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Language

Words matter. Use language to support each other.

How I'm doing this is by working a lot of common terminology out of the words I use every day.

Why change my language?

I'm not alone. TTS, where I work, created inclusion bot to nudge people in Slack about the words they use. I've contributed to inclusion bot over time and also spoken about it.

I also recommend Intuit content design's Anti-racist language, which includes a list of specific words to avoid

Index and intro

I'll be creating a list of my own here shortly. Right now I keep this as a private ever-expanding list, but folks have asked me if I could share it, so hello! that's forthcoming. The major categories right now are: ableist, addiction / alcohol / substance use, animal use / abuse, capitalist, carceral, classist, closed practices / appropriation / diminutizing, colonial (common crossover with racist), colorism, competitive (also sometimes ableist), gambling (not great for some people for religious or addiction reasons), gendered, illegal, military (very long due to crossover in government), mocking other languages / English as a second language, racial overtones / slavery (frequent crossover with racist), racist / eugenicist, religious (many majority religions have acted oppressively), sexual / sexual violence, violent (frequent crossover with military).

A couple categories I keep privately but don't intend to put here include sports, since competition sometimes gets ugly, they're often Americanisms, especially baseball references, and also I'm often just not good at these, swearing, some that just sound bad, and a miscellaneous / catch-all category mostly consisting of edge cases.

This list is a sub-set of the full list, because it absolutely is possible to take this to extremes and — hello! — that's sometimes me. This is one example. Get in touch if you're curious to see more or want to urge me to publish the rest. first name last name @ gmail — just spell it right.

Alternatives

What language could we use that's better? is a longer-term project. My colleague Peter suggested theatre kid terminology like "hard act to follow," for example.

The list

Ableist

  • "as a crutch"

Addiction / alcohol / substance use (see also gambling below)

  • "addicted to" (either when not, or actual)

Ageist

  • "age before beauty"

Animal use / abuse

  • "as an attack dog"

Carceral

  • "cop-out"

Classist

  • "first-world" problem

Closed practices / appropriation / diminutizing

  • "lowest on the totem pole"

Colonial / empire

  • "bury the hatchet"

Colorism

  • "black ball"

Competitive (also sometimes ableist)

  • "beat you to it"

Gambling

  • "bets"

Gendered

  • actress (actor)

Illegal

  • "crib from" (from the physical item, a small basket that poachers would conceal their catch in"

Military

  • "10-4"
  • about-face
  • above board (nautical if not military)

Mocking other languages / English as a non-first language

  • "long time no see"
  • "no problemo"

Racial overtones / slavery (see also: racist, below)

  • cakewalk (originally a dance done by enslaved people as a mockery of white people: owners held dance contests where the prize was a cake. Later the dance and idiom were popularized by minstrel shows)
  • civil servant (anything containing "servant" may be problematic for people who have held that role, whose family have, or whose forebears were enslaved and thus were forced into that role)

Racist / eugenicist

  • "bad juju"
  • "Chief" as in "listen, Chief"

Religious (since majority religions have been or are oppressive)

  • "chapter and verse"
  • Easter egg
  • "evangelize"

Violent (see also many in military, above)

  • "add fuel to the fire"
  • "beat them to the punch"