This is useful for speaking on the international scene. It is impossible to be aware of all possibly harmful words.
Take for example "Eskimo". Many people outside Canada would not know that the people who it is used on prefers to be called Inuit or better yet the names of their own language (Inupiaq or Yupik). But to a Canadian, this would be a glaring mistake as many consider "Eskimo" to be insulting.
If I am writing a support text for that demographic and use the wrong word, I will be happy that my text editor adds a little hint that says "Are you sure you want to use this word? It might make people angry."
The alternative is to use the dictionary search feature on every single noun. I can think of a lot of such words. This is heavy and slow, so tech comes to the rescue. This feature already exists on a lot of spellchecker.
"The name Eskimo is considered derogatory because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean 'eater of raw meat."
is a historical and sociological context.
If you are writing about the uses of the word "Eskimo", you click "skip this word" and the word will remain in your text.
If the added context has you believe that using the word in your text might anger the very demographic you are writing a text on, you click "replace word".
If you choose to ignore the context and keep using the word at the risk of angering the community you are writing about, you click "never show this again". But at this point, don't complain if people are angry at your text.
That's it.
I bet you can simply turn off the feature altogether like you can in other software.
It is not universal or unimpeachable context, it carries a certain set of assumptions that may or may not be true:
- "is considered derogatory" suggests that everyone (or nearly everyone) considers this offensive, when in fact some people still call themselves Eskimo. To suggest that "Eskimo" is always or usually derogatory is therefore non-inclusive of people who use the word to describe themselves.
- The theory that Eskimo means "eater of raw meat" has been called into question; an alternative theory is that it derived from the French word esquimaux, meaning one who nets snowshoes. To circulate the arguably more offensive association of the word may itself be reinforcing untrue and possibly offensive connotations of a word that some people prefer.
Any attempt to present one particular interpretation of a word as universal truth, or one framing as the true "context", is often overly reductionist and prescriptive, even non-inclusive.
Another great example of this: indigenous people in the USA generally prefer the term "Indian" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ), and yet polite American society will pressure you to say Native American instead. Something tells me that this feature in Docs will not be suggesting that you change "Native American" to "Indian", despite the fact that the people themselves often prefer it.
It itself is not adding context, and it should be disabled by default if added at all.
If PC nazis want this they can install an extension or enable it.
I don't need Google to give me moral lessons or be the arbiter of truth and feelings.
Dear Google docs team, just stick to spelling and grammar checking in your word processor, thank you.
Maybe next they can add a Clippy with a neckbeard that pops up and says "ackhtually... this is bad, would you like to censor yourself?"
It's not about feelings, it's about conditioning self censorship.
EDIT: @madeofpalk, spelling is not subjective, grammar is but it's a style guide based on structure. PC rules change on a dime based on feelings and politics. But yes you can be a grammar nazi and a PC nazi. Generally the two overlap because it's a certain type of zealot personality.
Look at this app for example: https://hemingwayapp.com/
The added colors that are not present in Google Docs are incredibly helpful.
The fact that you feel threatened by a tooltip that includes text that is present in most dictionnary is irrational.
See for example what Merriam-Webster already has under "Eskimos":
"Eskimo is a word that presents challenges for anyone who is concerned about avoiding the use of offensive language. Its offensiveness stems partly from a now-discredited belief that it was originally a pejorative term meaning "eater of raw flesh," but perhaps more significantly from its being a word imposed on aboriginal peoples by outsiders. It has long been considered a word to be avoided in Canada, where the native people refer to themselves as Inuit, a word that means "people" in their language. But not all the native people who are referred to as Eskimos (such as the Yupik people of southwestern Alaska and eastern Siberia) are Inuit. Eskimo has no exact synonym; it has a general meaning that encompasses a number of indigenous peoples, and it continues for now in widespread use in many parts of the English-speaking world."
Meanwhile Cambridge Dictionary has "Note: Some of these people consider the term Eskimo offensive, and prefer the word Inuit."
Collins has: "These peoples now usually call themselves Inuits or Yupiks, and the term Eskimo could cause offence."
This is not new information pushed by Google. This is simply technology making our lives easier.
If you want or need a PC word checker to not piss off liberals thats's fine (they are the ones getting offended on other's behalf, not the people they are "fighting" for), but most people don't.
I see no reason to have this enabled by default.
EDIT: @Karawebnetwork, I don't see any Inuits proposing this, just liberals who love censorship, love getting offended on other's behalf and redefining words to make themselves feel like they've done something.
There is more than one country in this word. Not everything is about the American political dichotomy.
