Is this initiative being evaluated for inclusivity of people with language processing conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, to make sure it doesn't cause discriminatory strain on these folks?
It is like requiring people to jog at the job, and then say that being wheelchair bound isn't an excuse to skip the jogging exercise. Some people have a much harder time with abstractions and words, they have learned the ones on the left, remapping all of that to the words on the right is a ton of work and maybe some of them will never manage to do it.
As one of those people, no, probably not. At best, they consulted the loudest few autistic p... people with autism they could find, and decided that represented all of us. (I'm in a couple of other minority groups, it's a common pattern.)
Specifically, I'm the "parse everything hyperliterally unless I consciously try not to" type, which means I do not see the problem with many of these, and just have to remember a list of words I can't use professionally.
Amusingly, most of the list of words I'd always been told I couldn't use professionally get used all the fucking time.
> Instead of "blind review", consider using "anonymous review". Context: Unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture.
But.. disability is abnormal and negative? How tortured of a definition of 'normal' must one use to make blindness normal? And I suspect if the author of that sentence were offered, say, $100,000 to undergo a painless but irreversible blinding surgery, they would very quickly admit blindness is a negative - a greater negative than missing out on $100,000. In fact I suspect most people wouldn't accept that offer even if it had many more zeros.
But still we must pretend?
> Instead of "committed suicide", consider using "died by suicide". Context: Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.
And with this they tip their hand. The mental contortions required to conclude that "committed suicide" trivializes something, but "died by suicide" doesn't, are so extreme that I cannot believe anyone honestly holds that opinion. That leaves as the most likely conclusion that this document is not an honest effort to eliminate 'harm', but a mine-field, a list of sins and prohibitions, to be used as ammo against opponents.
> The mental contortions required to conclude that "committed suicide" trivializes something, but "died by suicide" doesn't, are so extreme that I cannot believe anyone honestly holds that opinion.
I think the notion is that "committed suicide" is like "committed a crime" and harkens back to the Christian notion that suicide is a crime (against God). And so it's moralizing language that blames the person for killing themselves.
You can verify that this is a common notion among people who work in the field by Googling. For example, the first hit when I search for "why shouldn't we say committed suicide" is https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-mat... which says:
> For example, the phrase "committed suicide" is frowned on because it harks back to an era when suicide was considered a sin or a crime. Think about the times when we use the word "commit": "commit adultery" or "commit murder."
> That leaves as the most likely conclusion that this document is not an honest effort to eliminate 'harm', but a mine-field, a list of sins and prohibitions, to be used as ammo against opponents.
It's interesting that you arrived at this conclusion before doing a minimal amount of research!
It's still one of the most stupendous pieces of harmful slacktivism that I've seen. So, so much pointless work fixing thing that didn't need to break, and all for the stupidest reasons possible.
“master” never made much sense to begin with. I’m still a bit disappointed that the default wasn’t set to “default”. I argued for either that or having no default at all.
Seriously, ignore political correctness for a bit. The “master” branch is generally not in charge of anything. It’s not like a master recording of which everything else is a copy. It has no special rights and isn’t even necessary more important.
It made a limited sort of sense in Linux where torvalds/linux.git’s master branch is the branch that everyone else’s development eventually follows, but my git clone of that is not any sort of master despite being called “master”.
> Committed to a cause, lives up to one's commitments, committed a patch, etc.
It's so easy. Almost every word has positive and negative connotations. Find such a word in your opponent's vocabulary, claim they intended the negative connotations, and thus declare him a sinner. Reference this Stanford document to support your accusation.
If you want to take a Christian perspective, the word "commit" is used to emphasize that the individual took specific action as opposed to "omit" meaning they failed to take proper action to prevent evil.
"Died by suicide" implies passivity. It just happened to them.
It's the same thing as replacing "homeless" with "experiencing homelessness". It's not saying anything different, but communication efficacy isn't the point.
Exactly this. I've been homeless twice (once as a kid and once as a young adult). I don't speak about it often, but when I do that is the language I use. There is no need to sugar coat it, and call it something else. People are too coddled and it is likely why so many now have trouble handling any adversity at all.
Well, I can see why a person might prefer to look at their situation as temporary. In your case, would it be the same if you heard someone describe you as “a depressed person?”
I'm sure weve all had an issue with a company, and in their communications, theyve been polite and used the 'right' words, but in the end you know they are basically fobbing you off, and refusing to sort the problem. the issue isn't the words, the issue is the attitude.
for me the issues would come in around how they perceive me. you could say that language used is indicative of that, but I disagree, polite words are often used to be very impolite. It takes very little time to assess someones perception, so I really don't see the utility in making people use 'correct' words.
I understand the intention but I don't see what about the word 'depressed' implies permanence. Is a depressed person any more permanently depressed than a depressed button or a depressed stock price?
Yeah, it’s definitely there. Maybe you don’t see it, but ask about. People are very sensitive to their own identity in mental health. Being depressed and being a depressed person is a very different implication!
When people use long winded euphemistic language directed at me I feel condescended to in direct proportion to the extra syllables used. The fact somebody is spending energy talking in awkward ways only to me reminds me of the fact that I'm in the class of people that are talked euphemistically about. So I've never understood what the point of such language actually was.
What people in the thread said is that they’re more comfortable saying or hearing things phrased a certain way, so that’s why they use that phrasing. Sure you can use language as a means of virtue signalling though.
For me though, I simply see being offbeat phrasing as being stigmatizing in practice, it ends up drawing more attention to whatever was being described.
> But.. disability is abnormal and negative? How tortured of a definition of 'normal' must one use to make blindness normal? And I suspect if the author of that sentence were offered, say, $100,000 to undergo a painless but irreversible blinding surgery, they would very quickly admit blindness is a negative
As you can verify with some Googling, there are many Deaf people who choose not to undergo surgery to gain the ability to hear. (This isn't a universal preference by any means, but it's also not fringe.)
I'll point out that if you can't hear by ~11 years old, you won't be able to understand language - even if you can hear later in life. So it is possible that you are reading stories of people who decide not to get the surgery because they know they won't get full function.
You are simply wrong about this, that is not the cultural attitude that generates this response in something like 95%+ of cases.
Capital-D Deaf culture does not as a rule view their lack of hearing as a horrible wrong that needs to be corrected for them to live a “normal” life. They believe that they are living a normal life, and screw you for suggesting otherwise, and many would tell you that they do not want to speak your inferior language anyways, because it is broadly technically inferior due to its inherent one-dimensionality: you describe things with a scalar pressure varying with time only, their language describes things with motions in three dimensions of space as well as in time.
This means that in the 95% case, the dominant attitude is not “I’m afraid,” it's “those folks are assholes half the time, why would I want to join them if I don't have to?”. It's a cultural objection rather than a physiological one.
> I'll point out that if you can't hear by ~11 years old, you won't be able to understand language
I don't know the specifics of this claim, so I won't talk about the argument that I assume you're trying to make. However, the argument you're actually making here is completely untrue. Almost all deaf people understand and can communicate through language. In fact, if you put a group of deaf people together for long enough, they may well spontaneously generate a language. Sign languages are real languages with almost all of the features of spoken languages (and with additional features of their own). The idea that someone can only understand "language" if they are and to hear is completely wrong.
I assume what you're trying to say is that if you can't hear by this age, you will not be able to decipher sounds into language - I have no idea if this is the case. But this is an important semantic distinction (understanding language versus understanding language from sounds alone), and the fact that you seem to have inadvertently confused them seems relevant to the issue at hand: it is very easy for us to accept spoken language as a universal standard, when in practice, spoken language is just one (more common) variant of many different forms of language.
Being on HN, I think it's fair(er?) to assume that the GP was aware that "language" can mean a standard of expression and communication that is not a spoken human language (maybe a programming language?), but also that it's fair(er?) to assume that they meant "spoken human language" too.
I'd be more interested in the source for their claim, than being pedantic about them missing "spoken" in where they clearly meant that.
The entire point of this linguistic exercise is that your opinion that you would not give up your ability to hear is no more or less valid than someone's opinion to the contrary.
Right. And I am saying, Deaf people, and other people who don't think they have a disability, are asking for us not to say that they do when they don't think they do. And the answer from some quarters seems to be, I think "objectivity" is on my side, screw your conception of your identity.
It's not that different from refusing to use someone's pronouns. I think that both are a mean way to respond to a fellow human.
Fully embracing the reality of ones own personal life experience is important. This seems to be where you want the conversation to stop. I think I can see the positivity and benefit in stopping there, choosing not to see any possible ugliness beyond.
Maybe that's the bigger question here. Should language be precise, or nice? Or, to the extremes we're seeing here, should language be formed to make certain types of subjects difficult or impossible to present themselves? Maybe freedom of thought, and the ugliness beyond, is something that should only be allowed in ones own head?
> Should language be precise, or nice? [...] Maybe freedom of thought, and the ugliness beyond, is something that should only be allowed in ones own head?
I don't think that asking people to say "died by suicide" rather than "committed suicide" is a question of precision vs niceness. Both are plenty precise, we agree they describe exactly the same IRL event.
I also don't think that asking people to say "died by suicide" rather than "committed suicide" is an affront to freedom of thought, for the same reason.
That said, sure, yes, my parents always told me to "think before you speak" and sometimes "you can think it but don't say it". We all think things that we shouldn't say, usually because saying those things will hurt someone. If you insist on saying something after being informed that it hurts someone (e.g., not using their pronouns, or referring to a painful moment in their life [e.g. the suicide of a loved one] in a way that hurts them) then, yeah, that's kind of the thing my parents tried to teach me not to do.
It's also complicated by cultural factors. The culturally deaf (often written "Deaf") have their own culture -- sign language is a complete and distinct language, there are norms and practices unique to the culture. Acquiring the ability to hear is also the ability to, in effect, leave that culture and acquire the mainstream culture. Many Deaf people do not, in fact, view themselves as disabled or impaired. Particularly those who grew up mostly around Deaf people and who have an entirely Deaf experience in life. Everyone around them seems fine, they have their own distinct culture, etc.
As a consequence, getting an implant as an adult, or allowing your deaf newborn to be implanted, touches issues of social status and identity and politics within the Deaf community.
It doesn't take long for a culturally Deaf person to do a little thought experiment. What if the hearing can one day "solve" deafness in say 98% of children at birth? The cultural Deaf community may well face extinction under those circumstances. There would be no more children learning sign language as their native language, the chain of cultural transmission from deaf parent to deaf child would be broken. It is quite literally the end of their distinct culture and way of life, which they do not view as impaired or lesser.
You can even take this argument a step further. If mainstream society starts pushing and not simply offering cochlear implants to deaf children -- such as by creating a narrative that the Deaf are lesser or impaired in some way -- then that may well constitute a form of cultural genocide, taking the children of a particular culture judged as less or inferior, mutilating them, and forcing them to be raised in a different culture.
I'm not particularly convinced by the more extreme form of the argument, but it has been made, and the argument as a whole in all its various forms, I don't think can be fully dismissed easily. There is a point there.
>Pushing cochlear implants is like genocide on deaf people.
If this is serious, I've now read the dumbest thing I may ever read in my life. People who've been traumatized by rape affirm their lives as rape survivors. Yet, we don't consider preventing rape an attempt at cultural genocide of the rape survivor culture and community. Likewise, combat veterans have their own culture and community. We don't consider preventing war as cultural genocide of veterans.
