The day after the Amy Coney Barrett used the term 'sexual preference,' Merriam-Webster Dictionary updated it to say it is offensive.
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-preference-defini...
Are these rules really improving society or are they just being weaponized to impose a political doctrine?
As much as the left claims to love the working class, all this cancellation stuff and hyper-sensitivity effectively disowns and demonizes the entire working class (idk, at least in my experience doing blue collar stuff, pretty much everyone I know in the city now would have an aneurysm sitting around a lunch trunk at break).
> I built a Slack app to help. AllyBot will suggest inclusive alternatives to over 400 non-inclusive phrases to team members.
Professionally I have opted to use 'hey all' in 90% of situations because it's about as neutral as you can get. Doesn't feel as natural to me but then I don't run the risk of offending anyone.
Dictionaries seem to agree: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guy "used to address a group of people of either sex"
Call it bias, call it familiarity, it's probably something like that.
I understand the logic of "it's not how you mean it but rather how I take it" but at some point people are going to start to think this isn't how you take but some sort of ideological power play.
What did I feel then? Amusement. I'd sometimes reply in jest something about "just our girly things" and the author usually apologized "oh I'm sorry, I didn't notice you on Cc:" which was even more amusing since I didn't really feel there's anything to apologize for.
It wasn't hard to change, with the main benefit being I no longer came off like a complete dumbass to a room full of women or a trans person.
— Hannah Gadsby, Douglas
We learned in letter-writing that if you don't know who might read it, then you start with "To whom it may concern:"
Might I suggest you consider adding - and I put here for HN’s convenience as well — a list of potential great alternatives? :)
‘Hey folks’
‘Hey everyone’
‘Hey y’all’
‘Hey team:’
Even just ‘Hey -‘
I also like ‘Good morning’, ‘Good afternoon’, ‘Good evening’, they’re great ways to inclusively greet people and start a conversation as well.
Thanks again for posting this! :)
Also no one over the age of 50 should be seen topless in public or ever refer to a group of people as “peeps”, “fam”, “party people” or “superstars”.
Did this community mean to be so Ageist and Nativist. (See how hard this is.)
what's even funnier is that this whole inclusive language shaming is something i only see in the tech world. perhaps this is because this industry is more ego centric than any other industry, i don't know, but i know a slew of people in the financial world who roll their eyes every time i have conversations about this.
But in the professional context, none of that really matters IMO. If someone in your team is offended (and yes, it might seem stupid to you), then the dynamic of the team is thrown off. And ultimately, productivity suffers. That's how I'm thinking about it these days.
I found that the fact these people get offended by such issues says more about themselves than the fact "guys" is sexist in some way.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the point of inclusive language is so that people who identify as female or non-binary have less reason to be offended, and can generally feel more safe in an environment because less trigger words are used.
edit: I would also appreciate that the people downvoting me would comment as to why they think my post does not contribute to the discussion in a respectful manner?
Sure, there are plenty of radicalized people who take this as an opportunity to shame, but I do not see the harm or difficulty in changing "guys" to "folks" or "team" if it makes someone feel more inclusive.
I've hired and work with a number of trans and marginalized people, it was extremely simple for me to start saying "hey folks" without the need to throw a tantrum over it.
It's not an attempt - it's used that way all the time, and the demonized are generally the ones who haven't had the privilege of attending college.
It's a great way to other-ize all the "uneducated" among us. The ones who don't live a comfortable sophisticated city existence with a service-sector job.
Given your influences, I'm amazed you've not only recognized this issue, but chose to address it. Even the most liberal among my peers (who are older and grew up without them) hasn't taken this stance. I wonder how you broke free of the "edgelord" bubble and gained this perspective.
I much appreciate the author emphasizing this point, because I think it's crucial and often missed. It's perfectly fine for people to use language that they feel is more inclusive, but not so fine when they try to enforce the boundaries, particularly at the point of a gun, which all laws imply.
But I think that distinction should extend to non-legal "policing". If I say "guys" or "mankind" in a sense that is meant to be inclusive, but someone else interprets that as not inclusive, I don't feel responsible for their interpretation, any more than I would feel responsible for someone's misinterpretation of "niggardly". They can choose to be offended, but if that clearly was not my intent, I don't feel the need to accommodate them. I've found that some people have a desire, even a mission to feel offended, and don't feel that it helps either of us to tiptoe around their neurosis. Because of the seemingly infinite flexibility of their offense taking, I couldn't fail to offend no matter how much I tried, and I've learned that by trying and trying and trying.
If I say a phrase that has long meant "all of you", but you have now decided means "all of you males", then I don't think I'm responsible for your offense taking. I think you're responsible for purposely redefining the clear meaning to score some kind of points.
I used to have a severe anxiety disorder that partly stemmed from being overly sensitive about what other people thought about me. I had to consciously dampen down that part of myself, and I feel much, much better about it.
I think instead of getting individuals to avoid offending others, we should instead foster a mentality of resiliency. People get offended far too easily nowadays. They should learn how to stop caring so much about what other people think.
Of course there's a line beyond which you're just a jerk, but to me, just saying "hey guys" doesn't cross it. But that's just me, and I'm in a region of the country where "hey guys" is acceptable.
Then you use the derogatory term 'snowflake', only you twist its meaning to call out people for not bowing to your whims, to me you are the one thinking they are special, and are too much a 'snowflake' to see the other side of the argument.
There is a huge difference between giving and taking offense.
For me a team is a group of about 5 people working together to achieve a clear goal, going to lunch together almost every day, having coffee together, while talking about solving deep technical issues. It doesn't scale to more than 8 people, because I'm just not able to understand deeply what more than 8 people are doing, and follow their code base.
It was the same time when all hands meetings got political and uninteresting, skipping all the technical details on announcements that made them interesting (and that made cross-team collaboration possible), and I just stopped going to these meetings, because they started to be just a waste of my time.
