A Review Of Word Of Mouth- Disability And Language

Today’s edition of Word of Mouth on Radio 4, presented by Michael Rosen, was about disability and language. Before I go any further, I must thank him for covering this very important topic.

The studio guests were ‘wobbly’ comedian Francesca Martinez, who doesn’t like to say she has Cerebral Palsy, and ‘funny looking’ woman Victoria Wright, better known as April from C4’s Cast Offs.

Both the guests made some good points, which I’m going to list and react to here.

Francesca Martinez thinks that while words are important, they are not essential, and attitude is more important. Victoria Wright thinks words matter a lot, but she would explain a mistake to someone who meant well but used the wrong words as the intention behind words is important.

Francesca Martinez thinks that we can get hung up on the right words in this country. She says that the word ‘disability’ itself is far from perfect. She sees everyone as different, and says that is why we are all the same. (At this point I had to smile, as she sounded a lot like me talking about why I named this blog Same Difference!) She says that the only difference between her and everyone else is that her ‘list of can’ts’ is different to everyone else’s. A very good way of looking at life with a DisAbility, if you ask me.

On the media, Francesca Martinez said that it ignores disabled people most of the time. She makes a good point about disability in comedy- that comedians say things about disability that the mainstream secretly agree with but wouldn’t dare to say.

She says something else I have known and said for quite a while- that young children are honest and open to difference but teenagers at secondary school age are different and much harsher.

Another point of hers I completely agree with is that to be able to talk about disability, we have to talk about normality as well- but there is no such thing as ‘normal.’ She has never met a ‘normal’ person, and she thinks, just as I do, that ‘normal’ doesn’t exist. She adds that one word can’t sum up a person.

In the second half of the programme, Michael Rosen spoke to Professor Colin Barnes, who is partially sighted. He, too, made some good points. He said that the media has a responsibility to use words responsibly- but that most people in the media are not prepared to do this. He added that language use changes all the time.

Finally, Louise Wallis of Respond phoned the studio. She said that it would be good to come up with new words to replace old, negative labels such as ‘retard’- words that are not connected to anything. So- can you think of any?

Meanwhile, for those of you who missed the programme, or even those who just want to hear it again, it’s available on iPlayer for a week. It really is well worth sparing half an hour for.

Your comments are very welcome below, as always.