Call it culture if you'd like, it arises from being injured in some way, or not having an ability. Restoring this ability and preventing the injury is an absolutely good thing. Reframing the community of the disenfranchised as a 'culture' so you can call this benefit 'cultural genocide' is nonsense semantics. Deaf 'culture' dying is as good as people being born with functional hearing.
It is serious. I think it's an argument that has enough internal sense and structure that it can't just be called a stupid argument and tossed out.
I'm here to explore the ideas around this, not trash nor proselytize any particular idea for the sake of it. You won't get very far by starting with comparing deafness to having been raped or having your leg blown off. Rape survivors are not a distinct cultural group.
Take deafness and ability entirely out of the equation for now.
People who speak sign language as a native language are a distinct cultural group with a long and separate heritage from the hearing world. For example, American Sign Language is related to French Sign Language and the speakers of each can understand each other somewhat. While British Sign Language is totally different and American and British deaf people can't even easily speak to each other in sign, only in writing. There's a whole cultural world there, as vibrant and functional as hearing ones.
They get along fairly well. People born deaf and raised in a deaf community generally have better outcomes socially and economically compared to deaf people raised in isolation in hearing culture. Yes, they cannot hear, but they don't feel they're missing anything and, functionally speaking, they'd survive on their own just fine without hearing.
I was born quite hard of hearing, and I am going deaf as I get older. I was raised hearing. Bitterly ironically, I'm musically talented and it is one of my great pleasures. I am also linguistically talented, particularly with phonetics. (Taught myself in my teens to improve my speech and it became a fascination.) And yet I am losing the capacity to sense those things.
Trust me. I get it. I get it very well. The deaf have no idea what they're missing.
And yet Deaf culture is a precious thing that also deserves to exist.
It is an impasse and a seeming paradox and I don't have an answer. Raise every child hearing and allowing sign and the culture to die out is undesirable just as people who could hear music and speech being unable to hear them is.
Being deaf is an inherently negative aspect. You either have the ability to hear, or you do not. If you do not, it is a dis-ability. No one wants to lose an ability to do something.
Someone who lives an extensive period of time without an ability may have learned how to live without this ability. They learn to cope and affirm their life with its faults in their current state. Offering the ability they lost and have learned to live without may be declined because of the affirmation of their life as it is. It could be declined because the transition is uncomfortable as well. Either way, being deaf is still negative, they've just psychologically coped well.
If you had the choice, would you choose that your child be deaf or not? That you be deaf or not? If one isn't deaf, would they choose to become deaf or not? This entire argument results from academic nonsense that anyone outside that context can see through.
Regarding culture, culture is defined as "the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.". A social group of veterans (injured or not) absolutely can be considered equivalent as your usage. Preventing war is a cultural genocide if you consider it that way. You're saying that a culture which arises from suffering, injury, evil and so on deserves preservation by refusing to prevent the evil that causes them. Alcoholics Anonymous has a culture, Gamblers Anonymous, etc.
Yes, it is academic nonsense based on semantics. It doesn't matter if they don't feel they're missing anything - what you've never had you cannot miss. What you've had, lost and coped with you've learned not to miss. No one buys into this pedantry but academics with too much time on their hands.
EDIT: I apologize for "proselytizing" and "trashing" that view. My sister is an ASL teacher and she's made the same points you have to me, so I'm aware of the debate, and so have strong views on the matter. I have heard and considered everything you've said beforehand. I believe this sentiment comes from empathy and affirmation of deaf people as taught by those who are close with that community. Yet, I also believe this view is nonsense that someone outside that context can clearly see.
> What if the hearing can one day "solve" deafness in say 98% of children at birth? The cultural Deaf community may well face extinction under those circumstances.
By this logic, would a cure for cancer be a bad thing too, since then cancer patients would be extinct?
Unlike deafness, cancer tends to be fatal. More appropriate comparisons (though not entirely comparable) would be gender dysphoria, autism, or, if the "gay gene" hypothesis is to be believed, homosexuality.
I don't think we should reject the creation of a medical cure at all. I'm completely of the view that if an procedure exists to treat/cure a problem (however that's defined to exist) the procedure should be available to the extent the creator is interested in providing it.
However, GP expanded upon a sociological dimension to disabilities and chronic illnesses that isn't usually discussed and considered. When asking "How do they cure it", an important question to consider is "Do they/ Would they ever want a cure and under what corcumstances?"
It's quite the coincidence that deafness was the example used, because the scenario GP describes actually happened once before:
Being deaf is an inherently negative aspect. You either have the ability to hear, or you do not. If you do not, it is a dis-ability. No one wants to lose an ability to do something.
Someone who lives an extensive period of time without an ability may have learned how to live without this ability. They learn to cope and affirm their life with its faults in their current state. Offering the ability they lost and have learned to live without may be declined because of the affirmation of their life as it is. It could be declined because the transition is uncomfortable as well. Either way, being deaf is still negative, they've just psychologically coped well.
If you had the choice, would you choose that your child be deaf or not? That you be deaf or not? If one isn't deaf, would they choose to become deaf or not? This entire argument results from academic nonsense that anyone outside that context can see through.
> No one wants to lose an ability to do something.
This is true, though strictly speaking there are people obsessed with the idea that they eg. have too many limbs and suffer body dysmorphia related to that. They often amputate their own limbs in an attempt to feel right.
I have mixed feelings about the things in this list. E.g. part of my disability experience involves my mental health and, when you’re talking about me, anyway, I don’t mind the term “mentally ill”.
On the other hand, it sort of irritates me when people who are well describe others as “crazy”.
Regarding your comment on disability being “abnormal and negative”, though, I have to disagree. I would not have survived the last few years if I had characterized my impairments as being abnormal and negative.
There’s an approach out there called the “social model” of disability where impairment is regarded as a neutral (neither good nor bad) experience and the good or bad experience is how the impairment changes interaction with society. It’s worth reading at least the introduction on the Wikipedia page, so I’ll link it.
Edit: To be clear, I’m just thinking about the list of words, not any sort of policy about what one can and can’t say. That’s a whole other can of worms!
The point is that physical impairments, while real, shouldn't matter all that much. We'll all be physically impaired to a greater or lesser extent as we age. Social impairment however matters a great deal, because it's next to impossible to live a healthy and fulfilling life if you can't relate to others on a reasonably equal basis. Of course trying to enforce this on everyone else with "person-first" language is a total non-starter, but the basic insight found in the "social model" is quite valuable and in fact something that classical authors were already familiar with.
> I would not have survived the last few years if I had characterized my impairments as being abnormal and negative. [..] Happy to answer any questions if you have ‘em!
Why not? I have several traits I consider abnormal, and some I consider negative (i.e. unlike the merely abnormal ones, I wish to overcome them. And some cannot be overcome but are very normal - e.g. mortality.) - why should that characterization impair my effort or desire to survive and thrive? Or rather, why does it impair yours?
> There’s an approach out there called the “social model” of disability where impairment is regarded as a neutral (neither good nor bad) experience and the good or bad experience is how the impairment changes interaction with society.
If I may speculate, is this the answer? You want to be seen as good and desirable by society, so if any of the multiple meanings of a word used to describe you carry negative implications, that results in a reduction of your self-worth? Even when a word is merely objective description, used without moral baggage, its mere proximity to alternate meanings taints it?
As a disabled person myself. It is both abnormal and negative. I don't care about any specific wording used to describe me beyond the ability to allow clear and succinct communication.
A jerk is going to be a jerk regardless of the specific syllables used so why trip up well meaning people.
It’s interesting that so much focus is on getting people who are likely we’ll meaning but don’t keep up with the nuance. Heard someone called a bigot because they used the word Latina instead of the correct latinx. If you knew them you’d know they have family of diverse backgrounds so may not have even known the right word and likely didn’t mean “harm”
How is that any different than just saying “Latin” … I’m genuinely trying to think of how this might be pronounced, particularly with an eye towards American regional accents and yeah… it’s not great.
Latine:
- Lah-teen … rhymes white latrine
- Lat-ein-e … normal “lat”, Germanic pronunciation of “ein”, like the number one or Einstein, “e” pronounced either “ee” or “eh”
- Latin-e … latin-ee, rhymes with matinee,
- lat-tine … lah-tine as in the tines of a fork.
Or my favourite
- Latin-e … just “latin” but spelled with a silent “e”.
This is less than ideal… outside of using mispronunciation as a shibboleth, you normally want a group identifying word to be clearly identified and picked up by any possible group members regardless of if they have heard someone speak it. You want such words to be easily used by the people who identify with it, also crucially it’s self-adoption by the group that is being identified that matters… If no one you would call latine likes you calling them latine, or latinx, or Latino or Latina or Latin… you probably should just ask them what they want and call them that instead, that’s just my opinion from over in Australia where this particular identity/word fight appears to have mostly gone unnoticed against our own local issues.
Admittedly the question of how to pronounce a Spanish word in English is non-trivial and subsumes the question of how to pronounce Spanish and the question of how to pronounce English ... but apart from that no special case is required for the word "latine"!
I was born in Central America and while not a comprehensive sample, I don’t know a single person where I’m from who doesn’t think this an American imposed thing that’s trying to fix our “wrong” culture.
Negative feedback after correcting a native speaker is either evidence of the sexiest bigoted Latinx culture - or evidence of a type of cultural imperialism depending on where you stand on these issues. I just wish folks could draw clearer connections to the harm of using Latina vs latinx
It offends upper middle class, privileged white women with questionably valid university degrees in the Humanities and a value system based around the extremely questionable critical theory, rather than the extremely successful for humanity method we know as reason (or the less successful but at least proven to mostly not implode and utterly destroy society method of religious conservatism)
>used the word Latina instead of the correct latinx.
It's not the "correct" term, and almost nobody I know of takes it seriously outside of really, really narrow little social media woke bubbles. If someone is a woman and of latin american origin, they will almost universally refer to themselves as latina and not care if others do. What idiotic nonsense to assume that something else is "correct" despite it going against the grain of a vast majority's word use.
I live in Latin America and have latin american family of all kinds. This aside from many friendships of both sexes and variable gender identifications too.
In America, barely any (2%) of the Latino population identify with it, yet it gets pushed anyway. In fact, 40% are actively bothered by it. Forcing use of it is such a bizarre hill to die on.
It's a tool of social positioning, and helps an academic precariat oust incumbents in fields where there really aren't a lot of positions and whose degrees are good for little but academia or being political commissars at organizations that actually do something useful.
I am also disabled and it's a farce to pretend that it isn't abnormal and negative. We're in the era of pretending we don't know things we know and its asinine. I really hope modernity survives this era of enforced stupidity.
Just in case you don't realize it, those of us who are not disabled are quite fond of people like you who are that are able to hold this viewpoint instead of insisting on the nu-speak.
I appreciate your response. Can you elaborate on the juxtaposition of being mentally ill. and considering yourself normal? This is not clear to me in your response.
I suffer from mental illness as well (a disability), and I certainly don’t consider myself normal. I’ve overcome my issues, and I’m perfectly happy talking about my experience at/in appropriate times/places. I just acknowledge that the average person within the realm of normal can’t relate to my experience.
Coincidentally, I get the most relatable feedback doing inspirational speaking at homeless shelters; there’s nothing about my life today that would indicate they consider me normal in their sphere. I’m all for learning to use the right language when talking to folks with disabilities, and your comment here seems insightful. I’m just not making the connection you’re trying to build.
