Conservatives are out in full force this morning to mock an attempt by the Stanford University IT Department to use less offensive language:
The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) is a multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford. EHLI is one of the actions prioritized in the 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 in December 2020.
Look, I'll admit that this already sounds pretty iffy. And the list of bad words that follows is unquestionably debatable. But it might help to know some of the principles that drive language recommendations like these. Here are a few:
- Don't reduce people to a single attribute, especially if that attribute has negative connotations. The Associated Press tries to follow this rule, which means, for example, that you should refer to "a person who immigrated" rather than "an immigrant." I find this rule awkward and don't always follow it, but it's hardly a massively woke imposition.
- Call people what they want to be called. I consider this nothing more than common decency. Don't get upset just because the new word is unfamiliar to you.
- Don't borrow phrases from other cultures, such as "bury the hatchet." This is my bête noir. Aside from avoiding obviously offensive uses of loan phrases, I think this principle is misguided and I don't follow it. Mixing and matching phrases from around the world is one of the glories of language and has been for millennia. (More generally, I think charges of cultural appropriation are usually ridiculous for a bunch of different reasons. Cultural mockery should be the standard for offensiveness.)
- Don't use words that are also used to describe disabilities. I'm on the fence with this one. On the one hand, some words simply become offensive over time and ought to be dropped: spaz, retard, cripple, and so forth. Others, like the perennial favorite crazy, I find ridiculous. Crazy has a perfectly ordinary colloquial meaning that's plainly not a slur on mentally ill people. (As an aside, I note that loco isn't on the Stanford list. It's tough deciding which oppressed group to favor, isn't it?)
- Don't use phrases like hit the bullseye, which have violent roots. I appreciate the sentiment here, but only if it's tightly restricted. It's really easy to go overboard on this and invite nothing but derision. It's also worth noting that violent imagery falls into the category of de gustibus, not cultural offensiveness. It should probably be treated separately.
- All words that might be redolent of slavery. There's some common sense to this one, but it can also go too far. The Stanford list, for example, includes white paper, white space, and yellow team (as one of several teams identified by colors). It's one thing to eliminate words where black and white have obvious derivations from black = bad and white = good, but sometimes a color is just a color.
- American. This is a special case because everyone is up in arms about it today. The argument here is that America represents all of the Americas, not just the United States, so we should use US when referring to our specific country. I'm not too keen on this stricture since, as far as I know, not a single other country in Central or South America uses America in its name and no other country's residents call themselves Americans. Conversely, pretty much everyone in the world uses American as shorthand for residents of the USA. I can't think of any reason to be offended by US citizen, but then, I'm not sure there's a legitimate reason to be offended by American either.
The key to all this is good judgment. It's way too easy to go overboard and create endless lists of allegedly offensive words that, in real life, offend almost no one. The best way to avoid this is to follow two rules. The first is to include multiple people of color on your language committee so you don't force a single person into the role of representing their entire minority group. The second is to make sure that lots of suggestions are rejected. Keep only the seriously offensive stuff instead of pretending you can teach hundreds of new usages to people. This is especially true of awkward replacements for common phrases that have been rejected solely due to obscure origins no one even remembers anymore. Perhaps secret balloting to keep/reject words is a good idea?
Instead of Americans I vote we try "U.S.'ns."
"Yankee" works for anybody outside the US.
Southerners just love being called "Yankee". Why not go with Gringo, or should it be Gringx?
I was an exchange student in Germany in the late 80s. One of my first memories is being berated by a teacher for saying I was "Amerikanischer". (It probably would have been worse if I'd understood more than a bare outline of the critique.)
But it did make me very aware that not everyone in the world used the same shorthand, that such shorthand had very real meaning to others, and that this all was a very good thing to be aware of.
As far as arguments with douchebags, I really couldn't care less with the Fainting Goat Insurrectionists thinks about these things. And if they don't like it, they can move to Russia. (Hah.)
