What's your opinion of inclusive language?

Why would I want to use exclusive language? If I know it's going to make someone feel worse instead of better, why would I use?

The only argument for not using it that I can think of is that you don't give a shit about other people...

I don't care. I am Australian so everyone is mate. unless I forget their name then they are whatsTheirFace.

Inclusive language isn't even a particularly new "woke" thing. The phrase "Ladies and gentlemen" goes way way back.

I'm going to assume you're in the white men majority, probably christian, so it seems weird to you because by default, people use he/him and male centric wording. Lets flip it for a second: female is now the default. You're presumed to be a woman unless proven otherwise. Everything starts with "Ladies, welcome to the show". All the products are pink and advertised to women, unless it's specifically a men's product, and when it does, it clearly says "for men" like you're a special kind of human. You buy a wrench "for men" to fix your car. People always talk to your wife first, as you're just the wife's husband she's hauling around. How do you feel? Pretty excluded right?

That's why we use inclusive language. And we didn't even touch LGBTQ+ issues yet.

It's not hard to not make assumptions. I can use "OP claimed they did X" instead of "OP claimed she did ", with zero loss of information, but the first one is right whether you're a man or woman, the other assumes you're a woman and implies you're unusual for not being a woman, you're the other kind that needs to be explicitly mentioned. And it happens all day, everyday, all the time.

So, if you want to include everyone, you don't make gender, race, political alignment or religious assumptions unless you know for sure. It's basic respect, it's free, and it makes some people happier, so why not do it?

Eh, it costs me nothing, makes some people feel respected, ans allows me to piss off idiots. What's not to love?

Asks a neutral question about how the community feels: gets downvoted. I swear the Internet is just echo chambers now.

Even if you have strong opinions (in either direction) on the subject, use this as an opportunity to express that point of view. Are we really so sensitive as to be mad for someone asking the question?

I think gendered pronouns (he/she) kinda suck and cause more problems than they're worth. Sure they solve grammatical ambiguity in writing, I guess, but other than that they don't really add anything. But on the downside they encourage either "male first" or very clunky ("he or she") language. Not to mention the fact that it causes referring to significant groups of the population to suddenly become a "gender politics" issue, and is used as a tool to hurt said people.

Personally, I think "they" should always be acceptable and we should get rid of gender connotations for words like "dude". In modern times where you can talk to people without physically looking at them (like here for example, you don't know how I present IRL), there's no reason for gender to even be a part of people's identity any more than, for example, what sublemmys they follow or what instance they are on.

... But of course, I don't see that happening, at least soon, but I do think in 2024 there is no excuse not to use gender neutral words if it's ambiguous.

I also have some thoughts on "autistic people" vs "people with autism", but I'm not sure if that's what's being discussed here or of interest to anyone, so I'll leave it be. :P

Permanently Deleted

I think it depends on circumstances.

We still have people here who use phrases like "Indian giver" and ">!wigger!<", and describe dads parenting as " babysitting". Phrases like these will offend people and should not be used.

Saying "partner" instead of husband/wife directly helps people who don't want to specify because being out of the closet is a political statement. Referring to your partner as your husband/wife/whatever doesn't offend anyone (at least, no reasonable person), but it's a nice gesture.

Then we have shit like LatinX which is made up by bored white people on Twitter. It's cringeworthy, stupid and nobody asked.

And these categories can change depending on locale. I live somewhere with little to no Romani population. If you tell someone here not to say "gypped", they will tell you to touch grass. Nobody knows or cares about the origin of that word here. As I understand it though, it can be a very un-pc thing to say in some parts of of the world.

What do you mean by inclusive language?

It's always good to consider your audience, I guess is my take. So for instance, since my development team at work is comprised of both men and women, I don't use the term "boyscout changes" and instead just "scout changes."

But also, I'm not gonna nitpick and get lost in nuance. For instance, the exclamation of "DUDE!" has no gender connotations to me. And if it offends someone... get over it dude.

I think inclusive language is a way to pat ourselves on the back when we really should be enacting inclusive behavior.

Changing language is always tempting because it’s a zero-effort way to do nothing and appear like you’re doing something.

Inclusive language per se not a problem, but it’s far too easy for it to act as an empty virtue signal.

Here’s an example of an inclusive behavior: next time you’re thinking of cutting someone out of your life, don’t.

See what I mean? There’s gonna be people who would take offense at the idea of letting someone stay in your life, giving them another chance, because it could be unsafe or it’s not your job or something.

But keeping people around is the definition of inclusion. Inclusive language allows us to think of ourselves as inclusive without actually being inclusive.

My perspective: Thr right-wing people have a too narrow perspective on trying new things. Where I live it's them yelling the loudest about how to use language. And writhing, yelling and opposing things just for the sake of it doesn't get you anywhere. We'd need to talk about how to include people, be nice and how to actually tackle the underlying problems. But people are too lazy for that. It's easier to debate a strawman and make it about who tries to tell whom, how to speak. And the issues doesn't ever gets dealt with. The whole debate is childish and entirely misses the point.

I liked using what was then archaic language back in school 20 years ago. I'll be one of the last ones to change.

2010 called, they want their cringe pfp back.

There are 2 ways of being inclusive: making minorities feel welcome and showing toxic positivity. When it's the former, it's absolutely necessary. Being able to view media like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Patriot Act has genuinely filled a hole left by sitcoms like iCarly and Full House. It's not easy for me to describe this "older TV" experience to someone who hasn't experienced it, but it may be a tiny bit like moving suddenly from the US to the UK and being forced to become fully British. Characters always have some trait that makes them completely unrelatable.

The latter mostly manifests in censorship. While it's fine for people to give small corrections (e.g. using 'they' instead of (s)he), being rude about it or not letting people talk just fosters hate. A rough example is racial jokes. While it's not okay for a random stranger to say them to another stranger, it's perfectly acceptable (and IMO should be encouraged) to use them to strengthen relationships. Policing jokes that me and my South Indian friend make to each other is not only unnecessary but also less inclusive. If I was on the receiving end of racial remarks and ignorance, I should be able to say those exact things in a joking or mocking manner with the intent of having fun

EDIT: Pavitr Prabhakar is genuinely one of my favorite characters, and I'm so glad they included him in Spiderverse 2.

I generally use "they" if I'm talking about an unknown or indeterminate person, like "someone forgot their umbrella here. They are going to get wet", "if one of our clients has a problem with our software, they will tell us", etc.

I don't fuck with "they" for talking about someone specific. I always find it irritating when someone says something like "Alice is going to the shop. They are going to buy a dress", or "Geoff is going to watch the hockey match. They are a fan of the Habs." It just sounds clunky and like intentionally being obtuse for the sake of shoehorning in one's politics.

Consider a reversal:

Imagine just how consistently-offended we guys'd be, if the term for an uncrewed vehicle was "unwomaned".

So, it was either "womaned" or "unwomaned".

Insulting-as-hell, right?

It's equally insulting, the other-way-'round, but we're concertedly conditioned to feeling it to be "normal".

That's the only difference: our imprinting.

This is a decades-old demonstration of how prejudiced it is to use a single pronoun "Mr." for guys, while using 2 different pronouns for women, depending-on marital-status.

Hofstadter remapped it from married-status-of-women to employed-status-of-blacks, to show how prejudiced it is, in spite of our imprinting.

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc38-DeBzPA