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Gotta love how the page for "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative" has a content warning:

"Content Warning: This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own pace."

It's not going well so far.



The content warning is reasonable and it works: because I ain’t reading that crap. I have standards. I prefer to avoid being angry with fools, today.


>” I prefer to avoid being angry with fools, today.”

That is my inclination as well, but truth be told something feels very unsettling and insidious about this document. I can get on board with some word choice changes if they seem reasonable. However just about everything in this list seems unjustifiable and purely driven by some neo-puritanical moralism.

One day I can envision this list being codified into the grammar and spell check programs we use for word processing and email.

If people don’t speak up, this will end up becoming something that gets enforced. Not legally enforced, mind you, but first it will become mandatory in academia, then in journalism, then in the business word, and eventually new generations will speak it natively.


> That is my inclination as well, but truth be told something feels very unsettling and insidious about this document.

The problem is: it never ends. There will be new words and phrases next year, and the year after.




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