Wheelchair vocabulary

[cjsmith]

I need vocabulary!

The person not in a wheelchair "walks"; the person in a wheelchair ___________ (rides, wheels, rolls, ???).
A person in a wheelchair is a ______________ (wheelchair user, ???).
A short word for a wheelchair is ______________ (???).
The act of controlling and steering a wheelchair is called ________________ (driving, steering, wheeling, ???).

I'm half tempted to say "wheelie" for just about all of these. I wheelie, you wheelie, he/she/it wheelies. (Or maybe just I wheel, etc.) I am a wheelie, I got my wheelie out of the car, I'm wheelie-ing (wheeliing? why not, "skiing" gets away with the double i). Tempting as it is, however, I couldn't possibly, you see. It would be silly.

Comments

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

Well, when you talk to a blind person you say, "Have you seen XYZ movie?" or "Have you seen Suzy lately?" When you say goodbye, you say, "See you later" if that's what you'd usually say.

When you talk to a deaf person you say, "Did you hear about Jack and Lulabelle?" or "Have you heard from Olga?" When a deaf person lectures, they are "speaking." If your child interrupts your signed conversation with a deaf person, you say "Not now! Jane and I are talking."

But I'm not sure how this would extend to using a wheelchair.

I know you posted this days ago (I'm struggling to catch up, at least with my most important friends), but I'll ask chungjik to take a look at this and give you his opinions. He and his wife both use wheelchairs.