Law makes a statement on language

Daily Herald Editorial Board

Kerry Lavelle’s ultimate objective may have a faint ring of hopeless idealism.

He wants, as Daily Herald state government writer Mike Riopell reported in a story Monday, to eliminate offensive words used to describe the disabled in the traditional news media, in general conversation and on the Internet.

That’s a tall order. But as anyone taking on a big task knows, you have to start somewhere. Lavelle, an attorney based in Palatine, sees his contribution coming in an area he knows well — the law.

Lavelle is promoting a revision of state statutes that eliminates outdated terms like “retarded” or “crippled” and replaces them with terms that are more descriptive, focusing on intellectual or physical disability.

State Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican, fresh from an effort to streamline the state’s criminal law books, talked with Riopell about the importance of “moving terminology into 21st-century terms.” Matt Murphy, the Palatine Republican carrying the bill in the Senate, acknowledged, “If we can use language that’s less offensive to people, we ought to.”

Both observations have a more-than-faint ring of political correctness, but that doesn’t mean the issue is purely cosmetic. Language has power, and archaic terms for contemporary conditions can spread harm even though the words may originally have held only a clinical connotation.

Lavelle notes that the words he most wants changed too often are used in pejorative or hurtful ways.

“Every time (they are) used, it’s ... in a very derogatory fashion,” he told Riopell.

And allowing them to remain embedded in state statutes provides a layer of credibility that keeps such hurtful words around where insensitive or inconsiderate people not only will use them but also will defend their use.

The federal government already has recognized this, and President Barack Obama signed into law last October a measure that reforms the vernacular of federal legislation. Other states have since followed suit.

Murphy’s legislation does not appear to put a burden on government, nor to require the expenditure of significant or even moderate sums — other, perhaps, than the cost of copying the 623-page document. But it can represent a small step toward language that is more respectful and more descriptive toward a body of individuals who most need the state’s — and society’s — respect and help.

By itself, the legislation won’t achieve Lavelle’s “bigger picture” goal of “changing people’s attitudes on those words.” But it’s a more-than-acceptable start.

Lawmakers should give it serious consideration after they return to session March 29.