10 ms·

"The term man (from Proto-Germanic *mann- "person") and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age." [

by tsujp 5y ago

"The term man (from Proto-Germanic *mann- "person") and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their sex or age." [1] As with most things Google does this will set some kind of precedent that a non-trivial subset may follow on with. Where does this stop though? Human -> Huperson? What do we rename the `kill` command to? How will that affect scripts that use it? The result of that is to then have a shim to `kill` anyway so the net result is a tonne of stuff breaks and `kill` is still present? I'm all for improving our use of language but a lot of these kinds of changes are virtue signals that don't enact any meaningful change at all [2][3]. There are lots of words taken out of context purposefully for instance, "my process is hung" has nothing to do with hanging of human beings. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_(word) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_(word) [2] https://mooseyanon.medium.com/github-f-ck-your-name-change-de599033bbbe https://mooseyanon.medium.com/github-f-ck-your-name-change-d... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26487854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26487854

adrian17 5y ago
Similarly: > guys, you guys: When referring to a group of people use non-gendered language, such as everyone or folks. Isn't the plural form "guys" already explicitly inclusive?
- bbarnett 5y ago
  Some of this is so colloquial. Where I live, 'guys' is even used by women, when speaking to a group of other women. People assuming how they use language, is right, assumes that there is one language, eg, one english, not many. Very 'centre of the universe' thinking.
  - kevincox 5y ago
    While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. I grew up in Toronto, Canada where "guys" was widely used as a gender-neutral term in most contexts (admittedly there are some phrases where a gender is heavily implied). However when I was working at a tech company in Dublin, Ireland I noticed that if I addressed a room with "guys" women in the room would often feel excluded. This is not unreasonable given the different dialects and the minority of women in this setting. So sure, we could say that she is wrong for feeling excluded but when many minorities already feel excluded it seems wrong to use language that reaffirms that nagging feeling constantly whispering to them from the back of their mind. And avoiding the term "guys" is a simple case even though "Y'all" and "folks" sound really odd to me, I agree that there is a huge spectrum here and the line of what is reasonable and what isn't is incredibly fuzzy.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. In some cases, I found it the opposite. I've discussed this with a woman or two, as I was curious, and didn't want to offend. And they felt it includes them. Nothing is changed because they are there, they're just "one of the guys". Not a woman, or a man. Just another person in the group. You cite Dublin, and that's valid. And yet, that was me point. Here was have a world spanning company, Google, which should be as "metropolitan' as they come, blathering on about setting world-wide language policy, from the viewpoint of a small little US state. Seems very, very colloquial to me. If you're going to work in a world-spanning company, thinking your culture, in your little, tiny corner of the world, is "right" all the time is absurd.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  It's inclusive in some idiolects and exclusive in others.
- jerven 5y ago
  No "guys" is not inclusive in many situations. Guys is males first, female second.
  - damagednoob 5y ago
    How did you come to this conclusion? I have never seen a definition that implied a precedence.
    - Pfhreak 5y ago
      There are plenty of examples, from titles of things (eg. " Guys and Dolls"), to expressions that are clearly understood to be gendered. (Eg, "I only date guys." Or "if the guys will please leave the room for a moment.") Yes, there are are colloquial uses where it is gender neutral, but those are not universal internationally.
      - damagednoob 5y ago
        I'm not asking about whether guys can refer to both men and women. I'm asking explicitly about precedence. Is gentleman similarly problematic because of the phrase, 'ladies and gentleman'? This seems like a completely made up problem.
        Pfhreak 5y ago
        The phrase ladies and gentlemen does have it's own problems, mostly because it fails to address non binary people. > This seems like a completely made up problem. Only because it doesn't impact you. Consider developing more empathy. Surely you know some folks who gave challenges in their lives that others callously dismiss as not a big deal.
        damagednoob 5y ago