I dunno. I lived and studied in Germany and Austria for a long time and never had anyone bat an eyelid when I told them "ich bin Amerikaner" or "ich spreche Amerikanisch (as opposed to "Englisch", which means "British English"). Did some German really give you shit like "Südamerikaner sind auch 'Amerikaner!'"?
I lived outside the U.S. for many years and I always tried to say "I'm from the United States" rather than "I'm American." It was just more accurate and less likely to provoke a pedantic reaction from a Canadian or whoever. By the same token, I've noticed that a lot of Brits abroad prefer to say "I'm from the UK" rather than "I'm British" or "I'm English."
Some people will take the extra trouble and some won't.
I usually say "US". In English speaking countries I have found it common for people to ask "are you from the states?" I interpret this as a conversational opener, as I know dam well they know where I'm from by my accent.
You could be Canadian, though - few Europeans can hear the difference between a Canadian and US accent. And most Canadians really don't like to be mistaken for USers. They are "North Americans."
That is a such a goddamn stupid alternative and I have always thought so. The bald fact is we get to call ourselves Americans because we are exponentially more important than anyone else in the hemisphere.
It's not even a matter of political prominence. It's simply history, custom, and convenience. People refer to US citizens as "Americans" because they're all in agreement as to what this means, and there are perfectly good alternate (Canadians, Peruvians, Arubans) terms to describes folks from other countries in the Western Hemisphere. There isn't, however, a different, perfectly good term to describe Americans.
uh, geopolitical prominence
May I add one? Don't use chameleon words like "woke" which are largely meaningless and imply different things to different people. If you must use it, add within parenthesis exactly in what sense you are using the word.
There are so many words (or phrases) like this that they deserve their own separate list: off the top of my head, Christian, communist, CRT, patriot, pedophile.
Yep. Add necon, neoliberal, socialist, liberal, free trade, and open borders to that list.
Words are only "chameleon words" because some group deliberately distorts their meanings in order to use them pejoratively. If you give up the use of any word that somebody wants to distort the meaning of for bad motives, you will rapidly find yourself unable to communicate at all.
That is an exaggeration. There are enough words to say what you want without using multi-meaning ones.
No, there aren't. ANY word or phrase that expresses a concept that the deplorables disapprove of will quickly have its meaning distorted so that it can be used pejoratively.
These are generally good takes.
Whatever is thought to be wrong with hitting the bullseye misses the target entirely.
I rolled my eyes at this one because "hitting the bullseye" invokes target shooting, which is non-violent sport.
Even "putting someone under a bullseye" would not bother me, unless you were the one doing it. Accusing someone of putting someone under a bullseye (looking at you, MTG) inplies that THEY are violent, and we should use strong language to call them out!
Another about committee membership: no one affiliated with any institution of higher education (I say this as a retired academic and child of an academic). If that is exceptionable, then no one under age 35, the same requirement as for the presidency.
Conservatives are much offended by things like this because it makes their ordinary abusiveness seem wrong, so they're obviously the real victims here.
Yes, they want the "freedom" to insult and degrade the people they don't like.
Did you read the article? The things that Kevin points out are not degrading to anyone.
You mean like calling people what they want to be called (or not). Very woke, for example to insist on Covid being called by that name and not the "China virus."
On some of these points, I always like to cite Douglas Hofstadter's wonderful "Person Paper on Purity In Language" which deals with a lot of this in a delightful way. Considering it's almost 40 years old now, it's still sharp and insightful.
https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
What does white paper have to do with slavery? Academic lit has a lot of colors associated with it, and none of it is related to race or ethnicity, as far as I can tell: grey lit, gold and green open access, etc.
And "white space" refers to large areas where there is no print. Most paper is white. Most screen backgrounds are white. What are we supposed to call white space?
It should be referred to as "inherently and systemically racist space"
"Don't reduce people to a single attribute" is just foolish, because it presumes that identifying a person by one attribute denies their other attributes, which is false. To take a ridiculous example, must we refer to Joe Biden as "a person who is president of the United States" or can we just reduce him to a single attribute and refer to him as "the president", while still being aware that he has an identity outside the White House.
