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‘American’ and ‘you guys’ among words considered harmful by Stanford group
PALO ALTO, Calif. (KRON) — Stanford University’s IT department introduced its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) in May, aiming to recognize and address words that could …
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PALO ALTO, Calif. (KRON) — Stanford University’s IT department introduced its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) in May, aiming to recognize and address words that could be considered harmful. On Monday, the EHLI published a long list of words that it says fall under this category.
The list contains more than 100 different words and phrases that are deemed harmful, including an explanation for why they are harmful and a word or phrase to use in lieu of the harmful term. Among the terms on the list were “American” and “you guys.”
“American” was deemed to be “imprecise language,” and the EHLI said “U.S. citizen” is preferred. “This term (American) often refers to people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas (which is actually made up of 42
countries),” Stanford EHLI said.
Is this perhaps an instance of a "self own" on behalf of the people pushing for it? A situation where someone takes their own idea (that may have been noble/good 'in theory'), and takes it to such an comical extreme that it basically becomes an manifestation of the reductio ad absurdum arguments people on the other side would've made about 3-4 years ago... A "proving the other side's slippery slope argument for them" of sorts?