I think I’ve chosen language that doesn’t communicate well. It makes sense to me in my head, but the HN crowd doesn’t seem to follow what I mean. :-)
Fundamentals: the social model essentially places the onus of accommodating disability on society as a whole rather than the disabled individual. A simple example is the difference between asking a person who cannot walk to climb stairs vs providing a ramp. The stairs represent the typical medical model (the disabled individual must adapt to how society works) and the ramp is the social model (society should adapt to how disabled people work).
It’s not so much about being normal as it is about _feeling_ normal. Viewing the world through the lens of the social model allows me to say, “this situation could be better” rather than “I could be better”. This is important became sometime the latter is impossible — there are features of my body that cannot be improved.
I’m pragmatic about this, BTW. I don’t think we should rebuild every aspect of society to accommodate the minutia of disability. I think it should be an aspirational value that we hold and act on when we can.
Does that help? I can talk about mental health in this context as well, it’s just a lot to put into a single post. :-)
Ah yes, much better, thank you. It's a ripe area for technological improvements. In the same way the video chat is better than the alternative of asynchronous written communication (not to say I don't love a handwritten letter) tech will mostly be a boon in this area.
I’m really excited about AI as a boon for accessibility.
Example: chronic pain messes with your ability to recall. These days I have more trouble recalling facts than I used to. This makes programming hard, as much as programming is about intuition and problem solving, it also depends on memorizing a lot of facts (what was that built-in function called again…?)
I started using Copilot a few months ago and, while I almost always reject Copilot’s suggestions, it’s been amazing for remembering names of things. For me it’s been much better than an IDE (for example) because it presents the things I have trouble remembering with some context code.
I've been asthmatic because of allergies practically all my life. It's normal for me, but since childhood it was always clear to me that having allergies and being asthmatic is an impairment, it's not normal for most people to be hindered by it.
The good news is that after middle age, my immune systems seems to have mellowed, so now I actually can do normal things my condition precluded me from, like eating avocados or shrimps, for example.
Also “anonymous” does not mean the same enough to replace “blind” - anon could mean “giver of test does not know subjects” or “subjects do not know what they are testing”.
> Instead of "blind review", consider using "anonymous review". Context: Unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture.
Such recommendations reflect the authors own prejudices.
Some forms of blinding like "Blind auditions" are literal and are largely indistinguishable from how blind people normally conduct auditions. "Blindness" is a symbol of justice and fairness and non-prejudice.
Blindness is also one of the easiest disabilities to achieve, temporarily or permanently. If blindness is at least neutral state of being, nothing stops one from wandering about with a blindfold. Somebody who fails to do so while talking about how blindness isn't a negative is insincere and all talk.
You can't just go and wander about in a blindfold - it requires practise and skill as well as some affordances from the environment: tactile pavements, audible traffic lights etc.
Blindness is perhaps somewhat negative in how it makes you vulnerable to some of the society's shortcomings, but then again aren't we all to some extent?
Consider people who are blind since birth vs people who are otherwise disadvantaged say because they will encounter more racism. Both can be shortcomings compared to the mode but does it make sense to talk of them as "negative"?
Ultimately in such matters I find that truth is the supreme value. If what you’re saying about a disability isn’t true, no matter what good intentions you may have, the things you’re saying are likely just going to confuse matters further.
The biggest problem with the guide on the point of blindness is it prescribes the correct attitude to have towards blindness, but people have all sorts of feelings about blindness, for all sorts of different and valid reasons. I think you’ve lost the plot to some extent when you start insisting that ANY disability shouldn’t be portrayed in a negative light, because the reality is people have many negative experiences with disability, there are positive experiences as well, but negative feelings are a big part of disability (even if you don’t feel them presently you’re probably felt them at some point), and not just for reasons of culture.
The blindfold example is a bit facetious, but if being blind is just as good as not being blind, why do people go to such lengths to stay sighted? Glasses are an entire industry. Why don’t people just live without sight? A theory about the world which cannot answer such questions is incomplete.
I fail to see how "blind review" "perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative". I understand how disability "is abnormal and negative", and that makes sense; although in many contexts is better to be specific and use a neutral point of view. (Someone wrote "normal" (and "natural") is a bad word, and I can see, it is compared to something which is allegedly "normal" and "abnormal", though.) (However, some people if they are already blind, might not care anymore if they can see, and might be able to compensate for blindness, if they are used to being blind, opposed to someone who is temporarily blinded.)
However, it still makes more sense to use "anonymous review" instead of "blind review", because the reviewer is not necessarily unable to see the review (or the document being reviewed), although it is anonymous, so "anonymous review" makes sense, and is better descriptive.
There are many problems with this list, although some of the things mentioned are sensible, at least in some contexts (the suggested alternatives are not always appropriate).
Isn't review itself problematic though? To re view something implies it needs to be viewed, which can't be done by a blind person.
And anonymous could be seen as being disrespectful to unidentified bodies.
This is the problem, once you go down the route of banning words that could possibly be problematic, then where do you stop, because any word can be problematic.
The list suggests hooked instead of addicted, which to me still has the same connotations, so even the author can't avoid all problematic words.
> Isn't review itself problematic though? To re view something implies it needs to be viewed, which can't be done by a blind person.
In that case, it would seem that "blind review" would be a contradiction, isn't it?
> This is the problem, once you go down the route of banning words that could possibly be problematic, then where do you stop, because any word can be problematic.
Of course, you are right.
But to me, my intention isn't about being disrespectful or not, but rather, to be clear and accurate.
> But that's just more evidence that we shouldn't take parts of a phrase and start interpreting them out of context.
I agree, but I still think that it is better to use more descriptive and clear words; "anonymous review" seems more descriptive and clear to me than "blind review" does.
(I also don't like the words "metric ton" and "tonne"; I think "megagram" is more descriptive and clear, so it is better.)
You can either care about how blind people feel through your usage of language or not care.
You don't get to say they should not feel that way.
Why not take it on good faith that this work was guided by research thar asked more blind people than you have? Once you accept thar you can then decide on whether you care or not and act accordingly.
All political correctness boils down to is politeness and not upsetting other people. If you don't care how they feel, crack on with this sort of rage posting.
> All political correctness boils down to is politeness and not upsetting other people.
> If you don't care how they feel, crack on with this sort of rage posting.
Your post may be politically correct, but it is not polite. In fact you come off as quite rude compared to the person you are replying to.
> You don't get to say they should not feel that way.
If GP were to say how they should feel, clearly they would be caring how they feel. Also, why not? People discuss how one should feel in a particular situations quite often. In fact the page being discussed here seems to concern itself a great deal with what should upset people, even though most of the groups on whose behalf it appears to be judging what is offensive to them could have probably pointed these things out themselves - and I'm not sure everyone appreciates being paternalized this way (see "Latinx").
> Why not take it on good faith that this work was guided by research that asked more blind people than you have?
Since they propose to replace Hispanic with Latinx, a term that most Hispanics reject [1], such faith is unwarranted.
> You can either care about how blind people feel through your usage of language or not care.
I propose an alternative dichotomy: I can prioritize truth, or I can prioritize the asserted feelings of the loudest complainers.
And as a commenter pointed out, "blind" in "blind review" is a positive, not a negative! A blind review is objectively better and more socially desirable than a non-blind one (and, correct me if I'm wrong, but is becoming prevalent in academia, so it is also normal instead of abnormal). We have more than enough evidence to conclude this document is insincere.
I'm Mexican and I hate LatinX with a passion. Why is our ethnicity offensive unless you make it different? Why are clueless college Americans trying to make proper Spanish taboo?
Even Latino is a made up ethnicity obvious for anyone that has traveled just a bit. Includes vastly different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. In the US is politically convenient to put everyone in the same bland bag.
I'm legally blind myself and TBH I don't see how this politically correct language is useful. My daily experience tells me that having a disability is indeed abnormal and a negative so attempting to sweep that under the rug by cute word games is kind of condescending and offensive itself.
The people pushing these language initiatives are the obnoxious and worthless hall-monitor types no one likes to work or speak with. The ones who never do anything productive in the organization they find themselves in because they’re too busy trying to mount moral crusades.
We’ll see less of this as shops and institutions find the need to focus on ROI, products, innovation, and shareholders once again now that the fairytale of free money and unlimited free labor is expiring. The people who do the actual work to build and teach and innovate at the periphery of their chosen industry will devour the hall monitors.
Even if we were to accept that disabilities were not negative, a blind review is a good thing - it’s a review that’s more fair than a non-blind review. So if there’s nothing wrong with being blind, why would you want to stop people from using the term “blind” to describe a blind review? How does calling it a blind review imply that being blind is negative?
But why is 'abnormal' always treated as a negative?
This is one thing I don't get about modern woke politics. We are supposed to be accepting of each other, but need to ignore the things we are supposed to accept.
People are different, people are abnormal, why can't that be celebrated?
I don't think that abnormal is always treated as a negative - it just means out of the norm meaning the majority of the people are not included.
You can describe somebody is abnormally intelligent for example and it's a positive in this light.
But I really doubt you're gonna find a group of people that want to celebrate the idea that they are unable to see, in that context vision impairment is a negative abnormal trait.
What pannSun said. Some target groups are acceptable, others are not. The same sorts of people as come up with these will easily call black people Uncle Toms and other fun things if they happen to have the wrong politics. It's ostensibly about taking others into account and being kind, in reality just conformity to their political ideology and not much else. These sorts of word lists are just compelled speech to force obeisance.
One thing of note: there is likely no unified “they”, given that a document seems to be a mixed bag of elementary clarity-of-language items (“this is wild” vs. “this is insane”) and obsessive pedantic nonsense (about distinctions that do not exist to either the general population or most of the affected communities, eg. “committed suicide” [1]), and the forcibly mild language in the introduction.
If I could hazard a guess, this document was probably the result of an uncomfortable compromise between some folks of varying levels of assertiveness, obsessiveness, and linguistic myopia[2]. Likely not intended to be a minefield by some/most of its authors, but would be treated as one by small but frustratingly vocal segments of both its staunchest defenders and most enraged critics.
It would be really nice if both all of us could maybe just (figuratively) go out and touch some grass, instead of letting isolated personal frustrations turn into pet peeves and then into poorly-justified prescriptivism.
[1] This also reminds me of the alleged distinction between “transwoman” and “trans woman”. (German speakers and the like might find it particularly superfluous.)
[2] Speaking as a person with severe near-sightedness. (Edit: typo)
I read though the suggestions. So "trigger warning" is now problematic and the proper alternative is "content note". And "Preferred pronouns" is hate speech, because you imply that pronouns are merely a preference, as if the person can choose their identity.
Referring to literature and scientific works as "content" triggers a negative emotional response in me because I associate it with the corporatization and commoditizstion of speech.
Please use the phrase: "Words that describe subsequent words may follow this disclaimer."
(Except "follow" could have negative religious connotations.)
Using their line of thought "intersex person" will become problematic as "inter" means "between" which presumes two fundamental sexes and that "intersex" therefore isn't a fundamental sex.
The term "wild" has been used to refer to indigenous peoples for centuries; it has also been used to describe foreigners, and people with mental health issues, for even longer.
The term "surprising" has a lot of connotations too.
