his background. But, for some reason, he denies us this knowledge. Why the secrets, Max?
Also, his methodology of investigating injuries is absolutely off the wall. Totally unscientific, and no valid conclusions could be drawn from this supposed "research." What a waste of time.
OK. Wording of my poll was not good. But after hanging around on the Avocacy and Safety forum, can we tell what is more dangerous driving or cycling? How to calculate it?
Well, you don't calculate it by asking a non-representative population in a non-random-sampling manner "How many of the invalids have you seen in the wheelchair." Goodness, Max. Perhaps you should avail yourself of a course in basic statistics, including valid techniques of population sampling?
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