{"id":416,"date":"2010-11-04T08:53:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T08:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html"},"modified":"2010-11-04T08:53:16","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T08:53:16","slug":"spread-the-word-to-end-the-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html","title":{"rendered":"Spread the Word to End the Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written before about the significance of language and my concerns about many words used to describe (and deride) people with disabilities. It can be subtle (even the word disability gives me pause). It can be blatant (&#8220;You&#8217;re such a retard&#8221;). It happens at all levels of culture&#8211;from politicians to celebrities to my close friends, from teenagers to adults. It&#8217;s so widespread, in fact, that it would be easy to dismiss any effort to change it. And yet language matters. Words shape the story of reality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So I encourage you to take a few minutes to watch the following video. It&#8217;s given by a senior in high school, and it combines reason and emotion to tell a powerful story:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><object width=\"480\" height=\"385\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/8zFKFshINuw?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/8zFKFshINuw?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"480\" height=\"385\"><\/object><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written before about the significance of language and my concerns about many words used to describe (and deride) people with disabilities. It can be subtle (even the word disability gives me pause). It can be blatant (&#8220;You&#8217;re such a retard&#8221;). It happens at all levels of culture&#8211;from politicians to celebrities to my close friends,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Spread the Word to End the Word - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spread the Word to End the Word - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ve written before about the significance of language and my concerns about many words used to describe (and deride) people with disabilities. It can be subtle (even the word disability gives me pause). It can be blatant (&#8220;You&#8217;re such a retard&#8221;). It happens at all levels of culture&#8211;from politicians to celebrities to my close friends,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-04T08:53:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Spread the Word to End the Word - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Spread the Word to End the Word - Thin Places","og_description":"I&#8217;ve written before about the significance of language and my concerns about many words used to describe (and deride) people with disabilities. It can be subtle (even the word disability gives me pause). It can be blatant (&#8220;You&#8217;re such a retard&#8221;). It happens at all levels of culture&#8211;from politicians to celebrities to my close friends,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-11-04T08:53:16+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html","name":"Spread the Word to End the Word - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-11-04T08:53:16+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-04T08:53:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Spread the Word to End the Word"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}