The funny thing is that the replacement word inevitably becomes insulting. For example, when you say to your friend that he's very "special", we all know what's up.
Could be a fun game to create social media accounts just for the purpose of problematizing terminology popular with self described progressive people until they are speaking jargon incomprehensible to anyone else.
I wonder if “trigger warning” has been labeled offensive because those doing the labeling have realized it’s become a joke, almost pejorative term in the eyes of the rest of the world. I think 80% of the time when I hear someone use the phrase these days, it’s through some layer of satire.
> I wonder if “trigger warning” has been labeled offensive because those doing the labeling have realized it’s become a joke
No, the discourse about the problematic nature of the “trigger warning” as a flag for advisories of potentially-offensive content and the way it (and some other related terminology adopted around the same time) was grounded in a misapplication of terminology and concepts surrounding PTSD in specific and trauma in general began very shortly after the term began popular and had nothing to do with the insensitive dismissal of what the term is a label for (in fact, it is largely diametrically opposed, which is why that the kind of people who dismiss the need for the concerns about content have embraced the misapplication of “trigger” that it involves for their own attacks.)
This is all part of the plan. Only those on the frontier of nu-speak are untouchable. The faster the frontier advances, the greater the concentration of power in the hands of those coming up with this language.
When people can (and have) lost their livelihoods by using the wrong language, being in charge of new language is a powerful thing indeed.
I think they are entirely over used whatever one chooses to call them, but these don't mean the same thing at all. Content note could mean anything. For people with PTSD though, for whom psychological triggering is a real thing (not just something they don't like), a "trigger warning" means something pretty specific (or at least, it did before it became overused).
These people continue to swallow themselves through the ratchet of cancellation.
They are like the Star Bellied Sneetches. Except instead of applying and removing stars from their bellies until no one knows who is in or out or good or bad, they include and exclude by ever more tortured use of language.
>So "trigger warning" is now problematic and the proper alternative is "content note". And "Preferred pronouns" is hate speech, because you imply that pronouns are merely a preference, as if the person can choose their identity.
The woke shibboleth to discriminatory slur pipeline is real.
I mean, if you ever wanted to get on the bandwagon of why we have so many college administrators responsible for raising the cost of college and creating work for themselves by stoking culture wars, just read through the list on that page.
-------
">Instead of: Philippine Islands
>Consider using: Philippines or the Republic of the Philippines
>Context: The term is politically incorrect and denotes colonialism. Some people of Filipino heritage might use the term, though."
---------
">Instead of: "preferred" pronouns
>Consider using: pronouns
>Context: The word "preferred" suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference."
---------
">Instead of: Karen
>Consider using: demanding or entitled White woman
>Context: This term is used to ridicule or demean a certain group of people based on their behaviors."
(Have we landed in backwards land? So "white" is ok to use here?)
The black and red examples are silly. I’m white so I get that I’ve not had the lived experience but we might as well make the color itself unusable.
I have no evidence but I think that this is some white person’s idea of what is offensive, infantilizing everyone involved. But I guess that in lieu of actual policy that will help people this will do….(that last line is sarcasm)
Baffled by this inclusion, never in my life have I made that association. I'm also hugely against sports teams naming themselves after Native American stereotypes, but here it's literally just a color.
>Karen
Totally agree with your points, in what world is white okay to use there when they're arguing against "blackbox". Also, Karen has a lot more connotations beyond just race, there's a class/aspirational class connotation. There's a reason it's not "Madelynn". Not saying it's okay, but it's part of a trend in this list of not understanding connotation and context, and a general lack of thought in their alternatives.
This is a good example of how those in the commanding heights can order changes to a society or economy, but fail to fathom all of the cascading ramifications of their decision.
>Consider using: Philippines or the Republic of the Philippines
>Context: The term is politically incorrect and denotes colonialism. Some people of Filipino heritage might use the term, though."
First of all, they're using "denotes" to mean "connotes", so we shouldn't expect a subtle understanding of English.
But second, what "Philippine Islands" does is center geography instead of nationhood or identity. What it connotes is that political boundaries are historically-contingent. Similarly, the "British isles" will always be there, barring geological catastrophe, regardless of whether the United Kingdom ceases to exist, say because Scotland and Wales secede.
If you want to work hard at it, you could make an argument that geography-centering language is "colonialist", because, precisely by revealing that borders are contingent, it might suggest that some more powerful actor, an Empire, might reshape them arbitrarily. However, it also undermines nationalism, and many people would consider that to be a good thing. For example, it's a key sentiment behind liberal immigration policies.
That's a good example. Ireland is part of the British Isles without being "Britain". And now Britain is part of Europe without being "Europe". (Canada has always been part of America without being "America".)
Hi. I'm nonbinary. I do, in fact, honestly and genuinely think that Newspeaking the rest of you into believing that I'm not someone with some kind of horrible mental illness or whatever it is you want to believe these days is a Good Thing. And it's fewer words. So please stop saying "preferred pronouns." I've also heard people say "PGPs," meaning "preferred gender pronouns," which is silly and makes me think you're talking about encryption. Please also stop saying "identifies as." I don't identify as a damn thing, I am who I am.
You have no chance to survive, make your time, ha ha ha ha...
I don't want certain pronouns to be used, I am demanding their usage. I have a right to do this because those pronouns address me. This is the same as any other boundary set by anyone. You can call me by the wrong pronouns if you wish, in which case I will stop talking to you.
If you think this is militant behavior, it is, but I submit that you do the same thing and don't realize it. Consider how you would behave if the shoes were on the other feet.
> I have a right to do this because those pronouns address me.
Actually they don't address you. They refer to you. A term of address is "you". Pronouns are terms of reference.
This is one of the things that people misunderstand about pronouns like him/her. If I'm talking about someone, I get to choose how to do it. I can refer to someone as a fool, as "that tall blonde girl", or as "the guy with the huge beard from the grocery store". None of these people get to police my speech about them.
Things are somewhat different if I am referring to someone and am in their presence. In that case I would just use the person's first or last name. But some people are now taking issue with talking around preferred pronouns by using a person's name. For me, that is a bridge too far.
You missed the point, which is that these pronouns are explicitly never used when speaking to you. They are not used for addressing you. They are in reference to you, so they will only occur when other people are speaking to one other.
True. I have in mind situations in which I am physically there. I should have said, "If you don't want to refer to someone properly, then don't refer to them at all."
> If I'm talking about someone, I get to choose how to do it. I can refer to someone as a fool, as "that tall blonde girl", or as "the guy with the huge beard from the grocery store". None of these people get to police my speech about them.
I was curious about the legal situation w.r.t. forcing use of preferred pronouns. Apparently the U.S. government currently cannot do that [0], but Ireland is the opposite [1].
I'm unclear what the current situation is regarding employer-enforced pronoun usage, particularly in at-will-employment states. IIUC (and that's a big "if"), it's a messy legal topic because of competing protected classes.
> I don't want certain pronouns to be used, I am demanding their usage.
Thank you for stating this plainly!
I think that, very often, debates on these topics are hamstrung by one/both sides assuming that the other is being disingenuous.
I think our best hope of making progress on these things is to have an honest, shared understanding of everyone's positions and goals. I'm so grateful that you were willing to do that.
Reading through the suggestions a lot seem out of date, ignorant of the actual experience of people, and insufficiently justifies the change. It’s true that many of these things have been accepted by peer institutions but that was long ago (some of these suggestions track to the 1950s and have little to no salience in 2022).
It’s voluntary now, but this is something meant to establish a precedent. The mindset that produced this initiative actively wants this to become the new standard.
Those that think the language needs to be changed in order to prevent harm are not going to be content with these suggestions merely being optional. Activists will push for this to become a new criterion for proper writing, probably on the same level as style guides.
So you're advocating censorship of these voluntary guidelines?
There is a reason why "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy. If Stanford ever proposed to enforce this, then that is an easy off-ramp to the slippery slope.
>”So you're advocating censorship of these voluntary guidelines?”
Censorship, no. But I’ll be upfront and say that I think the vast majority of the suggestions in this guide are unjustified, unnecessary, and serve to provide a chilling effect on how people are allowed to speak about the world. I do believe the ultimate goal is not just to police language, but to police how people think. A cursory look at the rationale behind each suggestion supports this.
Therefore, I hope likeminded people speak out about how this guide should not be followed. And that people vociferously oppose that this document be referenced in any official guidelines.
Just as there is no legal requirement to write using Chicago or AP style, they have become de facto requirements. So I worry that just having it be “voluntary” will lead to academics pushing it as a soft requirement that eventually becomes a hard one that is voluntary in name only.
This guide is voluntary and members of the Stanford community are encouraged to use whatever terminology is appropriate in a given context. However, habitual use of noninclusive language is potentially a microaggression and may be grounds for disciplinary action, depending on the findings of the Ethics Committee.
Have I misread the first couple paragraphs of the site? It looks like it's a mandatory language-change initiative at Stanford (or, at least, mandatory within the IT department) that they're publishing in case anyone else wants to use it.
As a non-native English speaker I find this kind of efforts to outlaw some words in English language and replace them with others hostile to non-native English speakers. Speaking English is already hard enough and now I should also try to avoid this kind of woke minefield and perhaps I will be somehow punished because it is hard to remember what words should be avoided and how to express your thoughts without using the "wrong" words. And replacing single words with euphemistic multi word expression can make constructing sentences difficult.
Voluntary for now. some HR department will pick up on it and institute it as mandatory. I have a bet with my spouse on if I will retire first or be fired by the language police.
>” I prefer to avoid being angry with fools, today.”
That is my inclination as well, but truth be told something feels very unsettling and insidious about this document. I can get on board with some word choice changes if they seem reasonable. However just about everything in this list seems unjustifiable and purely driven by some neo-puritanical moralism.
One day I can envision this list being codified into the grammar and spell check programs we use for word processing and email.
If people don’t speak up, this will end up becoming something that gets enforced. Not legally enforced, mind you, but first it will become mandatory in academia, then in journalism, then in the business word, and eventually new generations will speak it natively.
This is a violation and implies that all of the C++ language is the same which may be offensive to users of a specific standard such as ISO/IEC 14882:2017. Referring to C++ generically ignores any differences between specifications.
Instead, referring to a specific standard, for example, C++11 is more appropriate to members of the ISO/IEC 14882 community.
You forgot the trigger warning! There are people in the C++ culture that would be highly offended by such language. And who wants to see a grey beard cry silent tears while investigating yet another core dump?
Note: I am a member of the C++ community and therefore have the credentials necessary to make fun of my culture. If you make fun of the C++ culture without being part of it then you are clearly in violation of new speak and a woke certified person will try to cancel you.
>You forgot the trigger warning!
Bro, don't use that phrase.
"The phrase can cause stress about what's to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person."
Consider using "content note".
Jonathan Haidt's "Two incompatible sacred values in American universities"[1] seems particularly relevant here. He argues (among other things) that modern universities are undergoing a truth/social justice schism, and that attempting to advance both inevitably perverts both.
Which is an unfortunate state of affairs. But I believe he is right. Given this schism, he sees the way to proceed forward is likely by creating a separation. Similar to what we already have today with the separation of religious universities from secular universities. We likely will need to have social-justice universities. Religious universities continue with their core values of God, faith, and devotion. Social justice universities can operate under their own diversity, equity, and inclusion values. And secular universities and return to their values that we all used to think were good and noble until yesterday, which are equality, fairness, and meritocracy.
