Updated with additions could be of interest to those interested in sport history. Key Words: Linguistics, Etymology, Disability Studies, history, US & UK English, biology, Oxford English Dictionary, eugenics, euthanasia, 1915, The Atlantic Monthly,history of sport

1. A history of the word 'handicap'
(extended) by Keith Armstrong
by Keith Armstrong
2013
London

3. Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Dr. Ron Adamson, Ms Julie Bowles, Miss Cecile Mairat, Miss Rachel
O'Dowd, Miss Eva Skoulariki and Mrs Liz Taylor for transcribing from the original text. I
would also like to thank the many people who have helped me to live and given me the
energy and encouragement to complete this article. This includes the people of Camden and
my late mother Mrs. Nina Armstrong. I am particularly grateful to the kind members of staff
at all levels within the British Library in London.
-----------
I must point out that any factual errors or sentiment unwittingly suggested are my
responsibility alone. The punctuation and typeface of the authors quoted have at
times been modified.
All rights are reserved. The author's moral rights are asserted. No part of this paper
may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without written permission from the author.
© Copyright 2013 Keith Armstrong, London.

4. There are a number of reasons to challenge the dictionary's use of the word "handicap". As a word
it has a long history, but not as a term to describe someone who has an impairment. That is much
more recent.
Walter William Skeat (21 November 1835 – 6 October 1912) was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at
Cambridge. He completed an edition of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels and worked on both Anglo-
Saxon and Medieval texts, including his standard editions of Geoffrey Chaucer and William
Langland's Piers Plowman. Another of his accomplishments was the editing of An Etymological
Dictionary of the English Language from 1879 - 1882.
His dictionary entry for the word "handicap" states:
A race for horses of all ages. (English) In a handicap,
horses carry different weights according to their ages, &c,
with a view to equalising their chances. The word was
formerly the name of a game. 'To the Miter Taverne in
Woodstreete . . . Here some of us fell to handycapp, a sport
that I never knew before ;' Pepys' Diary, Sept. 18, 1660.
Origin of the same as the Newe Feire, described in Piers
Plowman, B. v. 327; which shows that it was a custom to
barter articles, and to settle by arbitration which of the
articles was more valuable, and how much (by way of
amends') was to be given to the holder of the inferior one.
From this settlement of ' amends' arose the system known
as handicapping. The etymology is from hand i cap (=
hand in cap) ; from the mode of drawing lots.

