Stanford University Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI)

[Arctish]

So, listing 'problematic' words and suggesting substitutions is bad, but banning words is good?

Is that our takeaway in this thread?

Was I serious or sarcastic?

I don't know. Were you being serious or sarcastic?

Does it matter?

Yes.

 

[repoman]

So, listing 'problematic' words and suggesting substitutions is bad, but banning words is good?

Is that our takeaway in this thread?

Was I serious or sarcastic?

I don't know. Were you being serious or sarcastic?

Does it matter?

Yes.

Prescribing and proscribing language are both lame, Is lame ok to be used to say that something is totally gay?

 

[steve_bank]

Obviously the product of PHDs in sociology and cultural studues with nothing bettwer to do with their time.

 

[Swammerdami]

I just clicked to look at the list of offensive words and their suggested substitutes. One of the silliest suggestions was to replace OCD with detail-oriented. I was in a long-term relationship with someone with OCD. To describe her symptoms as detail-oriented would make sense only in an Onion-style parody.

On the one hand, activists for big change seem radical when they first start but eventually win over a majority. Maybe language will improve by the year 2045 or so due to today's efforts. On the other hand, the recommended new language just seems silly.

Where will it stop? The Chess pieces King and Queen will need their names changed of course; and the new names must be gender-neutral or else President and First Lady Spouse given equal powers. The Chess piece Pawn will be renamed Citizen. Not just the names but the rules will have to change. Citizen and President are equal under the law; surely they should enjoy the same move flexibilities in Chess!

I think the following makes much sense:

I also thought about how segregated the Northeast was and still is compared to much of the South.I thought about how arrogant some well educated liberals are, who live in the North and condemn poor rural Southerners, when the truth is they are in some ways more racist than most Southern people I've known personally.

I grew up in a somewhat affluent town in Northern California. Over a period of 12 years I attended school with thousands of different students, of whom Zero were black. Zero with a Z. Red-lining.

My mother was a very special woman who fought racism; she insisted on becoming friends with a black family who literally lived on the other side of the railroad tracks. I heard that the boy my age came home from school once and immediately showered thoroughly trying to remove the blackness from his skin. This was in "liberal" Northern California.

 

[bilby]

One of the silliest suggestions was to replace OCD with detail-oriented. I was in a long-term relationship with someone with OCD. To describe her symptoms as detail-oriented would make sense only in an Onion-style parody.

I suspect that their point is to stop using the description "OCD" for people who are NOT suffering from OCD, because to do so is offensive to those who really do suffer OCD - as you yourself are apparently aware.

Perhaps you're unaware of the frequent use of phrases such as "I'm a bit OCD, so ..." by people who are in fact clinically completely well, but who are keen to suggest that they are very detail oriented.

The irony is that the lack of context has apparently led you to falsely assume that they are trivialising the condition (a behaviour which your personal experience has led you to find insulting), when their entire point was that such trivialising is insulting, and shouldn't be unthinkingly done... so you basically are violently in agreement with them, but have been bamboozled by conservative simpletons into believing that you disagree.

 

[Swammerdami]

One of the silliest suggestions was to replace OCD with detail-oriented. I was in a long-term relationship with someone with OCD. To describe her symptoms as detail-oriented would make sense only in an Onion-style parody.

I suspect that their point is to stop using the description "OCD" for people who are NOT suffering from OCD, because to do so is offensive to those who really do suffer OCD - as you yourself are apparently aware.

Perhaps you're unaware of the frequent use of phrases such as "I'm a bit OCD, so ..." by people who are in fact clinically completely well, but who are keen to suggest that they are very detail oriented.

OK. Thanks for the correction.

Have I mentioned that I'm out of touch? My last visit to North America was over 22 years ago. In fact my son, who has never left Thailand, sometimes teaches me the latest American slang!

This makes the slangy "OCD" rather unique on the list. The other "harmful" words are traditional words which, rightly or wrongly, are used in a standard non-sarcastic non-slangy way.

 

[Swammerdami]

Where will it stop? The Chess pieces King and Queen will need their names changed of course; and the new names must be gender-neutral or else President and First Lady Spouse given equal powers. The Chess piece Pawn will be renamed Citizen. Not just the names but the rules will have to change. Citizen and President are equal under the law; surely they should enjoy the same move flexibilities in Chess!

An example of political correctness run amok comes from a YouTube chess channel I used to watch. The guy complained about a video that had been taken down . . . because while discussing a chess position he said "White is better."

 

[southernhybrid]

The list was way over the top, imo, but I did have some fun reading it to my dear son who is an IT professional, and some of my very liberal friends, so maybe it was good for a laugh. Stanford dd the right thing by ending it. Good for Stanford for actually taking the opinions of others into consideration. Believe it or not, it wasn't just conservatives who thought the list was unnecessary, to say the least.

 

[Politesse]

The other "harmful" words are traditional words which, rightly or wrongly, are used in a standard non-sarcastic non-slangy way.

Not exactly true. It is extremely common in English to use former "clinical" terms for mental illness as casual insults, both straightforwardly and sarcastically. "Moron", "Idiot", "R-tard", "Sp-z", etc; as new terms emerge they are almost immediately co-opted by popular culture.