A discussion between Niall Ferguson and Lex Fridman [1] captures the first signs of this new separation. The discuss the introduction of a new university coming to Austin.
> “A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.” - Kierkegaard
> "User" consider using "client". While often associated with one who uses (software, systems, services), it can also negatively be associated with those who suffer from substance abuse issues or those who exploit others for their own gain.
Are humans no longer capable of recognizing context? How is "he mastered the material in the lecture" invoking centuries of internalized slavery and causing harm in the process?
I think this is the crux of the issue. Modern media makes an art of decontextualization, to the point where most of us experience the world as a series of disconnected narratives emerging from the ether only to dissipate just as quickly as they come. In this milieu the quixotic and paradoxical attempt to perfect language in the service of justice seems like a reasonable, plausible, and achievable goal.
It’s not. What we are witnessing is the last gasp of an unproductive class of hall monitors and moral busybodies trying to control everyone else and appear productive and enlightened while doing it.
As an elder millennial, it really doesn’t seem like a last gasp. These academic attempts are perfect for conspicuous signalling at no cost and such signals usually get repeated by my generation and zoomers. What I’m trying to say is that based on the past few years it seems these busybodies are winning.
I agree with this point. If my mortgage depended on writing this kind of content 40 hours a week, believe me, I would crank out so much harm reduction gobledygook that you would have no chance due to volume alone. And now that ChatGPT is around, I have a practically infinite supply of starter content to expand on.
There's a fundamental asymmetry at work here: the DEI bureaucrats have all of the time and incentives in the world to make more of this and ram it through the right channels. This is their paycheck. Supporting this is perceived as virtuous in many circles regardless of validity. And who is pushing back? Not anybody in a position where their opinion would matter. Instead all we get is a WSJ article and a few dozen anonymous posters on web boards. Doesn't bode well.
People are tired of openly racist organizations lecturing everyone else about how racism is such a problem — such as Harvard who has been griping for a decade… and argued they have a right to be racist to Asians in October.
As a Millennial, everyone I know is focused on the economy and over the whole “woke”.
I imagine it's mostly white woke people coming up with these lists. It's their attempt to "help", but at the same time reinforce their status.
Tangential to this topic, the New Yorker did an article on Clarance Thomas' views on race. He used to align with radical black nationalism before his views grew more conservative. It's a very interesting article.
These particular quotes stuck with me: "Thomas came to believe that, for the white liberal, offering help to black people was a way to express the combined privileges of race and class...The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy...Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people."
One mustn't use the term "busy body" because it is ableist. Some people do not have bodies, but are ghosts floating upon the ether. Also, it is too often applied to us here in the Department of Thumb Twiddling and it hurts our feelings. Instead use the term "insufferable twatwaffle".
There would be less emphasis on symbolic politics, such as this project, if we could make material progress on social inequity. It does not cost any money to change language. It would be difficult and costly to seriously reinvest in people who have been left behind.
For example, if it was politically possible guarantee schools in poor neighbourhoods were funded just as well as schools in wealthy neighbourhoods, do you people would organize around education equality, or would they organize to change language?
The problem with schools in poor neighborhoods has nothing to do with funding. You can see charter schools in the same neighborhood which get less funding radically outperform.
High performing schools usually achieve their results by kicking out the idiots and disrupters. Not only does this obviously boost averages by removing the bottom results, but everyone else is able to learn better by having disruptions removed.
Of course then some public school has to be the one to attempt to educate these people.
NYC averages for public schools:
$32,757 per pupil
The only reason there aren't more charter schools is because there is a cap on the number of them.
We should attach the funding to the pupil and their needs, and then let the parents choose the school for them to attend. This is commonly referred to funding students and not systems, or backpack funding.
There will alway be problems with education - challenges with parents, children, faculty, curriculum.
The state can provide funding and provide testing, let the parents choose the school that they want.
There's a great George Carlin bit on how changing the names to less severe sounding terms can actually be harmful. He gives the example of shell-shock being changed to PTSD which sounds more benign and doesn't capture how horrible the condition is. Also the race baiting in black box and red team is so unintentionally hilarious.
Some of these suggestions are so euphemistic I wouldn't necessarily know what someone using them is trying to say... Plenty of cases where the client isn't actually the user, plenty of cases where saying something is "surprising" doesn't give the same subtext as saying something is "insane..." and that's just scratching the surface. GF is 100% Mexican descent, first gen US citizen, w/ advanced degree and she despises Latinx as a term (can't even pronounce it in Spanish she says).
> GF is 100% Mexican descent, first gen US citizen, w/ advanced degree and she despises Latinx as a term (can't even pronounce it in Spanish she says).
I mean, the whole """Latinx""" thing is just non Latino whites replacing a Spanish word (Latino) with an English word, then telling the demographic it refers to to use this English word to refer to themselves
I have no idea how this dynamic doesn't manage to piss off more people
Spanish words ending in "o" are, by default, inclusive. For centuries, it has been a linguistic idiom (not just in Spanish) that references to mixed-sex groups of people are done in the masculine. Women understood this perfectly and were not slighted by the custom, because it would not lead to an assumption that a group of people were homogeneously male or an assumption that women were "lesser" than men or excluded from the conversation. If a group of people is uniformly female then the feminine declensions can be used, and fluent speakers will easily shift from one to the other based on group composition.
It's very much the same sort of situation that we've used words like "mankind" and "peace on Earth, good will towards men" and women have always understood that "men" included them implicitly. It's only recently that women have chosen to take linguistic offense and rise up and complicate the language in search of manufactured equity.
It does but it's the privileged upper class mainly white women pushing it. You think randoms like me have any say in that matter? At best you get treated like a dog with a lecture of internalized racism and misogyny or some other insanity for not buying into their bs.
I'll never forget how a Mexican on Twitter replied to those who use "Latinx": "Fuck off, pendejx."
Your girlfriend's attitude generally reflects those of Hispanics in the US, most of whom prefer to be referred to as "Hispanic". The rationale behind Latinx is that it covers both Latino and Latina, while also acknowledging the trans/nonbinary/genderqueer contingent. But I think the term "Hispanic" covers everybody as well...
"Latine" (with a long e) or just "Latin" works fairly well in the language if one absolutely must avoid the collective-o ending, as in "Latine intelligente." Still a tad awkward, but leagues better than "Latinx", which is such a blatant violation of Spanish phonotactics and aesthetics that it bugs me, a white AF grigo.
"Latinx" was so obviously created by an English-primary speaker.
I think that is kind of the point. The out-of-place x, by its very incongruousness, calls attention to and centers the LGBTQ constituent. You see it even with English words of Germanic origin, like spelling "folks" as "folx" or "women" as "womxn".
Nitpick: This may be true of “folx” and “Latinx”, but “womxn” (despite sometimes-similar connotations) seems to have originated as a way to highlight/signal feminism, and has only acquired queer connotations recently.
I'm aware of the form "womyn" from the 90s, but "womxn" appears to be more recent, and differentiated from "womyn" by its explicit inclusion of trans women and woman-like nonbinary people.
Edit: Wikipedia traces "womxn" back to the 1970s, but it seems unlike "womyn" it didn't get much currency in ordinary feminist usage, only finding purchase when the queer angle was added.
Here's my suggestion: if you're an English speaker just say "Latin". Don't use any gendered suffix. It's literally the same word as "Latino" but in English. You don't call Italians "Italianx" or "Italiane" right? You just say "Italian". In context, nobody is going to mix up a conversation about modern Latin people and the ancient world.
Hispanic is offensive because it focuses on the subjugation of the indigenous people by the Spanish Empire.
Latinx is much better. It (1) avoids acknowledging that Spain was once a world power, (2) intentionally introduces an unwanted misspelling of a common Spanish word that accentuates the Castilian lisp (3) intentionally misgenders the vast majority of people from those regions and (4) denies the existence of non-European South American languages and cultures.
> Hispanic is offensive because it focuses on the subjugation of the indigenous people by the Spanish Empire.
Let’s rewind 900 more years to the 5th/6th century and play madlibs: “English (demonym) is offensive because it focuses on the subjugation of the Romano-British people by the Angles.” Does this example still fit, or is it too far back in history to be offensive?
> avoids acknowledging that Spain was once a world power
As opposed to... checks notes the Holy Roman Empire?
> (2) intentionally introduces an unwanted misspelling of a common Spanish word that accentuates the Castilian lisp
That's just how the linguistics do. This is the same drivel that tries to argue chop chop and long time no see are somehow offensive, instead of just loanphrases from Chinese pidjin.
> (3) intentionally misgenders the vast majority of people from those regions
No, again this demonstrates a profound ignorance of how language actually works in practice. -o does not imply "default male" in Spanish. There's tomes on this stuff. Grammatical gender is not social gender. A mesa doesn't identify as female.
> (4) denies the existence of non-European South American languages and cultures.
Again, Latin/[aoex]?/ is better in this regard how exactly?
> The rationale behind Latinx is that it covers both Latino and Latina
The real rationale is one of imperialism: everyone should use a non gendered language. Like English, things would be so much more simple if everyone used English.
So going for latinx to erase part of a gendered language is a sneaky first attack on this language.
A basic axiom of linguistics is that language evolves to suitably convey what people wish to convey. The “harm” in harmful language lies not in the words themselves, but the intent behind them and the context of their usage.
From a sociological & political perspective, I’m most concerned here by the expansive notion of “harm” embedded in these guidelines.
Harm is a serious thing: It represents the line where my rights end at yours. If using an inappropriate but common cultural idiom harms someone as opposed to being simply rude, that has a potentially revolutionary significance.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 400 ms ] threadAbleist
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Specifically, I'm the "parse everything hyperliterally unless I consciously try not to" type, which means I do not see the problem with many of these, and just have to remember a list of words I can't use professionally.
Amusingly, most of the list of words I'd always been told I couldn't use professionally get used all the fucking time.
Also, they either don’t understand the difference between ‘imply’ and ‘infer’, or they are intentionally misusing the word ‘infer’.
But.. disability is abnormal and negative? How tortured of a definition of 'normal' must one use to make blindness normal? And I suspect if the author of that sentence were offered, say, $100,000 to undergo a painless but irreversible blinding surgery, they would very quickly admit blindness is a negative - a greater negative than missing out on $100,000. In fact I suspect most people wouldn't accept that offer even if it had many more zeros.
But still we must pretend?
> Instead of "committed suicide", consider using "died by suicide". Context: Ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.
And with this they tip their hand. The mental contortions required to conclude that "committed suicide" trivializes something, but "died by suicide" doesn't, are so extreme that I cannot believe anyone honestly holds that opinion. That leaves as the most likely conclusion that this document is not an honest effort to eliminate 'harm', but a mine-field, a list of sins and prohibitions, to be used as ammo against opponents.
And some people still consider that Orwell wrote fiction.
I think the notion is that "committed suicide" is like "committed a crime" and harkens back to the Christian notion that suicide is a crime (against God). And so it's moralizing language that blames the person for killing themselves.
You can verify that this is a common notion among people who work in the field by Googling. For example, the first hit when I search for "why shouldn't we say committed suicide" is https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-mat... which says:
> For example, the phrase "committed suicide" is frowned on because it harks back to an era when suicide was considered a sin or a crime. Think about the times when we use the word "commit": "commit adultery" or "commit murder."
