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Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

itcommunity.stanford.edu

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Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#261

Post by henrikschroder »

poisonarena wrote: post #256

I believe it is wrong to make people feel bad about themselves with insensitive or culturally offensive language but with every article I see like this I become less and less interested in thinking about what I say. Also why do all articles like this have the same art style? How do people get paid to make these kind of articles and how much do they get paid?

The art style is called "corporate memphis", and it's usually an excellent predictor of empty platitudes and useless bullshit whenever you encounter it.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#263

Post by lostNFound »

lost953 wrote: post #253

committed suicide -> died by suicide: even in death we are removing their agency.

Agreed, I actually found this one the most interesting of the list. What is the reasoning for this one? What is avoided by this change?

I was surprised by the fact I actually agreed with much more of the list than I thought I would. Maybe a bit over half.

The worst of the list (as in, the one I agree the most and which irks me the most) is OCD.

Probably because I have slight OCD but it’s still the extremely specific medical term why use it for when you like pink post-its?

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#264

Post by [deleted] »

testfoobar wrote: post #258

They apparently spider and scan their own websites for "harmful" language: I just find this wild. How and when did language itself become so dangerous to this degree? Along with most adults in my social circle, I care and think about my health, my family, my friends, my work, my dog, my environment, my community, etc. I could not give a flying fuck about language policing. Language isn't going to protect me on my bik…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#266

Post by mcphage »

henrikschroder wrote: post #259

The corporate memphis art and the content warning is just the cherry on top of this steaming pile of crap. Projects like this are doomed, because they fundamentally ignore how language works, how language evolves, and how humans work. My favourite example is "idiot". Once upon a time it was a clinical diagnosis used by physicians to describe people. This word of course turned into a slur, so the diagnosis word had to…

> But apparently someone with a stick up their ass dug up the etymology of it and decided to include it in the list.

Don’t you realize what “a stick up their ass” originally meant?!

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#267

Post by Manuel_D »

henrikschroder wrote: post #259

The corporate memphis art and the content warning is just the cherry on top of this steaming pile of crap. Projects like this are doomed, because they fundamentally ignore how language works, how language evolves, and how humans work. My favourite example is "idiot". Once upon a time it was a clinical diagnosis used by physicians to describe people. This word of course turned into a slur, so the diagnosis word had to…

This is a never-ending euphemism treadmill [1]. Now I've noticed younger people calling each other "remedial" as an insult. Any term or phrase used to indicate a form of mental handicap is going to become the new insult, thus prompting the creation of a new euphemism.

1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#268

Post by mindslight »

jujibaiuosdfg wrote: post #254
ghostpepper wrote: post #239

Some of these are very strange to me - is really preferable (or even appropriate) to say that someone is devoted to heroin instead of addicted?

It's badly written. They are saying that you shouldn't use the term "addicted" for anything except actual addiction. They object to, for instance, saying you are addicted to a TV show.

Facebook likes this.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#270

Post by mindslight »

nfw2 wrote: post #77

The inclusion of "Hispanic => Latinx" is staggering because: - The vast majority of Hispanic people don't like "Latinx" - "Latinx" was invented to avoid gendered words like "Latino", and "Hispanic" isn't gendered - It's listed under "imprecise language", but "Latinx" isn't any more precise. It's so ironic that "colonialism" has now come to mean anything progressive academics don't like, but telling a minority group w…

Any time I see a word abused with an -x suffix, I file it in the same mental bucket as the people who stylized their IRC nicks like xXDeSTRoYeRXx.
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