5. The bible of UK English is the much quoted Oxford English Dictionary (OED), published by the
Oxford University Press. It is currently only in its second edition, although it plays a central part in
any British reference library and beyond. It was first published in 1933 and the second edition was
brought out between 1972 and 1986. The entry for the word 'handicap' takes up almost a whole
column divided on two pages. Some of the most significant references are listed below:
The word Handicap as a noun
‘hand i' cap’ or ‘hand in the cap’ : A word of obscure history. Two examples of the noun, and
one of the verb, are known in 17th century; its connexion with horse-racing appears in the 18th;
its transferred general use, especially in the verb, since 1850. It appears to have originated in
the phrase ‘hand i' cap’, or ‘hand in the cap’, with reference to the drawing mentioned in sense.
1. The name of a kind of sport having an element of chance in it, in which one person challenged
some article belonging to another, for which he offered something of his own in exchange.
On the challenge being entertained, an umpire was chosen to decree the difference of value between
the two articles, and all three parties deposited forfeit-money in a cap or hat. The umpire then
pronounced his award as to the ‘boot’ or odds to be given with the inferior article, on hearing which
the two other parties drew out full or empty hands to denote their acceptance or non-acceptance of
the match in terms of the award. If the two were found to agree in holding the match either ‘on’ or
‘off’, the whole of the money deposited was taken by the umpire; but if not, by the party who was
willing that the match should stand. (See Notes & Queries 23 June, 1855).
This sport is described under the name of Newe Faire, in Piers Plowman (A. v. 171, B. v. 328, C.
vii. 377), where ‘Clement þe cobelere caste of his cloke’, for which ‘Hikke þe hakeneyman’
wagered his hood, and ‘Robyn þe ropere’ was named for ‘a noumpere’, to ordain how much
‘who~so haueth the hood shuld haue amendes of the cloke’. For reference to a similar sport in
Scandinavia and Germany (where they are called Freimarkt).
Samuel Pepys' (1633 –1703) Diary 18 September 1660: Here some of us fell to handicap, a sport
that I never knew before, which was very good.
1754 Pond's Racing Calendar p. xxxii, Rules concerning Racing in general, with a Description of
a Post and Handy-Cap Match+A Handy-Cap Match, if for A. B. and C. to put an equal Sum into a
Hat, C, which is the HandyCapper, makes a Match for A. and B. which when perused by them, they
put their Hands into their Pockets and draw them out closed, then they open them together, and if
both have Money in their Hands, the Match is confirm'd; if neither have Money, it is no Match: In
both Cases the Hand-Capper draws all the Money out of the Hat; but if one has Money in his Hand,
and the other none, then it is no Match; and he that has the Money in his Hand is intitled to the
Deposit in the Hat. If a Match is made without the Weight being mentioned, each Horse must carry
ten Stone. [So in ‘Rules of Racing’ in Racing Calendar 1826, and Blaine Encyclopaedia of Rural
Sports ed. 1832.]
handicap race (shortened handicap): a horse-race in which an umpire (the handicapper) decrees
what weights have to be carried by the various horses entered, according to his judgement of their
merits, in order to equalize their chances. So handicap plate, sweepstakes, etc.
1862 Times 2 Jan., The most prolific source of mischief, perhaps, on the Turf, is the increase and
magnitude of the handicaps. There is no beast so miserable, but that he may possibly succeed in a
handicap.

6. Rules of Racing in J. Rice History of British Turf (1879) II. 367 A ‘handicap’ is a race in which
the weights which the horses are to carry are to be adjusted after the time limited for entering or
naming, according to the handicapper's judgement of the merits of the horses, for the purpose of
equalizing their chances of winning+A free handicap is one in which no liability for stake or forfeit
is incurred until acceptance, and no entry need be made. Any race or competition in which the
chances of the competitors are sought to be equalized by giving an advantage to the less efficient or
imposing a disadvantage upon the more efficient.
Besides the method of weighting, as in 2, this may be done in various ways, according to the nature
of the game, as by requiring the superior competitor to accomplish a greater distance (i.e. giving a
start to the inferior), to do it in a shorter time, to play with fewer men or pieces, etc.
1868 Brewer Phase. & Fable, Handicap, a game at cards not unlike Loo, but with this difference—
the winner of one trick has to put in a double stake, the winner of two tricks a triple stake, and so
on. Thus: if six persons are playing, and the general stake is 1s., and A gains three tricks, he gains
6s., and has to ‘hand i' the cap’ or pool, 3s. for the next deal. Suppose A gains two tricks and B one,
then A gains 4s. and B 2s., and A has to stake 3s. and B 2s. for the next deal. [No confirmation has
been found.]
1856 H. H. Dixon Post & Paddock x. 175 At York about 10,000 [cards] are sold on the Handicap
day. 1897 Whitaker's Alm. 633/2 The A.A.A. rules fixed a limit of ten guineas for handicap prizes
[in foot races].
Mrs Elizabeth Taylor (from Oxford) tells me that the rules of a similar to a game which she played
when she was a child living in Hull (also known as Kingston upon Hull, the city of Humberside,
England) in the 1970's, the game was then known as 'Down on one knee'. It involved a forfeit each
time you drop the ball. The players starts standing in a circle (sometimes randomly and sometimes
in rotation) if the player catches the ball next time you would go back to standing from being down
on one knee but if dropped you go down on two, one arm etc. until out of the course it gets
progressively harder to regain your position.
The word Handicap as a verb: [feminine, proceeding noun, or of same origin.]
Figuratively speaking: To equalize the chances of competing or contrasted things.
1865 Daily Telegraph. 17 Oct. 5/3 You can't handicap Paris and London as to vice+Paris can still
give two stone of iniquity.
Transitive. To weight race-horses in proportion to their known or assumed powers, in order to
equalize their chances.
1856 H. H. Dixon Post & Paddock xii. 198 The present system of handicapping we believe to be
vicious in the extreme; and our impression of a true English handicap is, that no horse should carry
more than 9st. 9lbs., or less than 5st. 5lbs.
Transitive. To weight, hamper, or otherwise ‘penalize’ a superior competitor in any match or
contest, so as to reduce his chances in favour of inferior competitors. More generally, To place any
one at a disadvantage by the imposition of any embarrassment, impediment, or disability; to weight
unduly.
1864 Reader 9 July 57 He is handicapped with the weight of his own reputation. 1865 Saturday
Review 4 Feb. 132/2 A man of real mathematical ability must be very heavily handicapped to allow
competitors of inferior talent to meet him with any chance of success.