It is extremely common to identify people by occupation; e.g. "lawyer, carpenter, blogger, etc.". When I say I have an appointment with my doctor, I am not reducing my doctor to a single "physician" attribute; I'm simply identifying the attribute that's relevant.
+1
"doctor": No, no, no! It should be "a person who graduated from medical school and has been accredited to practice medicine in this state, and who is also a cis-male who refers to himself as a 'man', with pronouns 'he, his, him'"
On the other hand, why in the world should we even care about the gender, genitalia and their preferred use, and all the rest about every individual? Maybe some people want to keep some of this private?
I realize much of this language modification might be well-intentioned (or not). But it comes across as too precious, too wordy, just TOO.
My guess is they are still referring to students, professors, scientists, employees, etc.
It is extremely common to identify people by occupation; e.g. "lawyer, carpenter, blogger, etc.". When I say I have an appointment with my doctor, I am not reducing my doctor to a single "physician" attribute; I'm simply identifying the attribute that's relevant.
That's not what it means. What they're talking about is when, for example, there's one Black person in a room during a meeting and someone points to them and asks "Well, what do Black people think of X?" It just means that if someone happens to be a certain race/party/ethnicity, they don't necessarily speak for/think like that entire group.
Appointing that hypothetical black person as the representative of their whole race is stupid, but I would think it is also flattering. If somebody were to ask me "what's the bald men's take on this" I wouldn't be insulted, but I also wouldn't presume to speak for bald men as a group.
Appointing that hypothetical black person as the representative of their whole race is stupid, but I would think it is also flattering.
You actually think that?
Yes. By presuming one person can speak for a large group, you attribute importance to that person.
It only matters to me if Stanford is going to allow extremists to file complaints and enforce professional repercussions if a Stanford community member doesn't follow the guidelines, e.g. calls people "immigrants" and not "persons who immigrated."
The other observation is, whatever word is chosen will be out of favor at some point in the future, because once a word is accepted as denoting a status that some view as negative, then that word will inevitably become tainted. "Disabled" is a good example, though I see a backlash to the backlash, as some disabled activists are objecting to the paternalism of "differently abled."
Another thing this causes is loss of precision or meaning. Take "persons who immigrated". If spoken, it sounds just like "persons who emigrated". If an American news story refers to "immigrants" I assume they are talking about people coming to the US with the intention of living here.
I'm not sure about "persons who immigrated". Could that be British pensioners who moved to Spain? (I guess we'd be looking at it from the Spanish point of view.)
“Call people what they want to be called.”
So, no more LatinX?
Thank you!!
The problem with that is that there are very few people who want to be called "asshole idiots", and those that most merit the appellation are the ones that will most strongly resist having it applied to them.
Asshole is an excellent perjorative. It only insults assholes.
I always thought that the "freedom caucus" should be renamed the "asshole caucus", but "asshole idiot caucus" actually rolls off the tongue better, as well as being more objectively accurate.
"I can't think of any reason to be offended by US citizen"
Is "Americans" meant to include only citizens and not, for example, long-term permanent residents or, say DACA recipients?
In most cases I'd say yes. I doubt a Danish PhD candidate who has lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the past six years wants to be referred to as an "American." I doubt many of us would refer to Japanese business executive who have lived in Frankfurt for the past nine years as a "German."
As ever, call people what they want to be called except Americans.
If these rules were applied evenly less people would hate them.
Oh, and latinxes don’t call them what they prefer to be called (Hispanic)
Though the Spanish denonym for American is estadounidense, Spanish TV uses norteamericanos (North Americans) to refer to people from the United States and as someone descendant from Canadians I find it offensive.
The formal name of Mexico is “ Estados Unidos Mexicanos.” So, sorry, but we can’t use United States to refer to our country. Even “United States of America” won’t do. If Mexico is a “United States,” and is certainly in “America,” then….