 

[Politesse]

The list was way over the top, imo, but I did have some fun reading it to my dear son who is an IT professional, and some of my very liberal friends, so maybe it was good for a laugh. Stanford dd the right thing by ending it. Good for Stanford for actually taking the opinions of others into consideration. Believe it or not, it wasn't just conservatives who thought the list was unnecessary, to say the least.

So you really feel a that a classic conservative news media pile-on over nothing, leading to a department not being allowed to decide what words to use to describe things, makes you feel like your speech is more "free"?

It seems like bizarro world, to me. Where publishing a list of recommended speech corrections, with no intention to enforce it in any way, is supposedly "policing", But instituting actual policy saying that you cannot publish such a list is lauded as a victory against speech policing.

Y'all never read Orwell much, did you?

 

[southernhybrid]

The list was way over the top, imo, but I did have some fun reading it to my dear son who is an IT professional, and some of my very liberal friends, so maybe it was good for a laugh. Stanford dd the right thing by ending it. Good for Stanford for actually taking the opinions of others into consideration. Believe it or not, it wasn't just conservatives who thought the list was unnecessary, to say the least.

So you really feel a that a classic conservative news media pile-on over nothing, leading to a department not being allowed to decide what words to use to describe things, makes you feel like your speech is more "free"?

It seems like bizarro world, to me. Where publishing a list of recommended speech corrections, with no intention to enforce it in any way, is supposedly "policing", But instituting actual policy saying that you cannot publish such a list is lauded as a victory against speech policing.

Y'all never read Orwell much, did you?

Yes, I've read Orwell, twice as a matter of fact, and imo, the people who are making up new words, and then judging people who don't accept them, are far more Orwellian than those who object to these idiotic things. It's not only conservative news sources who criticized this list. Can we just drop it now and move on!

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I just clicked to look at the list of offensive words and their suggested substitutes. One of the silliest suggestions was to replace OCD with detail-oriented. I was in a long-term relationship with someone with OCD. To describe her symptoms as detail-oriented would make sense only in an Onion-style parody.

People I know joke about having OCD when there is an observation of lots of detail. I'll give two examples: a girl would joke about her sister having it because she would spend a minute organizing her salad before eating it. Another example was from the workplace: people would use it as an adjective, maybe something like "I'm not trying to be OCD about it, but maybe we might consider testing the software first" OR "dude, that's so OCD."

What an individual might say in reference to disorders or haggling ("jewed down" is also in the suggested list of words to avoid) is theoretically different than words that might be used in I.T. school websites and I.T. code. I will give two reasons: 1. There are many diverse students reading the school's official website and I.T. code--to include those protected by anti-discrimination laws and others who could rightly use such official language in a larger civil lawsuit against the private university; 2. The affected domains are the responsibility of school I.T. staff and school is accountable.

It makes sense that the private university would want to hear out a group of students, including the POC group mentioned in op in regard to school's I.T. websites and code to reduce future legal risks. It also makes sense that such groups ought to have free speech to make suggestions. Not to mention this list was coming from students. It is an aside that ad homs are directed at them as sociology phds and white libruhls by some. Not true.

In any case, in my first post in the thread I did write that it "seems over the top." So, I agree with them that a list of suggestions can and ought to exist....but I disagree on the particulars of many of the choices of words in the list. For example, a rare usage of a word where a reasonable person would never take out it of its context in that way ought not be in the list. Not to mention the collective effect of having too many words creates far too impractical outcomes.

Overall, I think this is blown out of proportion to reality. This is the current cycle we are in politics. Conservatives will be loud about everything and convince moderates to tag along until they take the Senate, then the Presidency.

 

[Jarhyn]

So, listing 'problematic' words and suggesting substitutions is bad, but banning words is good?

Is that our takeaway in this thread?

I guess. But fuck me and every other engineer I meet who no longer uses master/slave but gravitates towards primary/secondary, or controller/secondary

 

[Swammerdami]

I guess. But fuck me and every other engineer I meet who no longer uses master/slave but gravitates towards primary/secondary, or controller/secondary

Several decades ago I was affiliated with electronics engineers who often spoke of male connectors and female connectors. Are these terms still in use?

 

[Politesse]

The list was way over the top, imo, but I did have some fun reading it to my dear son who is an IT professional, and some of my very liberal friends, so maybe it was good for a laugh. Stanford dd the right thing by ending it. Good for Stanford for actually taking the opinions of others into consideration. Believe it or not, it wasn't just conservatives who thought the list was unnecessary, to say the least.

So you really feel a that a classic conservative news media pile-on over nothing, leading to a department not being allowed to decide what words to use to describe things, makes you feel like your speech is more "free"?

It seems like bizarro world, to me. Where publishing a list of recommended speech corrections, with no intention to enforce it in any way, is supposedly "policing", But instituting actual policy saying that you cannot publish such a list is lauded as a victory against speech policing.

Y'all never read Orwell much, did you?