7. 1880 Standard 15 Dec., The British farmer is so severely handicapped that he cannot possibly
compete with the American farmer.
1884 Lillywhite's Cricket Annual: They were handicapped in their out-play by the absence of their
best bowler.
So far nothing contentious, however the dictionary entry continues with the phrase below.
Hence "handicapping" verbal substantive noun and
participial adjective; "handicapped" participial adjective,
of persons, especially children, physically or mentally
defective. Also absolute as a noun.
"of persons, especially children, physically or mentally defective"?
A child or adult who is defective? Does this mean the child is defective as a human? Now where
have I read this type of description before?
This is the language and the negative attitudes to humanity spread by the ideologies of eugenics.
Eugenics is the deadly non-science that has caused a dirty stain on the real science of genetics.
Eugenics although discredited, has a powerful support from a significant number of people amongst
the academic elite. Eugenics was founded by Francis Galton (1822 – 1911), a cousin of Charles
Darwin, who took a misinterpretation of Herbert Spencer's "Survival of the fittest". Of course
"fittest" in current biological terms means those who can survive, such as having an adaptable diet
and an ability to procreate. If you see a person walking down the street using a walking stick, that
person could have survived an incident where all others have died and therefore the fittest person
could in this context be a person with a physical impairment.
The OED continues:
"1856: H. H. Dixon Post & Paddock ii. 46 Dr. Bellyse, whose love of handicapping and cock-
fighting was so [great]." 1889: W. T. Linskill Golf iii. (1895) 15 "Another form of odds is 'so
many holes up". This is handicapping by holes and not by strokes." "1915 L. D. Wald House on
Henry St. 117 (caption) The Handicapped Child."
The last reference of 1915 is the first mention of the use of this word in connection with impairment
according to the OED.

8. The reference can be translated thus: 1915 (date of publication) L. D. Wald (author) The House on
Henry Street (book title) 117 (page) "(caption)" (chapter title) "The Handicapped Child." The word
'handicap' does not appear in the text, it is only used in the title. In her chapter "The Handicapped
Child" Wald wrote:
The time comes when the child's own interests and those of
the community demand the wisest, least selfish, and most statesman
like action. Society must state in definite terms its right to be
protected from the hopelessly defective and the moral pervert,
wherever found. This constitutes the real problem of the abnormal.
At the adolescent period those unfit for parenthood should be
guarded—girls and boys—and society should be vested with
authority and power to accomplish segregation, the conditions
of which should attract and not repel.
While the First World War raged on in Europe, in the USA in 1915 the Ku Klux Klan lynched
many Black people; it was a very bad year for equality. Also in that year, Dr Harry Haiselden of the
then German-American Hospital in Chicago promoted his campaign to eliminate those infants that
he termed hereditary "unfit". He displayed the dying babies and their mothers to journalists and he
also made a film about his ideas called "The Black Stork". His ideas were well received in Nazi
Germany and eventually led to the gas chambers. Lillian D. Wald publicly supported Dr Haiselden's
killing of disabled children.
Writing about eugenicists in his book The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective"
Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915.

