6 ms·

18F gives me the creeps because of https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion-by-customizing-a-slack-bot/ https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion

18F gives me the creeps because of https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion-by-customizing-a-slack-bot/ https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion-by-customiz... Something about government robots and goodspeak speech correction feels Orwellian, even if it's really tiny.

easychewie 10y ago
Even though many people see "guys" as a harmless, genderless word, not everybody does. You can think of the opposite word to guys (for example: gals or girls) and wonder if a group of men would feel comfortable being referred to as girls. When someone refers to you using a word that you don’t identify with, it's easy to feel excluded from conversation or misidentified. Good grief. What a bunch of girls.
- chiph 10y ago
  As a southerner - the answer was in their list. The correct term is "y'all", the plural (and sometimes singular) of "you".
guessmyname 10y ago
Ha ha ha this Americans and their political correctness. I cringe every time I see things like this and the HN community doesn't escapes from it, in fact, I have seen more "political correctness" towards sexism here more than in other communities on the Internet (at least the ones I visit). I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. I can only imagine how people would react in countries with a language with Latin roots like French, Portuguese, Spanish where there are multiple ways to refer to a individual or group of people with different genders more than in neutral languages like English.
- wpietri 10y ago
  > I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. Quite a lot of people who respond as you do actively don't want to understand. But in case you're one of the ones who is actually curious: Historically, sexism has been a problem. For millennia, women were basically property. The last couple hundred years, we've been unwinding that. E.g. less than 100 years ago, women finally got to vote. They didn't have equal access to credit cards until 1974. In the 1990s, US states finally all made marital rape illegal. In the early aughts, women reached parity in the proportion of people getting medical and legal degrees. (The proportion of actual doctors and lawyers hasn't caught up yet; it's around 33% now, and I'd guess it will hit 50% about 2040.) One place that sexism still resides is in language. That language at least sometimes shapes thinking. Many women in professional contexts reasonably object to gendered language that excludes them. So to be polite, many workplaces are shifting to use more inclusive language. So, TL;DR: we're in the middle of overturning millennia of pervasive sexism, a language shift is part of that, and if we're lucky we'll be done with the project in only decades.
  - Anasufovic 10y ago
    What is your solution for gendered languages?
    - Naritai 10y ago
      Regardless of what speakers of those languages do, we can do everything we can to remove gender bias from English. We don't have to keep doing something just because others are doing it.
      - wpietri 10y ago
        Yup. I don't have a solution for gendered languages because it's not a problem I deal with much. I'm going to work on English, and I'll trust that other people will find the right solution for their cultures.
        refurb 10y ago
        Are you working hard at not referring to ships using a feminine pronoun (i.e. "this is her maiden voyage")?
        wpietri 10y ago
        Nope. Gendering ships has always felt awkward to me.
    - lutorm 10y ago
      There is a perfect, old-school expression: "ladies and gentlemen".
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- jrockway 10y ago
  This isn't about political correctness, it's about using the words you actually mean. If you are addressing a group of people, it makes sense to include them all in your address. So use a word that includes everyone, as the bot mentions, there are plenty. If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, how about a thought experiment. You're a man, you started dating a woman. Do you tell your friends, "hey, I just started dating this great guy!" Nope. So why use that as your generic pronoun for your coworkers? It unnecessarily makes people feel excluded, even if you don't intend to exclude them.
  - ohyoutravel 10y ago
    100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa. Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group. That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.
    - jrockway 10y ago
      Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
      - JBReefer 10y ago
        I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions. Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.
msimpson 10y ago
First of all, since when did "guys" uniquely refer to the male gender? Second, how was this even worth the time it took to create?
- lucideer 10y ago
  "Guys" is plural for "guy", which literally means "man". The plural has informally been made gender neutral in an attempt to be inclusive, but the connotations will always remain given what the singular means, so it's a pretty regressive attempt at inclusivity.
  - msimpson 10y ago
    Last time I checked "guys" was a plural for "guy", which literally comes from the British, meaning, "a person of grotesque appearance" in relation to an effigy Guy Fawkes or those who dress to resemble him on November the 5th (essentially British Halloween). A word to which Americans only gave masculine overtones much later. So while the singular has been informally made gender specific, the plural is--and has always been--gender neutral as both sexes dressed as "guys". This is a group of guys: http://goo.gl/AvjTzz http://goo.gl/AvjTzz
    - lucideer 10y ago
      That's some very creative selective historicising. The modern definition of guy is man. Unequivocally. Beyond the very seasonal references to the effigy in England, that definition is not in general discourse outside of tomorrow's holiday and your archaic definition is certainly not used by anyone save etymologists. The modern defining to mean man is not purely an Americanism by any stretch. The pluralisation is also contemporary. Regardless of etymological technical "truths", can you really say with intellectual honesty that there's no masculine connotation inherent in "guys"?
      - msimpson 10y ago
        "Regardless of etymological technical "truths", can you really say with intellectual honesty that there's no masculine connotation inherent in "guys"?" I'm sure there is to certain people. But to me, my family, friends, and coworkers I have not found it to be the case, no. In fact, I hear female coworkers use the term neutrally every day. We as a team even use the term over conference calls with people all across the country and I have yet to hear anyone take issue, offer correction, or purposefully use alternative terminology. I simply don't see this as a problem, nor can I understand why it needs to be purposefully corrected. It's the same PC attitude that causes people to take issue with those who call African Americans black. To me, black is a more useful term. If it wasn't in my repertoire, I'd have no way to distinguish Idris Elba from the rest of an essentially all white cast ... Here's a fun test. Tell me which gender connotation the following terms hold: Cheerleader, Usher, Flight Attendant, and Comedian. If you said female, male, female, male, you'd be wrong as all are gender neutral.