        If you're basing your argument of the gender precedence of 'guys' on 'Guys and Dolls', I think I'm comfortable in my opinion that this is a made up problem. > Surely you know some folks who gave challenges in their lives that others callously dismiss as not a big deal. Sure do. And they recognised that those problems were their own that they needed to overcome. Not insist that everyone else change to accommodate them.
- jawns 5y ago
  Not when you use language like, "I've kissed four guys in the past year." If I had to try to nail down when it is and isn't inclusive, I would say that when it is used in the second-person, where a speaker is directly addressing a group, it is the most likely to be gender-neutral: "Do you guys like this idea? Can I get you guys anything?" When it is used in a first- or third-person perspective, it's less likely to be used in a gender-neutral way. "I know some guys who work there" tends to be used only if you're talking about men. If you're talking about women only or a mixed group, it's more common to say, "I know some women who work there" or "I know some people who work there."
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Only in the second person. “(You) guys” versus “(those) guys.”
hutzlibu 5y ago
I very much agree, that this is not really helping nor worth the effort in most cases. Like whats offensive with about a hanging process? I can understand trying to remove some stigmatisations, like blacklist for bad and whitelist for good, even though they are hard as they are very commonly used. But maybe that is part of the problem, that our western culture has the colour encoding of white == good and black == bad. Even in an ideal world, where people don't notice the skin color anymore, I can see how a person with a black skin might feel hurt about that encoding in general, so maybe it is good moving step by step away from that, despite that it causes inconvenience.
- antibuddy 5y ago
  The connotation of black and white is not just a western one. It often derives from light vs absence of light (white vs black), where absence of light is often taken as something disadvantageous. It is also rather rarely used as good vs bad and more often denotes some vague characteristics (black/white plague for example). I find it especially hard to think of good/bad or even race when using the term blacklist or whitelist tho. There is some good reason to change black-/whitelists naming, but supposed racism is not one of them, because it is only due to some people feeling offended by a technical term. If you change words because some might feel offended, it will never stop. In the end you still have words to denote some characteristic and it will be taken as offensive if it is used at all (or by people of the "wrong" characteristic).
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    "If you change words because some might feel offended, it will never stop. " Well, since we are evolving our culture our changing of words hopefully never stops. Languge is an ongoing process and much of our language was shaped in a patriarchal, racist and sexist environment, that existed for centuries if not millenias. Now I might say, we advanced from that, so there are necessary language changes happening. That much energy is wasted in that regard, I very much agree. And I'd like some sanity back in the debate. I am also not sure about the black/white thing. (ah btw. some racist indeed favor the blond over black haired people, which gave ways to a antinazi joke: The Arier: Blond like Hitler, thin like Göring and tall like Himmler.) But I am "white", so I am not sure if I can judge about about a black skinned persons feelings about the matter or just ignore them. But that the very color linked to race scheme is stupid in the first place and that this should be the thing fighting against, I would agree. There was a south park episode about that, Cartman hit the black kid (just out of being an asshole with anger problems). And the school was about to punish him as usual, but no, because he was black it was a hate crime and the higher institutions got involved, with big fuss and lots of saying black. So I think Stan in the end said: if you treat people different because of their skin color, it means they are different. So it reinforces the race thinking. So I do agree: when I see a blacklist, I never would associate that with a person. I just try to be a bit sensitive of people who do. Which yes, it is hard to draw the line.
beeforpork 5y ago
> Human -> Huperson Haha, that's good one, I love it! :-) (Although 'human' comes from Latin and has nothing to do with Germanic 'man', but these details are never part of such a discussion, so let's ignore them.) When do people realise that 'homo sapiens' is sexist (and maybe offensive to LGBT* people!!)? It must be renamed to 'persona sapiens'!
DrBazza 5y ago
And 'master' is from Latin and Old English, that predates the USA by over 1500 years. Mr is an abbreviation of master. I wonder if anyone takes offense at that yet. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master
eli 5y ago
You're missing the point, which is to create clear documentation that is understandable by non-native speakers and is inclusive of all readers. The etymology of the words isn't really relevant to those goals.

