by zahlman | 2025-08-28 00:05:03+00:00
Sigh, it looks like I let myself get baited into a rant about this topic again. I really thought I had been doing better about this in the past few years, but I do feel myself slipping lately.

> Avoid using terms that have social history. Terms that can have historical significance or impact in regards to race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, mental and physical ability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, and educational background.

> Avoid using idioms and jargons. These can exclude people who don’t have particular specialized knowledge, and many idioms don’t translate from country to country. Additionally, these sometimes have origins in negative stereotypes.

I can guarantee you, however, that they won't object if you use terms that deliberately make negative associations between "powerful" or "privileged" groups and various negative characteristics, that were specifically coined for activist or ideological purposes. And woe betide you if your own "particular specialized knowledge" doesn't extend as far as the "101" of their particular ideology.

I'm speaking from experience. If guidelines like these were applied fairly, we wouldn't see codes of conduct that preemptively reject claims of "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism" (which are not terms actually used by the people making such complaints). Yet I got banned (https://zahlman.github.io/posts/2024/07/31/an-open-letter-to... ; https://zahlman.github.io/pages/dpo/) from the Python discussion forums for (among other related things) objecting to such language, and then my objections were misrepresented as themselves being such claims — in the process, putting in my mouth the very words I consider invalid. (That incident is actually related to what brought me to HN a bit over a year ago.)

By the way, "jargon" is a collective noun and shouldn't be pluralized here.

> Write inclusive examples. Try to avoid using examples in documentation that is culturally-specific to a particular country, and be sure to use diverse names.

Of course, we are also counseled to ensure that we treat men and women as equal in our writing — as we should; but in some cultures that is heretical.

And "using diverse names" is going to get you in trouble when you choose two names from cultures that hate each others' guts and depict them having a pleasant interaction. Or when you misspell them, or use a politically contentious romanization of them, or are wrong about what gender they connote in that culture, or....

Not to mention the premise that names are associated with cultures in the first place. And not to mention what happens when someone decides that your examples have a bias towards depicting people from certain cultures as more capable than people from others, even if you got the names from an RNG. And that will eventually happen.

> Language that has historical or social roots, often assuming one classification as dominant over another.

Well, no, it doesn't. The etymology simply isn't what you imagine it to be, and there's generally reams of documentation of that fact.

It's frankly offensive to have others try to tell me what my own words mean, and assign purpose to them. These interpretations are not reasonable, and reflect a failure to engage with the culture and history of others in the same way they'd like done for them.

But I mean, seriously, they object to "housekeeping". How, even? If you think there's a negative connotation in that word, and if you furthermore think that there's something discriminatory to tie to that connotation, I think that says more about you than about the person who used it.

> Language that either assumes the gender of the users and developers, or that makes assumptions of a gender.

It quite literally doesn't in most cases. This is ignorant of English etymology and should be considered offensive, especially by speakers of Germanic languages.

Besides which, sometimes your group actually does consist of all men, and interlopers like this want to limit the forms of camaraderie deemed socially acceptable. From outside the group.

> Gendered pronouns (he/him/his, she/her/hers) → they, them, theirs

You should absolutely be permitted to "assume" the gender of a hypothetical person you made up in your own head for the purpose of laying out an example in documentation. And individuals have as much right to be offended by being referred to as "they" as by "he" or "she", according to their own respective preferences. You cannot have it both ways: if everyone's gender self-identification is supposed to be taken at face value, then you cannot also have gender-neutral, one-size-fits-all solutions.

> Language that assumes a certain state of body or mind as superior to others.

There is no "assumption" taking place here.

Let me apologize, though. Above, I used the word "invalid" as an adjective, to describe something I don't consider valid. But this is also used as a noun to describe people who are "sickly or disabled", excuse me (Merriam-Webster, how could you feed me such horrible language?), in poor health or... you know what, I genuinely don't know how to continue this.

> Normal → typical, usual

> Abnormal → atypical, unusual

These are synonyms. The supposedly problematic terms don't even have anything to do with "states of body or mind" in the first place.

> Language that makes assumptions based on age or that reinforce an age-based stereotype.

Okay, but...

> Grandfather, grandfathering, legacy → flagship, established, rollover, carryover

... really? The harmful "stereotype" that... people would like to leave an inheritance to their descendants? Or that people who have lived longer have experienced policies that are no longer in effect? What?

> Violent language: Language that practices a degree of aggression or machismo.

Hold on, "machismo", you say? As in:

> Machismo (/məˈtʃiːzmoʊ, mɑː-, -ˈtʃɪz-/; Spanish: [maˈtʃismo]; Portuguese: [maˈʃiʒmu]; from Spanish macho 'male' and -ismo)[1] is the sense of being "manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity".[2]

This is where the mask slips, although I think it was transparent to begin with. (Sorry about the use of idiom.) Yes, the same people that tell us to avoid "language that makes assumption of a gender" will happily and freely associate violence with masculinity on the same page. Thanks a lot, really. I certainly feel more included now.