Dear teachers,
Would you be kind enough to tell me whether I am on the right way with my interpretation of the expression in bold in the following brief excerpt from the O.Henry’s “A Cosmopolite in a Caffe”?
"Excuse me," said he, "but that's a question I never like to hear asked. What does it matter where a man is from? Is it fair to judge a man by his post-office address? Why, I've seen Kentuckians who hated whiskey, Virginians who weren't descended from Pocahontas, Indianians who hadn't written a novel, Mexicans who didn't wear velvet trousers with silver dollars sewed along the seams, funny Englishmen, spendthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, narrow-minded Westerners, and New Yorkers who were too busy to stop for an hour on the street to watch a one-armed grocer's clerk do up cranberries in paper bags. Let a man be a man and don't handicap him with the label of any section."
I know the meaning of “handicap” = “to cause to be at a disadvantage; impede” but in my humble opinion there is a better verb in the present case in my native language namely “burden”, encumber”.
encumber (v) = to hinder or impede the action or performance of
Thank you for your efforts.
Regards,
V.
