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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

#921

Post by runarberg »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #720
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It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want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,…

Surely “American” is the most absurd. Literally no one is offended that people in the United States of America are referred to as American, even if there are 42 other countries in the Americas. The technical fact is it’s correct - anyone in the americas could be called an American correctly. But only one has “America” in the country name. But by including this it sparks a patriotic and nationalist response in most Am…

In addition to my sibling posts, I do wonder about “Americans” who are not from the North American continent, e.g. people that live in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam etc. or even Puerto Rico to an extent (or especially Puerto Rico since “Americano” in Spanish usually means from the two continents and the Caribbean).

This demonym is really unfortunate.

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

#922

Post by dahfizz »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #916
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It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want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,…

There is no one-word replacement for something being "grandfathered". It's important to consider practicalities here. Moving away from "slave" was reasonable (Buildbot got rid of it many years ago!), but led us down a very slippery slope. I'll stick my head out and say "master" is fine actually.

> There is no one-word replacement for something being "grandfathered". It's important to consider practicalities here.

In fact, much of this list replaces a single-word term with a longer phrase.

"Bob survived the accident but is now a paraplegic" becomes

"Bob is a person who was impacted by an accident, and he is now a person with a spinal cord injury".

Less precise and much wordier.

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

#923

Post by yarg »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #135
yarg wrote: post #97

Died by suicide? Suicide is a self-inflicted act; committed suicide is correct - and I say this as a man living on the edge. To diminish that is to refuse to accept the underlying cause, which is a bad fucking way to stop it from happening again (or at least to someone else). This whole damned list is retarded. Most of the elements aren't even accurate; they're euphemisms. Someone with OCD isn't 'detail-oriented' the…

"Commit suicide" has the same vibes as "masturbation is self-rape". It doesn't make sense, as an act against oneself is by definition happening with consent. They're both acts of bodily autonomy.

No post body was provided.

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

#924

Post by chrisallenlane »

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #294
School-Cotton wrote: post #60

“You guys” is the plural form of “you” for most speakers of colloquial American English, and is completely ungendered, in an empirical sense: if you observe native speakers speaking naturally and colloquially, you will find that everyone who uses it (regardless of gender) uses it consistently to address groups of multiple people (regardless of gender). It’s derived from the noun “guy”, which is indeed often gendered.…

Out of all of these, y’all rolls most readily off the tongue.

Southerner here. The correct form is "all a y'alls."

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

#925

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

shockeychap wrote: post #829

> "Yellow" is often used disparagingly against people of Asian descent. Has anyone ever (let alone "often") heard the word "yellow" used in this manner?

Not in recent decades. Historically, it was a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril

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

#926

Post by cutemonster »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #910
javajosh wrote: post #710

An excellent illustration of the beginnings of an SJW dystopia. Not just the list itself, but the general feeling of fear they want you to feel while speaking. One can draw a link between any word and a possible harm - something that a few comments have hilariously shown with some examples. So if the goal was protecting anyone from every possible harmful word, the list fails. But this demonstrates real evil that hide…

This list is incredibly stupid. However, I don’t think this “Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action, which was published by the Stanford CIO Council (CIOC) and People of Color in Technology (POC-IT) affinity group” (using the words off their own website) is some mastermind plot to eventually subvert freethinking in America. Instead, I think it’s just a group of busywork, incompetent administrators who have…

I think so too.

For example, say, the people involved got four weeks to do this -- and they were done in a day, but then continued adding more and more words anyway to fill the time. Or because more words would give a more serious / competent impression.

I'd like to assume good intentions or incompetence / laziness / selfishness & don't-care, rather than giant conspiracy theories

Don't we have the same problem with in house lawyers and designers, who, if idle, want to sue someone, or want to redesign a "perfect" app and just make it worse

Or software devs who add pointless stuff to the tech stack

Maybe Parkinsons law should be amended:

> "work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion [with pointless things you'd be better off without]"

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

#927

Post by matkoniecz »

bloppe wrote: post #397

"Moron" was once considered a technical term for mental disability. Then, kids starting using it, and it became offensive. It was replaced by "mental retardation". We all know how that term evolved in kind. Many people now use "disabled" (including this list's suggestions), but that is now often seen replaced by "differently abled". If I were a betting man, I'd say that in 5 years even "differently abled" will be co-…

> in 5 years even "differently abled" will be co-opted by the crude and become offensive.

I already encountered it in this way

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

#929

Post by maximus-decimus »

What I'm not seeing anybody mentioning is how hard that kind of stuff make it to speak English for non-native speakers.

Coming from French, it's already weird enough that you're allowed to say "n word" or "s word" but not the actual words, as if it was some loophole. That's just not done in French, at least in Quebec. In Quebec, you say the word, you don't or for swear words people use a slightly transformed version of the swear word (like saying shout instead of shit or Oh my gosh instead of Oh my god), but mentioning the word indirectly just isn't a thing.

You're considered evil if you refer to a non-binary person by he or she... but in French there is literally no polite non-gendered pronoun. Our "they" is also gendered. The result is you're seen as mean for thinking in French and just translating as you go. You basically have to think in English to be politically correct, which is pretty hard to do.

Or even the fact that in English black people can say the n word but not white people. Or the fact you can call Australians Aussies and New-Zealanders kiwis, but calling Japanese people Japs is super racist. I haven't ever seen seen something like that in French so it gets really confusing.

I feel like keeping track of all these intricate rules is basically harder than learning English itself and by adding even more, they're accentuating a class divide between native and non-native speakers.

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

#930

Post by bentley »

zugi wrote: post #805

> people of color ... BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) Wow, so "people of color" should be avoided and "BIPOC" used instead? Even though the "POC" in "BIPOC" is literally "people of color"? That didn't last long. The Euphemism Treadmill ( http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/08/ableist-language-and-th... ) seems to be moving faster and faster.

The express purpose of the term BIPOC is to de‐emphasize Asians and other “less‐oppressed” people of color.

I won’t bother criticizing the term—such criticisms practically write themselves.

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