Who defines "harmful language" ?
Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
531–540 of 1001 posts
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#532Serious question, and maybe this is ignorant because I do not have an academic background but: Are these people not just a vocal minority? And if so, who cares? It seems like the internet is always up in arms about woke-ism but I honestly don't notice much of it in my daily life. At work, sure there are rules and regulations, but they make sense.
Treat people with respect is always my default stance. If I make an assumption about someone and call them 'he' while they want to be called 'she' - that's fine. Tell me and I'll do that from now on. Don't see the big issue, and I don't think 99% of people who desire such things (e.g. trans people) will try to cancel you for making a mistake. It's always the extremists that put others in a bad daylight and that's a shame.
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#533> Instead of: African-American > Consider using: Black Was this previously the other way around?
Colored used to be the preferred term, then negro, then black, then African-American, now we're back to "black" being preferred...I guess?
According to this article, it was various political/social leaders who pushed for new words.
https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2010/octo...
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#534This is a very helpful site - just like I include a goto in every script or application I write to mess with the “goto considered harmful” people, now I have a list of trigger words I can use in variables and comments to mess with the college kiddies.
BTW “Balls to the wall” has nothing to do with anatomy, it’s a reference to a WWII fighter plane which had ball shaped handles on the throttle levers, when preparing to take off you would push the levers all the way forward until they almost touched the instrument panel - a mnemonic device, not something you ask for on the third date - looking at you Stanford, very disappointed your mind went there. tisk tisk.
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#535The 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
In my peer group, “special” or “speshul” is an insult (usually with added sarcasm prosody), as a reaction to the PC usage of the word back in the 90s. I presume the same usage in the USA (given special snowflake).
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#536It'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,…
I can think of a few more! "register" - might indicate that someone has to register as a second-class citizen, enemy alien, etc. "bit" - might imply that someone is only a 'bit player', leading to feelings of inferiority. "tool" - an obviously offensive word meaning that someone is only fit to be used by others. "terminal" - we need to be sensitive about words that bring up the concept of death, to avoid triggering e…
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Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#537It 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…
Until 'they' got pulled into duty, English didn't have a non gendered pronoun, so if you were referring to someone where you didn't know the gender, you had a choice of defaulting to "he", randomly choosing "he" or " she", or using "he or she" or "the [descriptor like 'programmer']* They at first sounded weird being repurposed this way, but I think now it works better than any of the list above. Once you start using…
> it's a pretty small step to use for someone's gender you don't want to assume.
Well that's the question, isn't it? How often do I have occasion to talk about someone whose gender I don't want to assume? In virtually every case, I am able to correctly ascertain the gender identity of a person I am going to talk about.
The Stanford rules would have me pretend as if I just have no idea, and use "they" instead of "he" or "she". This is utter foolishness. It ignores the offense and confusion that will result from "they-ing" someone who goes by "he" or "she". And it ignores the fact that it is generally very easy to deduce someone's gender identity.
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#538[deleted]
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#539They 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…
> How do we close this Pandora's box?
We can't right now. We could have done it 15 years ago, as I remember being able to openly talk about it at work (master vs main) but everybody who agreed with me could not be bothered to take a stand. Right now I would be terminated instantly for arguing "tarball" can not be harmful, such is the environment.
Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative
#540The 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?!
Presumably comes from the upright posture taught as good bearing - no etymology I saw suggested anything different - comment implies it isn’t that old either: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/38mzi9/comment/c...