Professional editors already do the work that is provided by this feature, they simply use dictionaries and their professional experience instead. Now even the writer is able to see and adapt the text as they write, which results in more natural texts.
This is just what those features are, a replacement for an editor. And like of a human editor that sends back a text with lines under words and comments in the margins you can simply ignore it.
Edit:
As per your edit, I would recommend you leave your house, drive north and ask. I can assure you that people want to use the names of their people and not an arbitrary word that has been pushed on them by strangers.
A way to explain it that I have used before is to compare it with people who call Americans "Burgers".
Sure, most people don't mind it. You chuckle, roll you eyes and continue with your day. But if from now on all official texts no longer had "Americans" in it but "Burgers", you can be sure there would be anger.
Especially if when people said "We were called Americans before and never stopped calling ourselves as such" they were answered with "No one actually cares about this, I have called you Burgers for decades. Don't get mad, that's just how we call you over here."
I'm not applying this social pressure to self censor, maybe the people doing so could drive north and ask. Have you?
> Sure, most people don't mind it. You chuckle, roll you eyes and continue with your day. But if from now on all official texts no longer had "Americans" in it but "Burgers", you can be sure there would be anger.
Your hypothetical is nonsensical. A group decides what to call themselves. Americans themselves would need to decide that in your scenario.
What outside communities call you (yankees, etc.) is separate and cannot be controlled.
In general, I'd suggest not getting offended on other people's behalf or looking for things to be offended about. Words don't hurt you unless you let them.
The pressure is on being educated enough to be polite with the people you discourse with.
I do not know how we can meet in the middle ground since you believe that using accurate words to describe people is censor.
Yes, what outside communities call you is outside of your control. However, what you call outside community is within your control.
Since it is within your control and you can choose to use any word you want (as long as you are fine with the repercussions), this is not censor. You can absolutely call anyone by any word you want.
That said, refusing to expand your vocabulary will diminish the range of you thoughts. Keeping with the previous example, calling two different and unassociated tribes by the same name will prevent you from learning about them separately.
Oh I'm well aware of the PC rules, I disagree with them. They have nothing to do with being polite or educated.
> I do not know how we can meet in the middle ground since you believe that using accurate words to describe people is censor.
Most of the time the PC words are not accurate at all. They are confusing to everyone involved, by design.
> Since it is within your control and you can choose to use any word you want (as long as you are fine with the repercussions), this is not censor. You can absolutely call anyone by any word you want.
This is why I said self censor, you're bullying people to conform to your silly rules.
> That said, refusing to expand your vocabulary will diminish the range of you thoughts. Keeping with the previous example, calling two different and unassociated tribes by the same name will prevent you from learning about them separately.
Oh I know your PC words and my thoughts are expansive. I just disagree with the entire premise.
I call Inuits as such, if I've ever referenced them? I don't think I've even used the word Eskimo ever before, as it just doesn't come up.
That's word policing!
If people decide to get angry about a perfectly innocuous word that is not intended in any offensive way, that's their problem.
If you're referring generally to people from that part of the world 99.99% of people would understand Eskimo to mean a person from any one of the many Native American tribes in the far northern part of North America. It's not any different than saying "Middle Eastern" or "Asian" or any other indication of geographic origin and it doesn't carry any derogatory connotation.
Only the 0.01% of people who go out of their way to look for things to get offended about are going to get offended.
Or the people who are.. constantly reminded of the ignorance around them. Consider that people who are actually called Eskimo by others, might hear this more often than someone who doesn't look the part.
Frequency really changes the game here. Everybody who had a little brother will know: someone saying something annoying to you once is easy to shake off, someone who saying the same annoying thing to you constantly, day in and day out can be nervewrecking. Now imagine how much worse it is if the annoying thing comes from whole parts of society and every day. If you talk to people affected by such things (e.g. women by sexist remarks) the main thing that makes the difference is how frequent those things happen and my feeling is that many people can't even imagine.
It is nice to see that many people can not relate to this, because they had it easier, but confusing your own perspective with all shared reality is not an advantage.
Like if you’re a software engineer and someone refers to you as an engineer, you don’t get all annoyed and pedantically explain that you’re not someone who drives trains, because you know that’s not the sense in which the person meant the word.
In my experience, it’s hard not to take offense when the word being used is frequently used by people who are intending offense. Our brains are hardwired to perceive attacks, and if I’ve been attacked by people using similar wording before lower-level functions are assuming anyone using that wording is attacking me.