> That leaves as the most likely conclusion that this document is not an honest effort to eliminate 'harm', but a mine-field, a list of sins and prohibitions, to be used as ammo against opponents.
It's interesting that you arrived at this conclusion before doing a minimal amount of research!
I hope.
Seriously, ignore political correctness for a bit. The “master” branch is generally not in charge of anything. It’s not like a master recording of which everything else is a copy. It has no special rights and isn’t even necessary more important.
It made a limited sort of sense in Linux where torvalds/linux.git’s master branch is the branch that everyone else’s development eventually follows, but my git clone of that is not any sort of master despite being called “master”.
It's so easy. Almost every word has positive and negative connotations. Find such a word in your opponent's vocabulary, claim they intended the negative connotations, and thus declare him a sinner. Reference this Stanford document to support your accusation.
"Died by suicide" implies passivity. It just happened to them.
Like "Officer involved shootings."
In the olden days, a news report would say "A suspect was fatally shot by a police officer."
Now, they'll only say "A suspect was fatally injured during an officer-involved shooting."
Which is like, yeah no kidding the officer was "involved" -- he pulled the trigger!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/balls-out
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor
I’ve got a friend who was recently homeless. Thinking of him as a “homeless person” isn’t really so helpful.
That said, I think developing a thick skin should be a curricular objective for all people.
I don't think either is any more an identity than the other.
And I'd rather people engage with the problem, rather than virtue signaling by using the 'correct' terminology, whatever that is this week.
I'm sure weve all had an issue with a company, and in their communications, theyve been polite and used the 'right' words, but in the end you know they are basically fobbing you off, and refusing to sort the problem. the issue isn't the words, the issue is the attitude.
for me the issues would come in around how they perceive me. you could say that language used is indicative of that, but I disagree, polite words are often used to be very impolite. It takes very little time to assess someones perception, so I really don't see the utility in making people use 'correct' words.
For me though, I simply see being offbeat phrasing as being stigmatizing in practice, it ends up drawing more attention to whatever was being described.
As you can verify with some Googling, there are many Deaf people who choose not to undergo surgery to gain the ability to hear. (This isn't a universal preference by any means, but it's also not fringe.)
Capital-D Deaf culture does not as a rule view their lack of hearing as a horrible wrong that needs to be corrected for them to live a “normal” life. They believe that they are living a normal life, and screw you for suggesting otherwise, and many would tell you that they do not want to speak your inferior language anyways, because it is broadly technically inferior due to its inherent one-dimensionality: you describe things with a scalar pressure varying with time only, their language describes things with motions in three dimensions of space as well as in time.
This means that in the 95% case, the dominant attitude is not “I’m afraid,” it's “those folks are assholes half the time, why would I want to join them if I don't have to?”. It's a cultural objection rather than a physiological one.
"The grapes are sour anyway." I'd bet the rate of assholes among the deaf is probably about equal to the non-deaf.
I don't know the specifics of this claim, so I won't talk about the argument that I assume you're trying to make. However, the argument you're actually making here is completely untrue. Almost all deaf people understand and can communicate through language. In fact, if you put a group of deaf people together for long enough, they may well spontaneously generate a language. Sign languages are real languages with almost all of the features of spoken languages (and with additional features of their own). The idea that someone can only understand "language" if they are and to hear is completely wrong.
I assume what you're trying to say is that if you can't hear by this age, you will not be able to decipher sounds into language - I have no idea if this is the case. But this is an important semantic distinction (understanding language versus understanding language from sounds alone), and the fact that you seem to have inadvertently confused them seems relevant to the issue at hand: it is very easy for us to accept spoken language as a universal standard, when in practice, spoken language is just one (more common) variant of many different forms of language.
I'd be more interested in the source for their claim, than being pedantic about them missing "spoken" in where they clearly meant that.
It's not that different from refusing to use someone's pronouns. I think that both are a mean way to respond to a fellow human.
Maybe that's the bigger question here. Should language be precise, or nice? Or, to the extremes we're seeing here, should language be formed to make certain types of subjects difficult or impossible to present themselves? Maybe freedom of thought, and the ugliness beyond, is something that should only be allowed in ones own head?
I don't think that asking people to say "died by suicide" rather than "committed suicide" is a question of precision vs niceness. Both are plenty precise, we agree they describe exactly the same IRL event.
I also don't think that asking people to say "died by suicide" rather than "committed suicide" is an affront to freedom of thought, for the same reason.
That said, sure, yes, my parents always told me to "think before you speak" and sometimes "you can think it but don't say it". We all think things that we shouldn't say, usually because saying those things will hurt someone. If you insist on saying something after being informed that it hurts someone (e.g., not using their pronouns, or referring to a painful moment in their life [e.g. the suicide of a loved one] in a way that hurts them) then, yeah, that's kind of the thing my parents tried to teach me not to do.
As a consequence, getting an implant as an adult, or allowing your deaf newborn to be implanted, touches issues of social status and identity and politics within the Deaf community.
It doesn't take long for a culturally Deaf person to do a little thought experiment. What if the hearing can one day "solve" deafness in say 98% of children at birth? The cultural Deaf community may well face extinction under those circumstances. There would be no more children learning sign language as their native language, the chain of cultural transmission from deaf parent to deaf child would be broken. It is quite literally the end of their distinct culture and way of life, which they do not view as impaired or lesser.
You can even take this argument a step further. If mainstream society starts pushing and not simply offering cochlear implants to deaf children -- such as by creating a narrative that the Deaf are lesser or impaired in some way -- then that may well constitute a form of cultural genocide, taking the children of a particular culture judged as less or inferior, mutilating them, and forcing them to be raised in a different culture.
I'm not particularly convinced by the more extreme form of the argument, but it has been made, and the argument as a whole in all its various forms, I don't think can be fully dismissed easily. There is a point there.
If this is serious, I've now read the dumbest thing I may ever read in my life. People who've been traumatized by rape affirm their lives as rape survivors. Yet, we don't consider preventing rape an attempt at cultural genocide of the rape survivor culture and community. Likewise, combat veterans have their own culture and community. We don't consider preventing war as cultural genocide of veterans.
Call it culture if you'd like, it arises from being injured in some way, or not having an ability. Restoring this ability and preventing the injury is an absolutely good thing. Reframing the community of the disenfranchised as a 'culture' so you can call this benefit 'cultural genocide' is nonsense semantics. Deaf 'culture' dying is as good as people being born with functional hearing.
Article from 2017: https://bioedge.org/enhancement/will-curing-the-deaf-lead-to...
I'm here to explore the ideas around this, not trash nor proselytize any particular idea for the sake of it. You won't get very far by starting with comparing deafness to having been raped or having your leg blown off. Rape survivors are not a distinct cultural group.
Take deafness and ability entirely out of the equation for now.
People who speak sign language as a native language are a distinct cultural group with a long and separate heritage from the hearing world. For example, American Sign Language is related to French Sign Language and the speakers of each can understand each other somewhat. While British Sign Language is totally different and American and British deaf people can't even easily speak to each other in sign, only in writing. There's a whole cultural world there, as vibrant and functional as hearing ones.
They get along fairly well. People born deaf and raised in a deaf community generally have better outcomes socially and economically compared to deaf people raised in isolation in hearing culture. Yes, they cannot hear, but they don't feel they're missing anything and, functionally speaking, they'd survive on their own just fine without hearing.
I was born quite hard of hearing, and I am going deaf as I get older. I was raised hearing. Bitterly ironically, I'm musically talented and it is one of my great pleasures. I am also linguistically talented, particularly with phonetics. (Taught myself in my teens to improve my speech and it became a fascination.) And yet I am losing the capacity to sense those things.
Trust me. I get it. I get it very well. The deaf have no idea what they're missing.
And yet Deaf culture is a precious thing that also deserves to exist.
It is an impasse and a seeming paradox and I don't have an answer. Raise every child hearing and allowing sign and the culture to die out is undesirable just as people who could hear music and speech being unable to hear them is.
Being deaf is an inherently negative aspect. You either have the ability to hear, or you do not. If you do not, it is a dis-ability. No one wants to lose an ability to do something.
Someone who lives an extensive period of time without an ability may have learned how to live without this ability. They learn to cope and affirm their life with its faults in their current state. Offering the ability they lost and have learned to live without may be declined because of the affirmation of their life as it is. It could be declined because the transition is uncomfortable as well. Either way, being deaf is still negative, they've just psychologically coped well.
If you had the choice, would you choose that your child be deaf or not? That you be deaf or not? If one isn't deaf, would they choose to become deaf or not? This entire argument results from academic nonsense that anyone outside that context can see through.
Regarding culture, culture is defined as "the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.". A social group of veterans (injured or not) absolutely can be considered equivalent as your usage. Preventing war is a cultural genocide if you consider it that way. You're saying that a culture which arises from suffering, injury, evil and so on deserves preservation by refusing to prevent the evil that causes them. Alcoholics Anonymous has a culture, Gamblers Anonymous, etc.
Yes, it is academic nonsense based on semantics. It doesn't matter if they don't feel they're missing anything - what you've never had you cannot miss. What you've had, lost and coped with you've learned not to miss. No one buys into this pedantry but academics with too much time on their hands.
EDIT: I apologize for "proselytizing" and "trashing" that view. My sister is an ASL teacher and she's made the same points you have to me, so I'm aware of the debate, and so have strong views on the matter. I have heard and considered everything you've said beforehand. I believe this sentiment comes from empathy and affirmation of deaf people as taught by those who are close with that community. Yet, I also believe this view is nonsense that someone outside that context can clearly see.
By this logic, would a cure for cancer be a bad thing too, since then cancer patients would be extinct?
However, GP expanded upon a sociological dimension to disabilities and chronic illnesses that isn't usually discussed and considered. When asking "How do they cure it", an important question to consider is "Do they/ Would they ever want a cure and under what corcumstances?"
It's quite the coincidence that deafness was the example used, because the scenario GP describes actually happened once before:
https://www.icphs2019.org/the-marthas-vineyard-deaf-communit...
Someone who lives an extensive period of time without an ability may have learned how to live without this ability. They learn to cope and affirm their life with its faults in their current state. Offering the ability they lost and have learned to live without may be declined because of the affirmation of their life as it is. It could be declined because the transition is uncomfortable as well. Either way, being deaf is still negative, they've just psychologically coped well.
If you had the choice, would you choose that your child be deaf or not? That you be deaf or not? If one isn't deaf, would they choose to become deaf or not? This entire argument results from academic nonsense that anyone outside that context can see through.
This is true, though strictly speaking there are people obsessed with the idea that they eg. have too many limbs and suffer body dysmorphia related to that. They often amputate their own limbs in an attempt to feel right.
I have mixed feelings about the things in this list. E.g. part of my disability experience involves my mental health and, when you’re talking about me, anyway, I don’t mind the term “mentally ill”.
On the other hand, it sort of irritates me when people who are well describe others as “crazy”.
Regarding your comment on disability being “abnormal and negative”, though, I have to disagree. I would not have survived the last few years if I had characterized my impairments as being abnormal and negative.
There’s an approach out there called the “social model” of disability where impairment is regarded as a neutral (neither good nor bad) experience and the good or bad experience is how the impairment changes interaction with society. It’s worth reading at least the introduction on the Wikipedia page, so I’ll link it.