by tsujp 5y ago

adrian17 5y ago

Similarly: > guys, you guys: When referring to a group of people use non-gendered language, such as everyone or folks. Isn't the plural form "guys" already explicitly inclusive?

bbarnett 5y ago
Some of this is so colloquial. Where I live, 'guys' is even used by women, when speaking to a group of other women. People assuming how they use language, is right, assumes that there is one language, eg, one english, not many. Very 'centre of the universe' thinking.
- kevincox 5y ago
  While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. I grew up in Toronto, Canada where "guys" was widely used as a gender-neutral term in most contexts (admittedly there are some phrases where a gender is heavily implied). However when I was working at a tech company in Dublin, Ireland I noticed that if I addressed a room with "guys" women in the room would often feel excluded. This is not unreasonable given the different dialects and the minority of women in this setting. So sure, we could say that she is wrong for feeling excluded but when many minorities already feel excluded it seems wrong to use language that reaffirms that nagging feeling constantly whispering to them from the back of their mind. And avoiding the term "guys" is a simple case even though "Y'all" and "folks" sound really odd to me, I agree that there is a huge spectrum here and the line of what is reasonable and what isn't is incredibly fuzzy.
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    While this is true isn't it helpful to make people feel included. In some cases, I found it the opposite. I've discussed this with a woman or two, as I was curious, and didn't want to offend. And they felt it includes them. Nothing is changed because they are there, they're just "one of the guys". Not a woman, or a man. Just another person in the group. You cite Dublin, and that's valid. And yet, that was me point. Here was have a world spanning company, Google, which should be as "metropolitan' as they come, blathering on about setting world-wide language policy, from the viewpoint of a small little US state. Seems very, very colloquial to me. If you're going to work in a world-spanning company, thinking your culture, in your little, tiny corner of the world, is "right" all the time is absurd.
pseudalopex 5y ago
It's inclusive in some idiolects and exclusive in others.
jerven 5y ago
No "guys" is not inclusive in many situations. Guys is males first, female second.
- damagednoob 5y ago
  How did you come to this conclusion? I have never seen a definition that implied a precedence.
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    There are plenty of examples, from titles of things (eg. " Guys and Dolls"), to expressions that are clearly understood to be gendered. (Eg, "I only date guys." Or "if the guys will please leave the room for a moment.") Yes, there are are colloquial uses where it is gender neutral, but those are not universal internationally.
    - damagednoob 5y ago
      I'm not asking about whether guys can refer to both men and women. I'm asking explicitly about precedence. Is gentleman similarly problematic because of the phrase, 'ladies and gentleman'? This seems like a completely made up problem.
      - Pfhreak 5y ago
        The phrase ladies and gentlemen does have it's own problems, mostly because it fails to address non binary people. > This seems like a completely made up problem. Only because it doesn't impact you. Consider developing more empathy. Surely you know some folks who gave challenges in their lives that others callously dismiss as not a big deal.
        damagednoob 5y ago
        If you're basing your argument of the gender precedence of 'guys' on 'Guys and Dolls', I think I'm comfortable in my opinion that this is a made up problem. > Surely you know some folks who gave challenges in their lives that others callously dismiss as not a big deal. Sure do. And they recognised that those problems were their own that they needed to overcome. Not insist that everyone else change to accommodate them.
jawns 5y ago
Not when you use language like, "I've kissed four guys in the past year." If I had to try to nail down when it is and isn't inclusive, I would say that when it is used in the second-person, where a speaker is directly addressing a group, it is the most likely to be gender-neutral: "Do you guys like this idea? Can I get you guys anything?" When it is used in a first- or third-person perspective, it's less likely to be used in a gender-neutral way. "I know some guys who work there" tends to be used only if you're talking about men. If you're talking about women only or a mixed group, it's more common to say, "I know some women who work there" or "I know some people who work there."
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Only in the second person. “(You) guys” versus “(those) guys.”

hutzlibu 5y ago

I very much agree, that this is not really helping nor worth the effort in most cases. Like whats offensive with about a hanging process? I can understand trying to remove some stigmatisations, like blacklist for bad and whitelist for good, even though they are hard as they are very commonly used. But maybe that is part of the problem, that our western culture has the colour encoding of white == good and black == bad. Even in an ideal world, where people don't notice the skin color anymore, I can see how a person with a black skin might feel hurt about that encoding in general, so maybe it is good moving step by step away from that, despite that it causes inconvenience.

antibuddy 5y ago
The connotation of black and white is not just a western one. It often derives from light vs absence of light (white vs black), where absence of light is often taken as something disadvantageous. It is also rather rarely used as good vs bad and more often denotes some vague characteristics (black/white plague for example). I find it especially hard to think of good/bad or even race when using the term blacklist or whitelist tho. There is some good reason to change black-/whitelists naming, but supposed racism is not one of them, because it is only due to some people feeling offended by a technical term. If you change words because some might feel offended, it will never stop. In the end you still have words to denote some characteristic and it will be taken as offensive if it is used at all (or by people of the "wrong" characteristic).
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "If you change words because some might feel offended, it will never stop. " Well, since we are evolving our culture our changing of words hopefully never stops. Languge is an ongoing process and much of our language was shaped in a patriarchal, racist and sexist environment, that existed for centuries if not millenias. Now I might say, we advanced from that, so there are necessary language changes happening. That much energy is wasted in that regard, I very much agree. And I'd like some sanity back in the debate. I am also not sure about the black/white thing. (ah btw. some racist indeed favor the blond over black haired people, which gave ways to a antinazi joke: The Arier: Blond like Hitler, thin like Göring and tall like Himmler.) But I am "white", so I am not sure if I can judge about about a black skinned persons feelings about the matter or just ignore them. But that the very color linked to race scheme is stupid in the first place and that this should be the thing fighting against, I would agree. There was a south park episode about that, Cartman hit the black kid (just out of being an asshole with anger problems). And the school was about to punish him as usual, but no, because he was black it was a hate crime and the higher institutions got involved, with big fuss and lots of saying black. So I think Stan in the end said: if you treat people different because of their skin color, it means they are different. So it reinforces the race thinking. So I do agree: when I see a blacklist, I never would associate that with a person. I just try to be a bit sensitive of people who do. Which yes, it is hard to draw the line.

beeforpork 5y ago

> Human -> Huperson Haha, that's good one, I love it! :-) (Although 'human' comes from Latin and has nothing to do with Germanic 'man', but these details are never part of such a discussion, so let's ignore them.) When do people realise that 'homo sapiens' is sexist (and maybe offensive to LGBT* people!!)? It must be renamed to 'persona sapiens'!

DrBazza 5y ago

And 'master' is from Latin and Old English, that predates the USA by over 1500 years. Mr is an abbreviation of master. I wonder if anyone takes offense at that yet. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/master

eli 5y ago

You're missing the point, which is to create clear documentation that is understandable by non-native speakers and is inclusive of all readers. The etymology of the words isn't really relevant to those goals.