Yes, I've read Orwell, twice as a matter of fact, and imo, the people who are making up new words, and then judging people who don't accept them, are far more Orwellian than those who object to these idiotic things. It's not only conservative news sources who criticized this list. Can we just drop it now and move on!

Not only can we drop it, we now must drop it, as the university administration has said so.

Freedom of speech -- within politically acceptable bounds. Don't make waves. Hoorah.

If you read Orwell and came to the conclusion that the fucking pigs are the true defenders of animal rights, you didn't get it.

Who is having political power exercised against them here? Who is the target of that use of power?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I guess. But fuck me and every other engineer I meet who no longer uses master/slave but gravitates towards primary/secondary, or controller/secondary

Several decades ago I was affiliated with electronics engineers who often spoke of male connectors and female connectors. Are these terms still in use?

Yeah. I know plumbers who make sexual jokes about the analogous things in plumbing....which is fine between friends. If there were ladies at the company and people who had been sexually assaulted and it were a company document with the jokes, it would be acceptable for someone to use their free speech to make a suggestion not to make those jokes in company documents.

 

[southernhybrid]

The list was way over the top, imo, but I did have some fun reading it to my dear son who is an IT professional, and some of my very liberal friends, so maybe it was good for a laugh. Stanford dd the right thing by ending it. Good for Stanford for actually taking the opinions of others into consideration. Believe it or not, it wasn't just conservatives who thought the list was unnecessary, to say the least.

So you really feel a that a classic conservative news media pile-on over nothing, leading to a department not being allowed to decide what words to use to describe things, makes you feel like your speech is more "free"?

It seems like bizarro world, to me. Where publishing a list of recommended speech corrections, with no intention to enforce it in any way, is supposedly "policing", But instituting actual policy saying that you cannot publish such a list is lauded as a victory against speech policing.

Y'all never read Orwell much, did you?

Yes, I've read Orwell, twice as a matter of fact, and imo, the people who are making up new words, and then judging people who don't accept them, are far more Orwellian than those who object to these idiotic things. It's not only conservative news sources who criticized this list. Can we just drop it now and move on!

Not only can we drop it, we now must drop it, as the university administration has said so.

Freedom of speech -- within politically acceptable bounds. Don't make waves. Hoorah.

If you read Orwell and came to the conclusion that the fucking pigs are the true defenders of animal rights, you didn't get it.

Who is having political power exercised against them here? Who is the target of that use of power?

I was thinking more of "1984", which I've read twice, once just a few years ago. My point was that language police seem Orwellian to me, and that is exactly what some of these overly woke folks are trying to do. They are telling people that they can't use certain words. They are changing the meaning of language. Sure, Stanford isn't forcing these changes, but that stupid list reminded me of the language police which are sort of like the thought police, which are kind of Orwellian if you think about it.

I have clearly stated numerous times in this thread, that I wasn't simply referring to the stupid Stanford list. It just reminded me of a lot of what's going on these days. People are being criticized and "cancelled" because they are using certain words that some overly sensitive people find offensive. Sometimes they use the words out of ignorance and sometimes even after they apologize, they are fired from their jobs or hardly criticized. That to me is similar to the Orwellian world in "1984". Of course, not quite as extreme, but heading in that direction. People on the extreme left can be just as dangerous as people on the extreme right.

Shouldn't we be more concerned with how people act, then with how they speak? I've known people who may have used some offensive language, but they did a lot of good deeds for others, including strangers. I'm a lot more impressed by that, then I am by liberals who waste their time telling others how to speak, while trying to keep low income folks out of their neighborhoods, for example. Since you apparently haven't gotten my point, I felt it was time to move on. I wasn't going to respond to your last post, but thought that maybe if I tried to explain it one more time, you would at least be open minded enough to realize the problem I see with the language police. Okay?

 

[Elixir]

that stupid list reminded me of the language police which are sort of like the thought police, which are kind of Orwellian if you think about it.

THINKING ABOUT IT IS DOUBLE PLUS UNGOOD!
- BB

 

[thebeave]

Up next on the chopping block (perhaps):

VIRAL ARTICLE SAYS STOP USING 'Q-WORD' ... Is Queer a Slur???

A viral article out of the UK is posing an interesting request -- pleading with the public (and the media) to stop using the word "queer" ... as the author apparently views it as a slur.

The brief opinion piece -- which also seems to be a letter to the editor -- appeared in the Guardian this week ... and the headline simply read, "Please don’t use the Q-word." It's written by a fella named Karl Lockwood, who says he's a gay man of nearly 7 decades.

So, now it may not be LGBTQ much longer? Its' getting hard to keep with the changes in my old age. I'm thinking more and more of saying "sayonara" and becoming a hermit. Now that I think about it, I probably offended someone just now by culturally appropriating "sayonara".

 

[Politesse]

Sure, Stanford isn't forcing these changes.

Yes, it is. The college made it very clear, this project must cease. The list was never defined policy. The forced cancellation of the whole initiative was and is. By approving of the college's decision, you are advocating for the abridgement of free speech. Because you felt threatened and insulted by where the conversation was going, which is exactly what motivates most abridgements of speech.