easychewie 10y ago

Even though many people see "guys" as a harmless, genderless word, not everybody does. You can think of the opposite word to guys (for example: gals or girls) and wonder if a group of men would feel comfortable being referred to as girls. When someone refers to you using a word that you don’t identify with, it's easy to feel excluded from conversation or misidentified. Good grief. What a bunch of girls.

chiph 10y ago
As a southerner - the answer was in their list. The correct term is "y'all", the plural (and sometimes singular) of "you".

guessmyname 10y ago

Ha ha ha this Americans and their political correctness. I cringe every time I see things like this and the HN community doesn't escapes from it, in fact, I have seen more "political correctness" towards sexism here more than in other communities on the Internet (at least the ones I visit). I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. I can only imagine how people would react in countries with a language with Latin roots like French, Portuguese, Spanish where there are multiple ways to refer to a individual or group of people with different genders more than in neutral languages like English.

wpietri 10y ago
> I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. Quite a lot of people who respond as you do actively don't want to understand. But in case you're one of the ones who is actually curious: Historically, sexism has been a problem. For millennia, women were basically property. The last couple hundred years, we've been unwinding that. E.g. less than 100 years ago, women finally got to vote. They didn't have equal access to credit cards until 1974. In the 1990s, US states finally all made marital rape illegal. In the early aughts, women reached parity in the proportion of people getting medical and legal degrees. (The proportion of actual doctors and lawyers hasn't caught up yet; it's around 33% now, and I'd guess it will hit 50% about 2040.) One place that sexism still resides is in language. That language at least sometimes shapes thinking. Many women in professional contexts reasonably object to gendered language that excludes them. So to be polite, many workplaces are shifting to use more inclusive language. So, TL;DR: we're in the middle of overturning millennia of pervasive sexism, a language shift is part of that, and if we're lucky we'll be done with the project in only decades.
- Anasufovic 10y ago
  What is your solution for gendered languages?
  - Naritai 10y ago
    Regardless of what speakers of those languages do, we can do everything we can to remove gender bias from English. We don't have to keep doing something just because others are doing it.
    - wpietri 10y ago
      Yup. I don't have a solution for gendered languages because it's not a problem I deal with much. I'm going to work on English, and I'll trust that other people will find the right solution for their cultures.
      - refurb 10y ago
        Are you working hard at not referring to ships using a feminine pronoun (i.e. "this is her maiden voyage")?
        wpietri 10y ago
        Nope. Gendering ships has always felt awkward to me.
  - lutorm 10y ago
    There is a perfect, old-school expression: "ladies and gentlemen".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
jrockway 10y ago
This isn't about political correctness, it's about using the words you actually mean. If you are addressing a group of people, it makes sense to include them all in your address. So use a word that includes everyone, as the bot mentions, there are plenty. If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, how about a thought experiment. You're a man, you started dating a woman. Do you tell your friends, "hey, I just started dating this great guy!" Nope. So why use that as your generic pronoun for your coworkers? It unnecessarily makes people feel excluded, even if you don't intend to exclude them.
- ohyoutravel 10y ago
  100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa. Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group. That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
    - JBReefer 10y ago
      I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions. Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.

msimpson 10y ago

First of all, since when did "guys" uniquely refer to the male gender? Second, how was this even worth the time it took to create?

lucideer 10y ago
"Guys" is plural for "guy", which literally means "man". The plural has informally been made gender neutral in an attempt to be inclusive, but the connotations will always remain given what the singular means, so it's a pretty regressive attempt at inclusivity.
- msimpson 10y ago
  Last time I checked "guys" was a plural for "guy", which literally comes from the British, meaning, "a person of grotesque appearance" in relation to an effigy Guy Fawkes or those who dress to resemble him on November the 5th (essentially British Halloween). A word to which Americans only gave masculine overtones much later. So while the singular has been informally made gender specific, the plural is--and has always been--gender neutral as both sexes dressed as "guys". This is a group of guys: http://goo.gl/AvjTzz http://goo.gl/AvjTzz
  - lucideer 10y ago
    That's some very creative selective historicising. The modern definition of guy is man. Unequivocally. Beyond the very seasonal references to the effigy in England, that definition is not in general discourse outside of tomorrow's holiday and your archaic definition is certainly not used by anyone save etymologists. The modern defining to mean man is not purely an Americanism by any stretch. The pluralisation is also contemporary. Regardless of etymological technical "truths", can you really say with intellectual honesty that there's no masculine connotation inherent in "guys"?
    - msimpson 10y ago
      "Regardless of etymological technical "truths", can you really say with intellectual honesty that there's no masculine connotation inherent in "guys"?" I'm sure there is to certain people. But to me, my family, friends, and coworkers I have not found it to be the case, no. In fact, I hear female coworkers use the term neutrally every day. We as a team even use the term over conference calls with people all across the country and I have yet to hear anyone take issue, offer correction, or purposefully use alternative terminology. I simply don't see this as a problem, nor can I understand why it needs to be purposefully corrected. It's the same PC attitude that causes people to take issue with those who call African Americans black. To me, black is a more useful term. If it wasn't in my repertoire, I'd have no way to distinguish Idris Elba from the rest of an essentially all white cast ... Here's a fun test. Tell me which gender connotation the following terms hold: Cheerleader, Usher, Flight Attendant, and Comedian. If you said female, male, female, male, you'd be wrong as all are gender neutral.