redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
Redbird ([personal profile] redbird) wrote in [personal profile] cjsmith 2005-05-14 09:51 pm (UTC)

non-wheelchair using copyeditor here

I don't use a wheelchair, but I'll play anyway:

1: wheels or rides (the former if the person is it's muscle-powered and the person using the chair is providing that power; the latter for a powered chair or one pushed by someone else).
2: wheelchair user
3: chair
4: steering or wheeling feels best.

I'd also be a little careful, if the chair is being pushed by someone else: "pushed Chris's wheelchair" is better than "pushed Chris", though "the nurse wheeled my cousin down to the OR" is also reasonable.

I don't know how much distinction there is in usage between someone who uses a wheelchair longterm and someone who is using one temporarily or briefly: the hospital patient in the example above, or someone who ordinarily uses a cane or walker but is being pushed through an airport in a wheelchair.

And there's the usage I warned about a paragraph earlier, but "in a wheelchair" feels appropriate in that context and seems to call for that verb.

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