Your New "Inclusive Language Guide"
Learning how to master these new language skills is a cakewalk, all without lowering the bar to becoming a first-class communicator.
(WARNING: Satire and sarcasm)
Our new cultural gurus are hard at work. They have a new mantra to help us avoid blind spots in how we communicate with each other—all without dumbing down the language or being tone-deaf to critical cultural trends.
After all, you don’t want to gyp yourself out of a job or opportunity that will help you climb the totem pole. While it’s bad news that the use of these words cannot be grandfathered, mastering these new language skills is a cakewalk. And they don’t lower the bar to becoming a first-class communicator!
After all, you don’t want to be relegated to the peanut gallery when it comes to engaging with native and non-native speakers and writers on important cultural debates and issues. You don’t want people doing a sanity check on you, thinking you may be crazy or insane. So let’s open the kimono, grab our brown-bag lunches, and see what our new language sherpas have in mind for us. It’s not a mysterious black box, and it will become tribal knowledge to you before long.
You don’t want to be a slave to exclusive thought and language.
First, a big thanks to the Information Technology folks at the University of Washington for this ground-breaking work. Good job, guys and gals! This is an excellent blacklist of problematic words and phrases, coupled with a whitelist of acceptable terms to use in their place, organized in four groups:
Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, Religion, Native/Indigenous Identity
Disability and Ableism
Ageism
Gender and sexual orientation
Take notes. There will be a test. There will always be a test. And the work is never finished. “This inclusive language guide with its list of problematic words and phrases is by no means exhaustive, and not all problematic words or phrases have been captured here,” the guide says. If you have comments, suggestions, or think something is missing from this guide, please email help@uw.edu with “Inclusive language guide” in the subject line to start a conversation with the UW-IT Communications team.”
First of all, as part of our new communication lifestyle, colloquialism is out.
Colloquial language in particular can be a source of many problematic words and phrases, and many of the terms we included in the list below are colloquial. Colloquial language refers to words or expressions used in ordinary language by common people.
Colloquialism is casual conversation where some slang terms are used and where no attempt is made at being formal. This can include idioms, or phrases that have a cultural meaning, but that meaning is derived from a cultural familiarity and not the meaning of the words themselves.
Examples include “raining cats and dogs” or “sanity check” or “lowering the bar.” While most people reading this guide know exactly what these phrases mean, the meaning is derived from a cultural context and not the words themselves. Two of those phrases are problematic, and included in the list of problematic words below.
The guide says not to use “master" or “slave.” For example, when shopping for a new home, never ask to see the “master bedroom.” And that isn’t the only problematic word for the residential real estate industry.
Although a memorandum issued by HUD in 1995 listed phrases like ‘bachelor pad’ and ‘mother-in-law unit’ as non-violations of the FHA, political correctness and hypersensitivity now indicate otherwise.
This past August, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling and awarded the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center a new trial in a federal discrimination lawsuit over an Ohio apartment listing for a “bachelor pad.”
But wait! Isn’t the use of the word “owner” problematic? Isn’t property ownership a relic of the colonial era? What would Karl Marx, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) say? We can’t consult Senator Bernie Sanders because he owns three homes. He needs to be redlined.
Same for words like “blacklist” or “blackout” dates. No can do! Same with calling U.S. cybersecurity experts “white hat hackers.” We might offend blackhat hackers in China, Russia, and Iran.
Question for the IT people at the University of Washington. Can I use the reference “Pandora’s Box?” After all, Pandora was a female (the first woman on earth, created by the gods, as the myth goes) who unleashed mayhem on the world. Isn’t that misogynistic? And is it bigotry to call Greek Mythology a, well, myth? After all, a small minority may actually believe this, or want to. We’d better ban or relable those books under that title. Get busy.
And who gets to tell Congress and state legislatures that “grandfather” clauses must be relabeled as “legacy” or “exempt” clauses. From the guide.
“‘Grandfathering’ or ‘grandfather clause’ was used as a way to exempt some people from a change because of conditions that existed before the change (e.g., ‘we’ve grandfathered some users on an unlimited data plan.’) ‘Grandfather clause’ originated in the American South in the 1890s as a way to defy the 15th Amendment and prevent black Americans from voting.’”
But what about actual grandfathers? Is that okay? It seems awfully gender exclusive, even ageist. Inquiring minds need to know. Please tell us, inclusive language ninjas! What should my future grandchildren call me someday? Voter suppressionist? Maybe “Gray Beard” will work. Wait, what?
Maybe these new language rules aren’t the cakewalk we thought it was. Speaking of cakewalk:
The cakewalk was a pre-Civil War dance performed by enslaved people, and the winner of which would be given a cake. This is the original source for the phrases “takes the cake” and “cakewalk.” Because of this history, this word and phrase should be avoided.
And then there’s the use of the term minority.
When “minority” is used to refer to other races or abilities, used as a generalized term for “the other” and implies a “less than” attitude toward the community or communities being discussed. For example, the minority neighborhood (when talking about redlined areas of a town); the minority agenda, when people insinuate that the agenda is negative. The nuance and context of how the word is used is important to consider.
Avoid referring to an individual as a “minority” unless in a quotation.
In its place, it is okay to use the term underserved or historically excluded. But wait, is that true in a world of affirmative action, or at the White House, where it is okay to exclude people from positions such as Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court over gender and race? Don’t those terms denote victimhood and an inability to rise above circumstances? Seems like the soft bigotry of low expectations.
It looks like this may be the only form of whitelisted communication from now on.
Oh, wait, it is gender limiting and race exclusive.
Guess I’ve failed this test. I’d better revisit my freshman year of language training and put some severe manhours into this. I need to get my language housekeeping in order before the cancel-culture upperclassmen come after me. Again.