Back in the Neolithic era, when I was a pediatric resident, an endocrinology attending wiped his feet on me when I called a patient a "diabetic."
"The patient is not a 'diabetic,' the patient is a child with diabetes"Um, that's what I said, no?
"You called the patient a diabetic."Same thing?
"A patient is not a disease."A year later I was chiding medical students for calling children diabetics, epileptics, and asthmatics. It matters.
We use words without realizing their influence.
I have some children with dyslexia in my classes, but I no longer have any dyslexics.
