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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

#931

Post by pedrosorio »

nathias wrote: post #473
yunwal wrote: post #371

Probably what you should take away from this is not “wokism gone crazy” (err, sorry “wild”). The more important lesson here is that the bloat in academic institutions has gotten so outrageous that people start bullshit time-consuming initiatives to justify their positions and the positions of their reports. Absolutely no one will take this seriously including the person who wrote it but they will be able to put it on…

academia is the source of wokism, then it gets populated for political terf wars and selling adds optimization

> political terf wars

Misspelling turf wars as "terf" while writing about wokism is just too funny a coincidence to not mention.

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

#932

Post by screye »

dahfizz wrote: post #673

> Instead of 'handicap parking', use 'accessible parking' This is just insane. What is wrong with 'handicap parking'? 'Accessible parking' is objectively less descriptive. Its only accessible for the handicapped! This is the perfect example of the euphemism treadmill. We started with terms like 'invalid' and 'cripple'. But over time, these labels are perceived negatively. So we move to 'handicap'. And now 'handicap'…

It is hilariously backwards.

The most common cases of accessibility refer to accommodations made for deaf and blind people within day-2-day interfaces. Guess which 2 have no need for accessible parking ? -> Deaf and blind people.

We should start harvesting George Carlin's grave. It could power the entire world with how fast he's turning in it.

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

#933

Post by jiggawatts »

cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

One school district I worked for a long time ago used to label backup tapes with color codes. This is a bad idea in general, but the real issue was the official complaints:

Lemon — suggests that the system is of poor quality, or substandard.

Black — racist.

Brown — also racist.

Pink — too girlie for straight male staff.

And so on.

Eventually they had to change the system because this went all the way up to the minister of education.

”They’re just colors of the rainbow Karen! No, not the gay one!”

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

#934

Post by dahfizz »

justin66 wrote: post #915
dahfizz wrote: post #673

> Instead of 'handicap parking', use 'accessible parking' This is just insane. What is wrong with 'handicap parking'? 'Accessible parking' is objectively less descriptive. Its only accessible for the handicapped! This is the perfect example of the euphemism treadmill. We started with terms like 'invalid' and 'cripple'. But over time, these labels are perceived negatively. So we move to 'handicap'. And now 'handicap'…

The issue here is that a lot of people who need a spot close to the door are not "handicapped." The obvious example would be someone gimping around in an ankle cast. You wouldn't, they wouldn't, and their doctors would not say they are "handicapped." They don't have "handicap" concerns, but they certainly have "accessibility" concerns.

Sure, I can see how in certain circumstances, the word "handicapped" is not the optimal descriptor. I still think "accessibility" is bad, but maybe "disability parking" covers your scenario better.

This is the nature of language. Any one word or image you use to represent something necessarily loses some nuance.

Not everyone who needs a handicapped spot is in a wheelchair, but the wheelchair symbol is a clear, obvious way to communicate that a spot is for handicapped people.

You're not supposed to bring all your brothers and sisters into the "family" restroom with you. Most people can look beyond the literal words on a sign and comprehend the meaning that is being conveyed.

The article is not about tweaking language to be more precise, its about banning _harmful_ language. The assertion that using the phrase "handicapped parking" is _harmful_ is absurd.

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

#935

Post by shireboy »

bmc7505 wrote: post #318

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it." —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

So glad I'm not the only one to see this connection. 1984 was not meant to be a guidebook.

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

#937

Post by crackercrews »

cwkoss wrote: post #909
crackercrews wrote: post #424

It is hard to choose which of these is silliest, but my vote goes to the replacement of "he" with [name] or "they", until you know the person's preferred pronouns. [1] The vast, vast majority of people who present as male wish to be referred to as "he". Many of them would be offended or confused if you used "they" as a term of reference. Many listeners would also be confused if you referred to a person who appears to…

Singular they for when you aren't sure of gender actually seems to simplify language quite a bit in my experience. There are lots of non-non-binary situations that its helpful and you can avoid those awkward "he or she" "his or her" type phrases. Plus, everyone knows how to use they already, never had anyone get confused by it. "Bob went to the store and they bought some beer" is completely parsable by everyone - nob…

I know many people who would be honestly confused by your example.

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

#938

Post by goatlover »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #733
imgabe wrote: post #555

I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team. Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injur…

> I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm". If you don't feel uncomfortable for any of these words or phrases, then consider yourself fortunate; it does not apply to you. But don't dismiss it because you're not offended for any of the words, just be fortunate it's not a problem you have.

Sticks and stones ...

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

#940

Post by dang »

uwuemu wrote: post #464

Quoted post unavailable.

You can't post like this here. Since you've been breaking the site guidelines in other places too, with unsubstantive and flamebait comments, I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

No this has nothing to do with how right or left you are. You can s/left/right/ the text and it would be just as bad.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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