9. Martin S. Pernick considers that:
[they] ...simply asserted their desire to terminate what Lillian Wald
called both the "misery" and the "menace" of defectives, without
making any effort at all to distinguish or prioritize between the two
motives. "By the weeding out of our undesirables," Haiselden
explained, "we decrease their burden and ours."
Historians and philosophers who have studied the developing
early-twentieth-century link between eugenics and euthanasia have
pointed to this blurring of social and individual goals, benevolent
and utilitarian values, as a critical logical error in ethical reasoning.
Historian Robert Proctor criticizes German race hygienists of the
1920s and 1930s for their tendency "to confuse these two very
different senses of euthanasia: . . . the one based on relieving
suffering, the other based on minimizing medical costs." "The
logic in each case is different: in the first, the goal is to provide
individual happiness in the final moments of life; in the second,
the goal is ... to relieve society of the financial burden of caring
for lives considered useless to the community."
In many respects Lillian D. Wald was a pioneer. She was a nurse who set up a welfare group in a
very poor area of New York. She was also a Jewish lesbian, socialist and feminist, whose views on
many subjects were advanced for her time, however, from reading her book it is very clear she was
phobic about people with physical and mental impairments including those with learning
difficulties. Her book reflected her phobia. 1915 was a busy year for Lillian D. Wald. She wrote a
number of articles for The Atlantic Monthly, a liberal arts magazine that had campaigned to abolish
slavery.
The Nazi killing machine of disabled people known as T4 was led by Herman Hess. It resulted in
the deaths of more than 100,000 disabled people including Richard Jenne, just four years old, who
became the last victim of the euthanasia killers. This happened on 29 May, 1945, in the children's
ward of the Kaufbeuren-Irsee state hospital in Bavaria, Germany. Hess was never charged
with this war crime of the murder of disabled people.
Sadly, Haiselden's and Wald's ideas are not dead and are still rattling around the academic world. In
2012, Dr Francesca Minerva, a philosopher and medical ethicist, had an article published by the
British Medical Journal that argued that a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the
first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb. Dr Minerva also claimed that
doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, too expensive or
simply unwanted by their mothers.

10. So the word 'handicap' had a very bad start in life. We could assume from the OED that it was first
used by abusers who wanted to murder their victims, or was it? After further research it turns out
that the OED is incorrect in suggesting Wald as the originator for the use of the word
"handicapped" in the context of impairment/disability. However, I have discovered two slightly
earlier references for the word “"The Handicapped -- By One of Them" in The Atlantic Monthly
(September), in 1911. It is currently available on-line at http://www.ragged-edge-
mag.com/0501/0501ft2-1.htm The second reference as a chapter title in 'Youth & Life' by
Randolph Silliman Bourne (1886 – 1918) in 1913. A copy can be found in the British Library in
London. They were both made by a disabled person and imply disadvantage however neither is
abusive.
Earlier, The Atlantic Monthly had regularly used 'handicap' in many articles in opposition to slavery
and racist attitudes. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, a leading black intellectual who gave a voice to the
aspirations of black Americans after the U.S. Civil War wrote in his article "Strivings of the Negro
People" published in August 1897 that:
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars
is the very bottom of hardships. He felt the weight of his
ignorance,—not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of the
humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness
of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet. Nor was his
burden all poverty and ignorance. The red stain of bastardy,
which two centuries of systematic legal defilement of Negro
women had stamped upon his race, meant not only the loss of
ancient African chastity, but also the hereditary weight of a mass
of filth from white whoremongers and adulterers, threatening
almost the obliteration of the Negro home.

