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> By themselves, some recent actions taken by Stanford were somewhat humorous. The school has been the butt of jokes by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Ti

by tivert 4y ago

> By themselves, some recent actions taken by Stanford were somewhat humorous. The school has been the butt of jokes by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and numerous other major and local papers. For example, the IT department came out with its “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” to be used on its websites. The national media had a field day with this action, especially when it recommended no longer using the word “American.” Wow. That document says the word "chief" should not be used because it's a "cultural appropriation" of indigenous communities. The word is derived from Latin via French, and was first used in 14th-century Middle English (i.e. pre-contact): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chief https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chief. How can a supposed academic institution put out such a policy that obviously hadn't been vetted by a language expert, let alone someone who could be bothered to use a dictionary?

ModernMech 4y ago
Because it was just some clueless people in the IT department. Stanford doesn't have "language experts" on call to vet every bad idea from every department, nor would it be reasonable to expect them to. Hard to believe people are still getting bent out of shape about this.
- tivert 4y ago
  > Because it was just some clueless people in the IT department. It speaks to a surprising lack of basic policy-making competence. > Stanford doesn't have "language experts" on call to vet every bad idea from every department, nor would it be reasonable to expect them to. I'm sure they have tenured English professors on campus. Apparently no one had the sense to walk across campus and run this by one. And even if it was impossible to vet this language policy with a "language experts," due to the lack of a some pre-existing bureaucratized process to do so, that doesn't excuse the fact that they apparently failed to use a dictionary and some common sense. > Hard to believe people are still getting bent out of shape about this. I'm not "bent out of shape," I'm laughing at their amusing display of incompetence.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > It speaks to a surprising lack of basic policy-making competence. Yes, a random subcommittee in the IT department does not have basic policy making competence. Okay, that's the story. > I'm sure they have tenured English professors on campus. Apparently no one had the sense to walk across campus and run this by one. Stanford-level English professors are not there to be copy editors for the IT department. Linguistics experts and English professors are there to be experts. Do we expect all departments to run their web pages past the CS professors for bugs? > that doesn't excuse the fact that they apparently failed to use a dictionary and some common sense. Sure, but that doesn't explain why anyone is still mad or surprised about it today, months later, when the whole issue has been explained and has been diffused. > I'm not "bent out of shape," I'm laughing at their amusing incompetence. Sorry, my bad.
    - tivert 4y ago
      >> It speaks to a surprising lack of basic policy-making competence. > Yes, a random subcommittee in the IT department does not have basic policy making competence. Okay, that's the story. I'm kind of surprised by your defensiveness about this. Pretty much all detailed policy is made by a "random subcommittee in the X department." They have to be competent or your whole organization looks stupid and may get justifiably mocked. If they're incompetent, the higher ups aren't doing a adequate job of monitoring them or are assigning them inappropriate tasks. > Stanford-level English professors are not there to be copy editors for the IT department. Linguistics experts and English professors are there to be experts. Do we expect all departments to run their web pages past the CS professors for bugs? I'd expect if someone stops by your office with a problem, you'd give them at least a few minutes of your time to help.
      - ModernMech 4y ago
        > I'm kind of surprised by your defensiveness about this. I'm not defending anything (I called them clueless!), I was stating the actual scope of what we're talking about. It's true that subcommittees compose the whole organization, but at the same time, what happened was that the whole organization was judged as if it were the small subcommittee. The rush to condemn Stanford as a whole is what I'm critiquing. > I'd expect if someone stops by your office with a problem, you'd give them at least a few minutes of your time to help. And when your day ends up filled with spell checking documents when you have a Ph.D. in English, maybe you might rethink that open door policy.
graboidhunter 4y ago
A similar aspect is the replacement of American with US Citizen. This would exclude American Samoans who are non-citizen nationals of the United States.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  Canadians, Mexicans, ... , Argentinians are all geographically in the Americas. Perhaps that one is just about being geographically precise?
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    This is a fair point. But there's no adjective (in English) for a person or thing that is from the United States. In Spanish they use the word estadounidense for this, but I can't think of an easily pronounceable analog in English. It would be handy to have!
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      Yankee?
      - readthenotes1 4y ago
        That would offend many people in the southeastern United States
        jjtheblunt 4y ago
        true. i think Yanks is common though for overseas referal to US citizens, since they don't bother honoring the confederacy or something like that.
        gnicholas 4y ago
        Most of the online dictionaries I checked showed that "Yankee" is a derogatory or possibly offensive word, including in British English. This is not a purely domestic (US-based) connotation.