That's true (although the correct translation is "United Mexican States", not "United States of Mexico"). But hey - absolutely nobody calls Mexico that other than in official documents, and inhabitants of the country are always known as "Mexicans." It is terms in common use that are the question here.
There are other examples. The official name of Greece is "Hellenic Republic" so should we call them Hellenes rather than Greeks?
"All words that might be redolent of slavery".
Like, I don't know, Slav? Care to throw out a replacement for that, as in Slavic languages?
More generally, the conservatives are mostly more correct here simply because of the way language and humans work.
Two points.
- When a condition itself is stigmatized (or at least unpleasant) no matter WHAT word you use that word doesn't change reality, meaning that it picks up the sigma. We have seen this treadmill repeatedly in our lives. Spastic becomes retarded becomes mentally challenged becomes special needs becomes differently abled.
Change the word however you like, within ten years it will mean the same thing as the previous word.
- If a word is meant to cut, a different word will be found that does the same job of cutting. Teenagers are both merciless and very good at this. "Riding the short bus"... Banning words (especially in schools) will result in replacement terms that I look forward to seeing as very funny, very clever, and very cruel...
"Damn scuttleheads" is a joke insult today. Will it be a joke in ten years? Who will be the scuttleheads???
ULTIMATELY let's be honest about what is really going on here. This is classism in it's American 21st C form. The way this classism works is that there are no explicit rules for being upper class, no dress codes, nothing that can easily be learned. Rather there is a constantly changing "acceptable vocabulary" which, just like fashion, allows those on the inside to identify those on the outside:
Oh, you're still referring to the *master* bedroom of a house rather than to the "primary bedroom". Clearly you're a hick and should be treated as such (and hicks are the one group everyone is still encouraged to mock and dismiss...)
Did you just make up that last one or are some weirdos really against using the term "master bedroom"? I hadn't heard that one.
Use language that is not offensive or harmful to others. I support the principle, if not all the examples in the Stanford list. Some seems eminently reasonable, some ridiculous, and a few I hadn't considered before so it's worth a moment to give them some thought.
It would be helpful if people ridiculing the list could at least acknowledge that language matters, has always adapted, and that avoiding unintended offense is generally a good thing. Anyone with objections should be specific. Just ridiculing Stanford as an out-of-touch lefty institution doesn't add much to the conversation.
On the other hand, for those most passionate about enforcing these suggested changes, remember the idea is to be kind. I've seen people called racist, sexist, ableist for using language that has been around for generations or longer, and if you want people to be more considerate in their use of language, it's easier for them to do that if they don't feel under attack.
The thing is even if you are part of a marginalized group sonetimes it's unreasonable to be offended.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."
I am still wondering which monkeys told us they are offended by the term monkeypox.
Seriously. Those snowflake monkeys need to get some thicker skins. I never hear chickens complaining about being offended.
Kevin's last point is a particular pet peeve of mine. I'm from the US but have lived in Colombia for the past 8 years. The use of the term American comes up all the time in expat FB groups. The fake outrage by Colombians and some expats is incredibly annoying. In my 8 years here, never once have I heard a Colombian refer to themselves as American. I've also spent considerable time in Peru and Mexico and have traveled through Central America and it's the same thing. They do not use the term to refer to themselves.
So no, you don't have a right to deny others the use of a term that you yourselves don't use.
+1
Maybe you could have mentioned that the conservative criticism is misplaced since the list -- particularly "American" -- originated out of Colorado State University.
I'm particularly irritated by misuse of the word "exponential" as meaning large, when it has a well defined mathematical meaning, use, and purpose which means something different. There are millions of people (including Americans) who understand the proper meaning of the word.
As I used to say: My savings account is growing exponentially, and it is also growing very slowly.
More tricky is the phrase "quantum jump", which is often used to refer to a large change when scientifically it refers to the smallest possible change.
PS: Didn't Brandeis University (or one of those Boston area schools) do something similar a few years ago?