11. A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the
world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its
own social problems. But alas! while sociologists gleefully count
his bastards and his prostitutes, the very soul of the toiling,
sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despair.
Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the
natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against
ignorance, purity against crime, the “higher” against the “lower”
races. To which the Negro cries Amen!
There is no such thing as right or wrong in the use of most words, nor is there any such thing as
'politically correct'. The term 'politically correct' was first used by bigots who wanted to continue
using abusive language in an abusive linguistic context.
In one to one communication we ask a person's name. If the reply we receive is "John", we don't
say "Hello Fred" if we expect a reply or even an acknowledgement. Likewise, if we refer to a
group of people that we are not a member of, we should use a term that the group uses that
acknowledges respect and dignity. This is especially so when the group has suffered historical
indignity and discrimination. This is not because it is 'politically correct', it is because it is just
good manners.
Many years ago, I was talking about language with an African friend. He told me that he had met
people "who used all the right words", however, their hostility to him because he was black was
revealed in the way they conducted themselves. Likewise, if a poorly educated person who was
good natured referred to him as 'coloured', he did not take offence.
The Anglo-Saxon words 'cripple' (crypel) and 'lame' (lam) can be dated back to the early 9th
century. Neither words were used abusively until the 17th
century in the so-called age of
enlightenment, when the UK led the world in slavery.
It was stated repeatedly at 'Disability Equality Awareness Training' sessions in the UK during the
1980s and 90s that the origin of the term 'handicap' was related to begging, as in the phrase 'cap in
hand', however I have found no evidence to support this claim.
One last reference in the OED in the context of 'impairment' dated 1958, is that of Peter Townsend,
who wrote in N. Mackenzie et al., 'Conviction' on page 118, "The handicapped+still are treated too
often as second-class citizens." Sadly, in 2013, I think that people with impairments are treated too
often as third-class citizens in western Europe.

12. References
Barnhart, Robert K., (Ed.), (1988: 463 - 464), Chambers Dictionary of Etymology,
(Edinburgh and New York: Chambers).
Bourne, Randolph, article "The Handicapped By Randolph Bourne".
http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/0501/0501ft2-1.htm retrieved 3rd June 2013
Bourne, Randolph, (1913: 337 - 365), Youth & Life, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin).
Burghardt Du Bois, W. E., (1897),"Strivings of the Negro People by W. E. Burghardt Du Bois"
article in The Atlantic Monthly No. 80.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/02/strivings-of-the-negro-people/308810/
retrieved 4th June 2013
Friedlander, Henry, (1995:163), Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, (Chapel Hill,
North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press).
Pernick, Martin S., (1996: 6, 32, 94, 104, 192n - 11), The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of
"Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915 (New York: Oxford
University Press).
Skeat, Walter W., (Ed.), (1879 - 1882, 1974: 159, 259), AN Etymological Dictionary of the English
Language, (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Skeat, Walter W., (Ed.), (1886, 1969: 161) The Vision of William concerning Piers The Plowman,
in three parallel texts, together with Richard The Redelesss by William Langland (About 1362-1399
A.D.). Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Simpson John A., & Weiner Edmund S.C., (Ed.), (1989, 2004: 1073-1074), Oxford English
Dictionary 2nd Edition, Vol. VI., (Oxford : Clarendon Press).
Article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108433/Doctors-right-kill-unwanted-disabled-
babies-birth-real-person-claims-Oxford-academic.html
Wald, Lillian D., (1915: 117, 121 - 122) The House on Henry Street (New York: Henry Holt &
Company).
Illustrations
Bourne, Randolph, (1913: front), Youth & Life, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin).
Quinn, Gerard, (Ed.), (1990, 1992: 114, 119) The Encyclopaedia of Illustration: A Compilation of
More Than 5,000 Illustrations and Designs, (London: Studio Editions).
Wald, Lillian D., (1915: front) The House on Henry Street, (New York: Henry Holt & Company).