by tivert 4y ago

ModernMech 4y ago

Because it was just some clueless people in the IT department. Stanford doesn't have "language experts" on call to vet every bad idea from every department, nor would it be reasonable to expect them to. Hard to believe people are still getting bent out of shape about this.

tivert 4y ago
> Because it was just some clueless people in the IT department. It speaks to a surprising lack of basic policy-making competence. > Stanford doesn't have "language experts" on call to vet every bad idea from every department, nor would it be reasonable to expect them to. I'm sure they have tenured English professors on campus. Apparently no one had the sense to walk across campus and run this by one. And even if it was impossible to vet this language policy with a "language experts," due to the lack of a some pre-existing bureaucratized process to do so, that doesn't excuse the fact that they apparently failed to use a dictionary and some common sense. > Hard to believe people are still getting bent out of shape about this. I'm not "bent out of shape," I'm laughing at their amusing display of incompetence.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > It speaks to a surprising lack of basic policy-making competence. Yes, a random subcommittee in the IT department does not have basic policy making competence. Okay, that's the story. > I'm sure they have tenured English professors on campus. Apparently no one had the sense to walk across campus and run this by one. Stanford-level English professors are not there to be copy editors for the IT department. Linguistics experts and English professors are there to be experts. Do we expect all departments to run their web pages past the CS professors for bugs? > that doesn't excuse the fact that they apparently failed to use a dictionary and some common sense. Sure, but that doesn't explain why anyone is still mad or surprised about it today, months later, when the whole issue has been explained and has been diffused. > I'm not "bent out of shape," I'm laughing at their amusing incompetence. Sorry, my bad.
  - tivert 4y ago
    >> It speaks to a surprising lack of basic policy-making competence. > Yes, a random subcommittee in the IT department does not have basic policy making competence. Okay, that's the story. I'm kind of surprised by your defensiveness about this. Pretty much all detailed policy is made by a "random subcommittee in the X department." They have to be competent or your whole organization looks stupid and may get justifiably mocked. If they're incompetent, the higher ups aren't doing a adequate job of monitoring them or are assigning them inappropriate tasks. > Stanford-level English professors are not there to be copy editors for the IT department. Linguistics experts and English professors are there to be experts. Do we expect all departments to run their web pages past the CS professors for bugs? I'd expect if someone stops by your office with a problem, you'd give them at least a few minutes of your time to help.
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      > I'm kind of surprised by your defensiveness about this. I'm not defending anything (I called them clueless!), I was stating the actual scope of what we're talking about. It's true that subcommittees compose the whole organization, but at the same time, what happened was that the whole organization was judged as if it were the small subcommittee. The rush to condemn Stanford as a whole is what I'm critiquing. > I'd expect if someone stops by your office with a problem, you'd give them at least a few minutes of your time to help. And when your day ends up filled with spell checking documents when you have a Ph.D. in English, maybe you might rethink that open door policy.

graboidhunter 4y ago

A similar aspect is the replacement of American with US Citizen. This would exclude American Samoans who are non-citizen nationals of the United States.

jjtheblunt 4y ago
Canadians, Mexicans, ... , Argentinians are all geographically in the Americas. Perhaps that one is just about being geographically precise?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  This is a fair point. But there's no adjective (in English) for a person or thing that is from the United States. In Spanish they use the word estadounidense for this, but I can't think of an easily pronounceable analog in English. It would be handy to have!
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Yankee?
    - readthenotes1 4y ago
      That would offend many people in the southeastern United States
      - jjtheblunt 4y ago
        true. i think Yanks is common though for overseas referal to US citizens, since they don't bother honoring the confederacy or something like that.
        gnicholas 4y ago
        Most of the online dictionaries I checked showed that "Yankee" is a derogatory or possibly offensive word, including in British English. This is not a purely domestic (US-based) connotation.