The example used in this thread, Eskimo, is probably harmless from people who don’t interact much with Inuit people. But to an Inuit person, the people who live near them using the word Eskimo are probably being insulting. Sure they might judge that e.g. a Belgian internet commentator didn’t mean offense, but their brain is jumping to that conclusion and then being talked off that ledge.
Are you trying to suggest that there aren't certain words it's inappropriate to use in certain types of writing?
In many cases they are making a false assertion that a particular word is inappropriate, simply because it's inappropriate for them in their context/culture/morality while it's entirely appropriate for the writer's context/culture/morality; and those false assertions essentially attempt to change the writers' own notion of what's appropriate or not towards what Google considers appropriate - and I don't agree that Google should be allowed to apply such social influence.
A negative connotation amongst those whom subscribe to a very specific religious dogma.
> … god forbid someone who just wants to use language that won’t make someone upset.
Clearly “upsetting people” is not the metric.
It’s only considered a problem if you upset the people privileged under your particular ideology.
I certainly spell my words differently if I get a red squiggly line. Do you not?
Tech rarely "enforces" via direct controls unless a regulation is forcing it. What it does instead are nudges like this, and pretending the nudges don't have notable and similar impact is either naive or in suggested bad faith due to the company one works at.
You always have the option to just not. It's called enFORCEment, not enSUGGESTment. I presume the reason you choose to correct spelling is that you know it will be received better by your audience if the words are spelled according to convention. If you are spelling a word outside of the dictionary and you get a red line under the word, do you then change it to something you know to be not what you wanted? Of course not. If however you could only write words in the dictionary, then that would be enforcement (especially if you couldn't add words to the dictionary).
Presumably you have the same choice here. I really don't see the difference.
It's really striking to me that a number of issues today where everyone is exercising their free will are somehow twisted to be authoritarian overreach. Someone is upthread calling it authoritarian and a new heresy. I mean... come on. The histrionics are getting out of hand. Now a squiggle is "authoritarian".
The first problematic word dictionary that leads to the green (?) squiggly line in this tool came out of a nlp neural network in the past few few years, folks aren't quite sure how it works, and it has some additional best-effort labeling of phrases from the product team.
That's 400+ years of semantic/syntactic development vs. <20, likely <10 years, but let's start shifting the language all the same because we're a FAANG?
If you really don't see the difference, again it is bad faith, or naive. The conceit from teams that build and launch these tools without any consideration for the above is astounding.
Great way to engage with someone. Am I supposed to take your personal attacks against me as demonstration of your good faith attempt to participate in debate? Please refrain from this rhetoric in the future.
Anyway, I'm not sure I understand your point. What does the age of the first dictionary have to do with any of this? I can kind of see a point if I squint, but I'm a bit lost. Your position seems to be couched in the idea that this kind of thing will "shift" language but I don't understand the mechanism by which you feel this will happen. Maybe in your next reply you could expand on this idea (if I'm right about the thrust of your comment), omitting any personal attacks please.
Because the way I see it, if you want to say something you can still say it, and if you disagree with any suggestions Docs gives you, you are free to hold firm to that disagreement and use any language you want. Your idea would only seem to apply if you think that Google has hegemonic dominance over document production... which I don't think is remotely true.
From my earlier post in this same thread:
"I didn't imply GOOG was setting up gulags, but I will refer to my early comment in response - it's either naive or bad faith to say that network effects from dominant players do not lead to enforcement in everything but name, and that the scope of concerns from engineers and the products they build should stop at "well, its just a feature." Algorithmic news feeds on social media was just a feature too.
Enforcements, mandates, suggestions, impacts, governances, features - spitting hairs semantically on the overall issue that tech "features" shape areas that tech and its product owners have no business shaping/influencing/impacting/enforcing but still do anyway, let alone even understand, and the downstream ramifications are significant.
They get away with it partially via enablers like your view which minimize the dynamic to local examples that open up framing the counterpoint as something absurd - yes, Google's gulags aren't built yet.
Edit - to put at least one impact of tech like this another way, it's not Google that puts a user in a gulag. It's the coworker of the user who notices a phrase the coworker also typed, was caught by Google, and the coworker corrected - why didn't that user also change it? All these second order effects were doubtlessly considered by that Google product team, I'm sure? Putting aside my original point that Google doesn't even belong in this space by a mile."
Just because something has an impact doesn't mean it is enforcement.
Trust me when I say Google isn't going to throw you in the gulag for putting a word in whatever design doc you're writing.
Enforcements, mandates, suggestions, impacts, governances, features - spitting hairs semantically on the overall issue that tech "features" shape areas that tech and its product owners have no business shaping/influencing/impacting/enforcing but still do anyway, let alone even understand, and the downstream ramifications are significant.