Happy to answer any questions if you have ‘em!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability
Edit: To be clear, I’m just thinking about the list of words, not any sort of policy about what one can and can’t say. That’s a whole other can of worms!
That’s why you call them impairments. (From Late Latin peiorare "make worse”.)
Why not? I have several traits I consider abnormal, and some I consider negative (i.e. unlike the merely abnormal ones, I wish to overcome them. And some cannot be overcome but are very normal - e.g. mortality.) - why should that characterization impair my effort or desire to survive and thrive? Or rather, why does it impair yours?
> There’s an approach out there called the “social model” of disability where impairment is regarded as a neutral (neither good nor bad) experience and the good or bad experience is how the impairment changes interaction with society.
If I may speculate, is this the answer? You want to be seen as good and desirable by society, so if any of the multiple meanings of a word used to describe you carry negative implications, that results in a reduction of your self-worth? Even when a word is merely objective description, used without moral baggage, its mere proximity to alternate meanings taints it?
A jerk is going to be a jerk regardless of the specific syllables used so why trip up well meaning people.
It was my impression the word latinx was generally mocked by people it's supposed to represent.
Latine:
- Lah-teen … rhymes white latrine
- Lat-ein-e … normal “lat”, Germanic pronunciation of “ein”, like the number one or Einstein, “e” pronounced either “ee” or “eh”
- Latin-e … latin-ee, rhymes with matinee,
- lat-tine … lah-tine as in the tines of a fork.
Or my favourite
- Latin-e … just “latin” but spelled with a silent “e”.
This is less than ideal… outside of using mispronunciation as a shibboleth, you normally want a group identifying word to be clearly identified and picked up by any possible group members regardless of if they have heard someone speak it. You want such words to be easily used by the people who identify with it, also crucially it’s self-adoption by the group that is being identified that matters… If no one you would call latine likes you calling them latine, or latinx, or Latino or Latina or Latin… you probably should just ask them what they want and call them that instead, that’s just my opinion from over in Australia where this particular identity/word fight appears to have mostly gone unnoticed against our own local issues.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/latine#Pronunciation_3
Admittedly the question of how to pronounce a Spanish word in English is non-trivial and subsumes the question of how to pronounce Spanish and the question of how to pronounce English ... but apart from that no special case is required for the word "latine"!
It's not the "correct" term, and almost nobody I know of takes it seriously outside of really, really narrow little social media woke bubbles. If someone is a woman and of latin american origin, they will almost universally refer to themselves as latina and not care if others do. What idiotic nonsense to assume that something else is "correct" despite it going against the grain of a vast majority's word use.
I live in Latin America and have latin american family of all kinds. This aside from many friendships of both sexes and variable gender identifications too.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017d-81be-dee4-a5ff-efbe7...
I suffer from mental illness as well (a disability), and I certainly don’t consider myself normal. I’ve overcome my issues, and I’m perfectly happy talking about my experience at/in appropriate times/places. I just acknowledge that the average person within the realm of normal can’t relate to my experience.
Coincidentally, I get the most relatable feedback doing inspirational speaking at homeless shelters; there’s nothing about my life today that would indicate they consider me normal in their sphere. I’m all for learning to use the right language when talking to folks with disabilities, and your comment here seems insightful. I’m just not making the connection you’re trying to build.
Fundamentals: the social model essentially places the onus of accommodating disability on society as a whole rather than the disabled individual. A simple example is the difference between asking a person who cannot walk to climb stairs vs providing a ramp. The stairs represent the typical medical model (the disabled individual must adapt to how society works) and the ramp is the social model (society should adapt to how disabled people work).
It’s not so much about being normal as it is about _feeling_ normal. Viewing the world through the lens of the social model allows me to say, “this situation could be better” rather than “I could be better”. This is important became sometime the latter is impossible — there are features of my body that cannot be improved.
I’m pragmatic about this, BTW. I don’t think we should rebuild every aspect of society to accommodate the minutia of disability. I think it should be an aspirational value that we hold and act on when we can.
Does that help? I can talk about mental health in this context as well, it’s just a lot to put into a single post. :-)
Example: chronic pain messes with your ability to recall. These days I have more trouble recalling facts than I used to. This makes programming hard, as much as programming is about intuition and problem solving, it also depends on memorizing a lot of facts (what was that built-in function called again…?)
I started using Copilot a few months ago and, while I almost always reject Copilot’s suggestions, it’s been amazing for remembering names of things. For me it’s been much better than an IDE (for example) because it presents the things I have trouble remembering with some context code.
The good news is that after middle age, my immune systems seems to have mellowed, so now I actually can do normal things my condition precluded me from, like eating avocados or shrimps, for example.
Such recommendations reflect the authors own prejudices.
Some forms of blinding like "Blind auditions" are literal and are largely indistinguishable from how blind people normally conduct auditions. "Blindness" is a symbol of justice and fairness and non-prejudice.
Blindness is also one of the easiest disabilities to achieve, temporarily or permanently. If blindness is at least neutral state of being, nothing stops one from wandering about with a blindfold. Somebody who fails to do so while talking about how blindness isn't a negative is insincere and all talk.
Blindness is perhaps somewhat negative in how it makes you vulnerable to some of the society's shortcomings, but then again aren't we all to some extent?
Consider people who are blind since birth vs people who are otherwise disadvantaged say because they will encounter more racism. Both can be shortcomings compared to the mode but does it make sense to talk of them as "negative"?
The biggest problem with the guide on the point of blindness is it prescribes the correct attitude to have towards blindness, but people have all sorts of feelings about blindness, for all sorts of different and valid reasons. I think you’ve lost the plot to some extent when you start insisting that ANY disability shouldn’t be portrayed in a negative light, because the reality is people have many negative experiences with disability, there are positive experiences as well, but negative feelings are a big part of disability (even if you don’t feel them presently you’re probably felt them at some point), and not just for reasons of culture.
The blindfold example is a bit facetious, but if being blind is just as good as not being blind, why do people go to such lengths to stay sighted? Glasses are an entire industry. Why don’t people just live without sight? A theory about the world which cannot answer such questions is incomplete.
However, it still makes more sense to use "anonymous review" instead of "blind review", because the reviewer is not necessarily unable to see the review (or the document being reviewed), although it is anonymous, so "anonymous review" makes sense, and is better descriptive.
There are many problems with this list, although some of the things mentioned are sensible, at least in some contexts (the suggested alternatives are not always appropriate).
And anonymous could be seen as being disrespectful to unidentified bodies.
This is the problem, once you go down the route of banning words that could possibly be problematic, then where do you stop, because any word can be problematic.
The list suggests hooked instead of addicted, which to me still has the same connotations, so even the author can't avoid all problematic words.
In that case, it would seem that "blind review" would be a contradiction, isn't it?
> This is the problem, once you go down the route of banning words that could possibly be problematic, then where do you stop, because any word can be problematic.
Of course, you are right.
But to me, my intention isn't about being disrespectful or not, but rather, to be clear and accurate.
Yes I suppose it is. But that's just more evidence that we shouldn't take parts of a phrase and start interpreting them out of context.
I agree, but I still think that it is better to use more descriptive and clear words; "anonymous review" seems more descriptive and clear to me than "blind review" does.
(I also don't like the words "metric ton" and "tonne"; I think "megagram" is more descriptive and clear, so it is better.)
You don't get to say they should not feel that way.
Why not take it on good faith that this work was guided by research thar asked more blind people than you have? Once you accept thar you can then decide on whether you care or not and act accordingly.
All political correctness boils down to is politeness and not upsetting other people. If you don't care how they feel, crack on with this sort of rage posting.
> If you don't care how they feel, crack on with this sort of rage posting.
Your post may be politically correct, but it is not polite. In fact you come off as quite rude compared to the person you are replying to.
> You don't get to say they should not feel that way.
If GP were to say how they should feel, clearly they would be caring how they feel. Also, why not? People discuss how one should feel in a particular situations quite often. In fact the page being discussed here seems to concern itself a great deal with what should upset people, even though most of the groups on whose behalf it appears to be judging what is offensive to them could have probably pointed these things out themselves - and I'm not sure everyone appreciates being paternalized this way (see "Latinx").
Since they propose to replace Hispanic with Latinx, a term that most Hispanics reject [1], such faith is unwarranted.
> You can either care about how blind people feel through your usage of language or not care.
I propose an alternative dichotomy: I can prioritize truth, or I can prioritize the asserted feelings of the loudest complainers.
And as a commenter pointed out, "blind" in "blind review" is a positive, not a negative! A blind review is objectively better and more socially desirable than a non-blind one (and, correct me if I'm wrong, but is becoming prevalent in academia, so it is also normal instead of abnormal). We have more than enough evidence to conclude this document is insincere.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in...
edit: typo
We’ll see less of this as shops and institutions find the need to focus on ROI, products, innovation, and shareholders once again now that the fairytale of free money and unlimited free labor is expiring. The people who do the actual work to build and teach and innovate at the periphery of their chosen industry will devour the hall monitors.
Even if we were to accept that disabilities were not negative, a blind review is a good thing - it’s a review that’s more fair than a non-blind review. So if there’s nothing wrong with being blind, why would you want to stop people from using the term “blind” to describe a blind review? How does calling it a blind review imply that being blind is negative?
This is one thing I don't get about modern woke politics. We are supposed to be accepting of each other, but need to ignore the things we are supposed to accept.
People are different, people are abnormal, why can't that be celebrated?
You can describe somebody is abnormally intelligent for example and it's a positive in this light.
But I really doubt you're gonna find a group of people that want to celebrate the idea that they are unable to see, in that context vision impairment is a negative abnormal trait.
If I could hazard a guess, this document was probably the result of an uncomfortable compromise between some folks of varying levels of assertiveness, obsessiveness, and linguistic myopia[2]. Likely not intended to be a minefield by some/most of its authors, but would be treated as one by small but frustratingly vocal segments of both its staunchest defenders and most enraged critics.
It would be really nice if both all of us could maybe just (figuratively) go out and touch some grass, instead of letting isolated personal frustrations turn into pet peeves and then into poorly-justified prescriptivism.
[1] This also reminds me of the alleged distinction between “transwoman” and “trans woman”. (German speakers and the like might find it particularly superfluous.)
[2] Speaking as a person with severe near-sightedness. (Edit: typo)
Godspeed.
> Instead of: trigger warning
> Consider using: content note
> Context: The phrase can cause stress about what's to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person.
So the examples are not sarcasm, they are literal.
Please use the phrase: "Words that describe subsequent words may follow this disclaimer."
(Except "follow" could have negative religious connotations.)
The term "surprising" has a lot of connotations too.
Safer to just not speak
Or maybe it already happened.
Also there is a high turnover of PC words - every few years the “correct” word changes to something else, because reasons.
No, the discourse about the problematic nature of the “trigger warning” as a flag for advisories of potentially-offensive content and the way it (and some other related terminology adopted around the same time) was grounded in a misapplication of terminology and concepts surrounding PTSD in specific and trauma in general began very shortly after the term began popular and had nothing to do with the insensitive dismissal of what the term is a label for (in fact, it is largely diametrically opposed, which is why that the kind of people who dismiss the need for the concerns about content have embraced the misapplication of “trigger” that it involves for their own attacks.)
When people can (and have) lost their livelihoods by using the wrong language, being in charge of new language is a powerful thing indeed.
They are like the Star Bellied Sneetches. Except instead of applying and removing stars from their bellies until no one knows who is in or out or good or bad, they include and exclude by ever more tortured use of language.
