Locamama wrote an article about political correctness recently. The idea was that it was a good thing, and, of course, opinions of all stripes were offered. As a larger than average person, I have my own perspective, as obesity is one trait against which it is still politically correct to discriminate.
I don't want someone to come up with a "quaint" term to describe what I am. I am what I am, and that is FAT. A cutesy term doesn't change that fact, it doesn't change what I see when I look in the mirror, and most importantly, it does not change the perceptions people have towards me or the prejudices that often accompany those perceptions. All it does is put a "sanitary" label on it.
As a fat man, however, the offense isn't in the label, the offense is that anyone would see me as a fat man in the first place. Same with crippled, black, developmentally disabled, etc. The fact that people need to attach a label to describe who I am in any other context than describing me to police looking for my body or hunting me as a suspect in a crime is where the offense lies. All a "clean" label does is appease one's conscience.
I agree that in creating the idea of political correctness, someone somewhere thought they were doing some good in the world. But the irony of political correctness is that every time a new term must be invented, it calls attention once again to the differences and reminds people of those prejudices rather than simply allowing them to become a matter of course. And as the PC movement creates divisions within divisions for these labels, they further enhance the distinction.
I'd like to live in a world where we are called "people", and where adjectives arent necessary in creating a description. Becausde those adjectives are misleading. I, for instance, am African-American. I'm also Native American. I'm also Jewish American. Because of my ancestry, all of those labels could apply, and none of them would be misleading (making me think how fun it would be to play with the census man in 2010!). But while I am all of these things, I am also none of these things. But these labels, if I chose to apply them, would automatically create an artificial barrier to the fact that I'm human.
So, call me fat. Call me a gimp. Call me anything you choose. Because ultimately, if you see me as anything other than human, there's still a lot of work to do.