They get away with it partially via enablers like your view which minimize the dynamic to local examples that open up framing the counterpoint as something absurd - yes, Google's gulags aren't built yet.
Edit - to put at least one impact of tech like this another way, it's not Google that puts a user in a gulag. It's the coworker of the user who notices a phrase the coworker also typed, was caught by Google, and the coworker corrected - why didn't that user also change it? All these second order effects were doubtlessly considered by that Google product team, I'm sure? Putting aside my original point that Google doesn't even belong in this space by a mile.
Evangelicals could resort to extreme measures (violence, unwanted proselytization, bad faith arguments, etc.) If you ask them to shut up, they'll just not do so or leave entirely.
This is just a feature you could turn off. The rest of Docs would still be usable.
Yall are really getting inflamed over nothing. There are better ways to use your energy. You can just turn the feature off or not use the product. Comparing this to evangelicism dilutes the harm actually caused by evangelicals.
Imagine if Google was dominated by religious conservatives and their "inappropriate" language suggestions flagged "gay parents" or "pro-choice" as 'wrong' by default.
We like to think we make informed rational decisions at every point in our life, but we don't; the inputs matter a lot and companies control more of those than we would want to admit.
Tech oligarchies don't have such restrictions. It's almost scarier.
The theory on the federal level is "this judge was appointed by president X-1, so they aren't influenced by president X". So for better or worse (depending on which president that filled the vacancy), they may go against what is popular in administration X. The federal supreme court tries to be shielded away from the immediate politics of worrying about re-election and stuff.
On the state level, well... as usual it's a free for all. Just to list the "hot" states of subject:
- Texas: the people vote for them, 6 year term. no different from voting for a senator/representative. - Florida: More complex, but in short: the governor chooses from a list of candidates handed to them, and the chosen judge serves one term (4 years) before the people decide to keep them or not.
So the people on the state level here have some sway. But then again, the people here are... well, Texas/Florida people.
Makes me sad.
Let's compare. You say things Google doesn't like, a purple squiggly goes under your words that you have the option to turn off. You say things Russia doesn't like, and armed men barge into your home to take you to jail.
How disconnected from reality do you have to be for me to have to make this comparison explicit???
If anything, the actions Putin is taking to control the information landscape make me much more upset about woke clippy. Liberal society should be about a free exchange of ideas. It’s not just another orthodoxy with soft manipulation instead of hard manipulation for thoughtcrime.
If you don’t understand why this seems manipulative and tone deaf to lots of folks, that means you’re confused. Not right.
You are truly blessed if the most worrying thing in your nation right now is Google's attempt to compete with Grammarly.
If there was a war going on, I would not compare getting punched in the face to a war crime.
This would be true if there is no way to disable it. I'd bet you any amount of money it's an optional feature that you can simply turn off.
You're being unnecessarily hyperbolic.
I don't agree that it's authoritarian, because if you don't like it you can turn it off. It's no more authoritarian than opt-in-by-default (aka opt-out) for organ donation that some countries do; i.e. not authoritarian.
(Full disclosure, I'm a former Googler, but that has little to do with this)
By giving you suggestions it's telling you that it thinks you are wrong. There is no way around that. It's a judgement plain and simple and that changes people's behaviour.
> Even the suggestions can be turned off.
Let's be honest. No one changes the defaults.
> Language (like everything) has become politicized,
ANd now my word editor is picking a side...
"Everything is inherently political" is no excuse for making things even more political.
Ironically, this thread is part of the culture wars commenters are claiming to be against.
I think this feature should be opt-in rather than opt-out. If its turned on for everyone, it should only promote non-controversial suggestions, like the spelling of "their"/"there"/"they're".
You would probably balk if google docs made "suggestions" to call the war in Ukraine a military exercise. Or if it suggested removing any criticism of the CCP because some people may take offense.
Scolding me for using the word "landlord" here in Australia (where its a gender neutral term) feels to me like the same sort of unwanted intrusion into my mental life. This feature makes me really angry.
What will Google do when Russia or China ask them to add their own set of locality-specific "suggestions" to google docs?
Why? Is it because it's political?
I also experienced a Google's Photos feature I thought should have been opt-in, as it wasn't working well for me (auto-labeling in its early days) - but it didn't make me angry; I simply turned it off. I genuinely would like to know why this change is triggering to so many people, in case my assumption is off the mark (i.e. Google is entering the culture war fray on the "wrong" side)
Sometimes I journal. The piece of paper becomes an extension of my mind. There's a sanctity of that space. It is deeply private, and free because ... well, because thats the point of journaling. Sometimes you have to say the idea wrong to figure out how to say the idea right.