But their position has been that gender is socially constructed and thus malleable, so it follows that pronouns would be too.
The woke shibboleth to discriminatory slur pipeline is real.
-------
">Instead of: Philippine Islands
>Consider using: Philippines or the Republic of the Philippines
>Context: The term is politically incorrect and denotes colonialism. Some people of Filipino heritage might use the term, though."
---------
">Instead of: "preferred" pronouns
>Consider using: pronouns
>Context: The word "preferred" suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference."
---------
">Instead of: Karen
>Consider using: demanding or entitled White woman
>Context: This term is used to ridicule or demean a certain group of people based on their behaviors."
(Have we landed in backwards land? So "white" is ok to use here?)
---------
">Instead of: blackbox
>Consider using: hidden, mystery box, opaque box, flight recorder
>Context: Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term."
---------
">Instead of: red team
>Consider using: cyber offense team
>Context: "Red" is often used disparagingly to refer to Indigenous peoples, so its use in this context could be offensive to some groups."
---------
">Instead of: war room
>Consider using: situation room
>Context: Unneccesary use of violent language."
----------
Baffled by this inclusion, never in my life have I made that association. I'm also hugely against sports teams naming themselves after Native American stereotypes, but here it's literally just a color.
>Karen
Totally agree with your points, in what world is white okay to use there when they're arguing against "blackbox". Also, Karen has a lot more connotations beyond just race, there's a class/aspirational class connotation. There's a reason it's not "Madelynn". Not saying it's okay, but it's part of a trend in this list of not understanding connotation and context, and a general lack of thought in their alternatives.
We should say: Bob used to think of neural networks as flight recorders, but now he's working on figuring out how they actually work.
That obviously has the exact same meaning /s
>Consider using: Philippines or the Republic of the Philippines
>Context: The term is politically incorrect and denotes colonialism. Some people of Filipino heritage might use the term, though."
First of all, they're using "denotes" to mean "connotes", so we shouldn't expect a subtle understanding of English.
But second, what "Philippine Islands" does is center geography instead of nationhood or identity. What it connotes is that political boundaries are historically-contingent. Similarly, the "British isles" will always be there, barring geological catastrophe, regardless of whether the United Kingdom ceases to exist, say because Scotland and Wales secede.
If you want to work hard at it, you could make an argument that geography-centering language is "colonialist", because, precisely by revealing that borders are contingent, it might suggest that some more powerful actor, an Empire, might reshape them arbitrarily. However, it also undermines nationalism, and many people would consider that to be a good thing. For example, it's a key sentiment behind liberal immigration policies.
It's insane that this is one of the most explicitly racist examples and it's in the "Consider using" column...
You have no chance to survive, make your time, ha ha ha ha...
I appreciate that you want certain pronouns to be used. But why does your preference trump mine? I.e., why must I submit to you?
Edit: I realized my comment's tone seems a bit harsh. Just to clarify, my intention is to debate your proposal, not bash on you as a person.
If you think this is militant behavior, it is, but I submit that you do the same thing and don't realize it. Consider how you would behave if the shoes were on the other feet.
Actually they don't address you. They refer to you. A term of address is "you". Pronouns are terms of reference.
This is one of the things that people misunderstand about pronouns like him/her. If I'm talking about someone, I get to choose how to do it. I can refer to someone as a fool, as "that tall blonde girl", or as "the guy with the huge beard from the grocery store". None of these people get to police my speech about them.
Things are somewhat different if I am referring to someone and am in their presence. In that case I would just use the person's first or last name. But some people are now taking issue with talking around preferred pronouns by using a person's name. For me, that is a bridge too far.
I was curious about the legal situation w.r.t. forcing use of preferred pronouns. Apparently the U.S. government currently cannot do that [0], but Ireland is the opposite [1].
I'm unclear what the current situation is regarding employer-enforced pronoun usage, particularly in at-will-employment states. IIUC (and that's a big "if"), it's a messy legal topic because of competing protected classes.
[0] https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/the-6th-circuit-r...
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-ireland-teacher/fa...
Thank you for stating this plainly!
I think that, very often, debates on these topics are hamstrung by one/both sides assuming that the other is being disingenuous.
I think our best hope of making progress on these things is to have an honest, shared understanding of everyone's positions and goals. I'm so grateful that you were willing to do that.
Those that think the language needs to be changed in order to prevent harm are not going to be content with these suggestions merely being optional. Activists will push for this to become a new criterion for proper writing, probably on the same level as style guides.
There is a reason why "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy. If Stanford ever proposed to enforce this, then that is an easy off-ramp to the slippery slope.
Censorship, no. But I’ll be upfront and say that I think the vast majority of the suggestions in this guide are unjustified, unnecessary, and serve to provide a chilling effect on how people are allowed to speak about the world. I do believe the ultimate goal is not just to police language, but to police how people think. A cursory look at the rationale behind each suggestion supports this.
Therefore, I hope likeminded people speak out about how this guide should not be followed. And that people vociferously oppose that this document be referenced in any official guidelines.
Just as there is no legal requirement to write using Chicago or AP style, they have become de facto requirements. So I worry that just having it be “voluntary” will lead to academics pushing it as a soft requirement that eventually becomes a hard one that is voluntary in name only.
By the way, I find the word "Elimination" very violent. It should have a non-harmful alternative.
"Content Warning: This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own pace."
It's not going well so far.
That is my inclination as well, but truth be told something feels very unsettling and insidious about this document. I can get on board with some word choice changes if they seem reasonable. However just about everything in this list seems unjustifiable and purely driven by some neo-puritanical moralism.
One day I can envision this list being codified into the grammar and spell check programs we use for word processing and email.
If people don’t speak up, this will end up becoming something that gets enforced. Not legally enforced, mind you, but first it will become mandatory in academia, then in journalism, then in the business word, and eventually new generations will speak it natively.
The problem is: it never ends. There will be new words and phrases next year, and the year after.
This is a violation and implies that all of the C++ language is the same which may be offensive to users of a specific standard such as ISO/IEC 14882:2017. Referring to C++ generically ignores any differences between specifications.
Instead, referring to a specific standard, for example, C++11 is more appropriate to members of the ISO/IEC 14882 community.
Note: I am a member of the C++ community and therefore have the credentials necessary to make fun of my culture. If you make fun of the C++ culture without being part of it then you are clearly in violation of new speak and a woke certified person will try to cancel you.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8
A discussion between Niall Ferguson and Lex Fridman [1] captures the first signs of this new separation. The discuss the introduction of a new university coming to Austin.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glz9lKobyZY
>client state. A state that is economically, politically and/or militarily dependent on another, more powerful state
I think "client" falls under their colonialism category and should be avoided as well. "Customer" then?
No. Albeit obsolete, that used to be slang for "lewd woman" or... consults table "person who engages in sex work".
How about "human"?
There's a fundamental asymmetry at work here: the DEI bureaucrats have all of the time and incentives in the world to make more of this and ram it through the right channels. This is their paycheck. Supporting this is perceived as virtuous in many circles regardless of validity. And who is pushing back? Not anybody in a position where their opinion would matter. Instead all we get is a WSJ article and a few dozen anonymous posters on web boards. Doesn't bode well.
Lots of analogies here with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
People are tired of openly racist organizations lecturing everyone else about how racism is such a problem — such as Harvard who has been griping for a decade… and argued they have a right to be racist to Asians in October.
As a Millennial, everyone I know is focused on the economy and over the whole “woke”.
Tangential to this topic, the New Yorker did an article on Clarance Thomas' views on race. He used to align with radical black nationalism before his views grew more conservative. It's a very interesting article.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-rad...
These particular quotes stuck with me: "Thomas came to believe that, for the white liberal, offering help to black people was a way to express the combined privileges of race and class...The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy...Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people."
For example, if it was politically possible guarantee schools in poor neighbourhoods were funded just as well as schools in wealthy neighbourhoods, do you people would organize around education equality, or would they organize to change language?
Also the website doesn't work in Firefox.
Per student, or total? Legitimately asking, because this is surprising to me.
Of course then some public school has to be the one to attempt to educate these people.
$17,626 Per pupil funding (2022-23 School Year)
NYC averages for public schools: $32,757 per pupil
The only reason there aren't more charter schools is because there is a cap on the number of them.
We should attach the funding to the pupil and their needs, and then let the parents choose the school for them to attend. This is commonly referred to funding students and not systems, or backpack funding.
There will alway be problems with education - challenges with parents, children, faculty, curriculum.
The state can provide funding and provide testing, let the parents choose the school that they want.
I mean, the whole """Latinx""" thing is just non Latino whites replacing a Spanish word (Latino) with an English word, then telling the demographic it refers to to use this English word to refer to themselves
I have no idea how this dynamic doesn't manage to piss off more people
It's very much the same sort of situation that we've used words like "mankind" and "peace on Earth, good will towards men" and women have always understood that "men" included them implicitly. It's only recently that women have chosen to take linguistic offense and rise up and complicate the language in search of manufactured equity.
Your girlfriend's attitude generally reflects those of Hispanics in the US, most of whom prefer to be referred to as "Hispanic". The rationale behind Latinx is that it covers both Latino and Latina, while also acknowledging the trans/nonbinary/genderqueer contingent. But I think the term "Hispanic" covers everybody as well...
"Latinx" was so obviously created by an English-primary speaker.
Edit: Wikipedia traces "womxn" back to the 1970s, but it seems unlike "womyn" it didn't get much currency in ordinary feminist usage, only finding purchase when the queer angle was added.
Latinx is much better. It (1) avoids acknowledging that Spain was once a world power, (2) intentionally introduces an unwanted misspelling of a common Spanish word that accentuates the Castilian lisp (3) intentionally misgenders the vast majority of people from those regions and (4) denies the existence of non-European South American languages and cultures.
Let’s rewind 900 more years to the 5th/6th century and play madlibs: “English (demonym) is offensive because it focuses on the subjugation of the Romano-British people by the Angles.” Does this example still fit, or is it too far back in history to be offensive?
So as soon as you have to discuss what they speak, you're bringing in Spain.
As opposed to... checks notes the Holy Roman Empire?
> (2) intentionally introduces an unwanted misspelling of a common Spanish word that accentuates the Castilian lisp
That's just how the linguistics do. This is the same drivel that tries to argue chop chop and long time no see are somehow offensive, instead of just loanphrases from Chinese pidjin.
> (3) intentionally misgenders the vast majority of people from those regions
No, again this demonstrates a profound ignorance of how language actually works in practice. -o does not imply "default male" in Spanish. There's tomes on this stuff. Grammatical gender is not social gender. A mesa doesn't identify as female.
> (4) denies the existence of non-European South American languages and cultures.
Again, Latin/[aoex]?/ is better in this regard how exactly?
The real rationale is one of imperialism: everyone should use a non gendered language. Like English, things would be so much more simple if everyone used English.
So going for latinx to erase part of a gendered language is a sneaky first attack on this language.
A basic axiom of linguistics is that language evolves to suitably convey what people wish to convey. The “harm” in harmful language lies not in the words themselves, but the intent behind them and the context of their usage.
Harm is a serious thing: It represents the line where my rights end at yours. If using an inappropriate but common cultural idiom harms someone as opposed to being simply rude, that has a potentially revolutionary significance.
That's the only definition of harm you think is valid?