The key to all this is good judgment. It's way too easy to go overboard and create endless lists of allegedly offensive words that, in real life, offend almost no one.
Sounds about right to me. If you're part of an organization that is going to completely break down because someone in a meeting used the word "whitewash", it's time to find a new line of work. I'm reminded of an incident some years ago where there was a massive scandal at some otherwise anodyne city council meeting somewhere like Columbus, OH, because a city employee said the next year's budget had treated his department rather "niggardly" or something and everyone freaked the fuck out before actually checking to verify that the word meant "stingy" or "miserly" and not, well, the other thing. I think the poor guy still had to resign.
Too bad "Don't be a dick" doesn't suffice for these sorts of things anymore. Sorry, that's sexist and cis/heteronormative. "Don't be an asshole."
Nobody uses that word any more, for the obvious reason that it sounds very much like the most toxic insult a white person can use to insult a Black person. Language indeed changes.
People absolutely use that word. I was just in a meeting last week when someone used it. No one batted an eye. But these were also educated people that knew what it meant.
Unlike your obviously fake personal anecdote, language usage can actually be corroborated.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=niggardly&year_start=1900&year_end=2010&corpus=0&smoothing=3
When it comes whether to borrow phrases from other cultures or not, Kevin has crossed the Rubicon.
This isn't a comment on language changing.
I don't know the definition of "American"
Specifically, what does the average American baby weigh at birth?
What about Black babies? Hispanic babies? Asian (specifically people from East Asian areas of Japan, Korea, China and Vietnam. In other words "Oriental")
I'm a white guy, my wife is Japanese. So what is the average weight for our baby?
I could find all sorts of data but I couldn't find out how the different races work out. My Japanese is not good enough to read 日本語 results so I had to stick to English.
I get the feeling that "American" often means "White" when reporting data since often other races are removed and reported separately.
BTW, the closest I could find was data from South Korea where they reported baby weights for children born there with foreign fathers.
You sound like you’d be fun to talk to at parties. Every party needs someone at it that makes everyone else want to take a drink every time they open their mouth.
This is a good discussion to have. We are having it, in this instance, because of internally facing document, which attempts to clarify what style people writing for the Stanford website(s) should employ.
This is not a one-size-fits-all standard. None of us are going to write for a Stanford website. Few of us are going to address the same audience on the same topics.
The ideas - the principles - cited here are important and valuable and how each of us work them out in practice. Of course, so many love to frame them as dictates to the culture at large and invoke "You can't tell me what to do!"
Borrowed phrases are a very murky area to me, too. In practical terms, I am a slow adopter of such things. I'm kind of old now, but I adopt new ways of speaking sometimes. Just not aggressively. Influencing one another is what happens, and what should happen when you are together. If I think use of a phrase works that way, then I'll use it.
I think most this is dumb and unnecessary, and that it prompts a snowball effect of social one-upmanship -- or should I say "one-uppersonship"? Should a "mannequin" be a "personnequin"? Once we've all agreed on "person of color" (rather than the purportedly offensive "colored person), how long before some self-appointed language judge decides that "color" is offensive because it lumps everyone who is not white (which actually means pinkish-tan and of European ancestry) into a single category? What about the "colorism" that is endemic in many cultures where everyone is ethnically similar but happen to be lighter vs darker-skinned?
Finally, the business about "American" brings to mind a concert I attended with members of the band Los Lobos, where they played a song about their mixed heritage including the words "Soy mexicano, soy americano, soy mexicano-americano." Should they be forced to change the lyrics to "soy mexicano-estadounidense"? How would they react to some academic telling them they must do this to avoid "harming" their audience?
My point is that the world of ordinary people of ALL backgrounds are far more tolerant of purported "harm" than the tiny cohort of social justice activists seem to be. In fact, many people in non-white communities would, I suspect, be far more resentful of the self-appointed language police than they would of people who are being chastised for talking in ways that they learned to talk as kids.
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