The Honest Truth of Cripple As someone who has experienced the hardships of multiple sclerosis, Nancy Mairs faces the disease through her frequent exercise of the word “cripple.” In an excerpt from her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Mairs presents herself as truthful and tough by defending the true meaning of the word “cripple” while refuting better-accepted definitions and acknowledging the politically incorrect connotations of the term. Mairs makes it evident that she is honest to herself about being a cripple through the way she admires the bluntness of “cripple”, explains how the misused synonyms “disabled” and “handicapped” manipulate the truth, and compares differently abled to third world countries. Towards the beginning, Mairs admits