And by "piece of paper", I mean, I type into my computer.
Into this context, google wants to insert itself with woke political opinions on my writing? Or suggestions on how I'm not using an "active voice" enough? No. That comes across like an out of touch, entitled 20 year old in another country is reading over my shoulder while I'm journaling in order to make asinine, inappropriate suggestions about my writing. Or so it can judge my politics. All this, in the sanctity of my own mental palace.
Would you take political advice from a google docs AI? Would you take its advice on what the word 'landlord' really means, in the context of your own community, in another country? I wouldn't. If you want to convince me of your politics, take a stand and make your argument boldly. I need to be able to hear what you say as an argument then feel free to disagree with you. Don't dress up a political campaign as writing advice.
It makes me angry because it feels manipulative. Like you're trying to trick me into replacing my words with your words, in order to advance your political agenda. All administered via an AI that I conveniently can't debate. I'm angry because I don't want to have to be on guard against political manipulation simply in order to have my own thoughts, in the privacy of my own mind - or the extension of my mind called a computer. If I mostly agree with the political stand its almost worse - because I won't notice the manipulation as easily.
I also can't help but wonder what would happen if that stupid, entitled AI gets uppity and disagrees with any of my politics. If Google already has an AI thats reading and judging the political content of what I write, where does that end? Will there be consequences down the road for me if I say the wrong thing in my own journal? Probably not. But I'm not absolutely certain. Maybe I should self censor my own thoughts preemptively just in case? In my own journal?
No. F off. I'd much rather burn google docs out of my life than worry about any of that. Which is a pity, because its otherwise a good product.
What google is failing to understand here is that my computer needs to be an agent of my will. Not an agent of google's. Violating that principle is a betrayal.
Google Docs had always needed an internet connection to work, why aren't you complaining about that?
To compare a service product to a piece of paper is asinine and deluded.
Unfortunately, corporations in their ruthless efficiency, don't take to the deconstructionist argument. It would appeal to a large part of the market to have streamlined templates for legal documents, marketing pitches, etc. These are all per se "pieces of paper" at the end of the day but that's not very useful to think about when 45% of your users keep using the same templates for the same purposes. I would imagine some significant segment of the userbase are politically centric marketing drones, and would love a feature like this. I think they have no taste, and that corporate centrism is a problem, but separate from actual authoritarianism; and focusing on Google misses an opportunity to focus on the root issue.
What’s the root issue, as you see it?
I can see the evangelicism now, but I think it's dumber than that. I really do think they're just competing with Grammarly or trying to streamline some process. Changing Docs isn't going to solve the issue, changing the culture is. The culture of relabeling problems as quirks, toxic positivity; and more importantly the sincere confidence in the feeling of good/right that all that entails.
What you're articulating is quite a subtle cultural problem. I don't hear many people naming it or talking about it.
Microsoft Outlooks suggestions are more than a mere annoyance on this front. They consistently suggest that "probably" and "perhaps" and "maybe" and "almost certainly" should be removed from my writing precisely because they convey uncertainty. That is why I wrote them in the first place! If I knew a result confidently, I would say so.
Please, let's not have another venue algorithmically pressuring everyone to uniformly remove nuance from communication. There is no one-size-fits-all threshold for "too wordy" or "too passive" or anything else with regard to language. Context is everything.
That just sounds like a poorly implemented feature.
This will encourage people to avoid the word 'landlord'. They will start using 'property owner'. I'm not okay with that. A homeowner is a property owner. A landlord rents out the property they own. The terms shouldn't be conflated like that (as much as many landlords might want them to be).
For example: "landlords should pay more taxes" is very different from "property owners should pay more taxes".
As for landlords perhaps wanting to be treated as equivalent to property owners, I think the previous poster gave a suitable example of why this might be the case. In many places landlords are being targeted politically (rightly or wrongly). It would be to their political advantage if all reference to them was conflated with regular owner occupiers by use of the term 'property owners'.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latin...
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/hispanic-voters-lat...
Spanish isn't the jumbled mess that English is. It has a lot of rhyme and reason to it. While not without exceptions, its rules are generally quite reliable.
"inx" is a not a Spanish syllable. You can't pluralize it. You can't rhyme with it. Hell, you can't barely pronounce it.
I get so tired of people popping up to defend the idea as if it's not so bad, invariably citing data collected from bilingual, second-generation US immigrants. Stop. If it's important to you, then at least have the sense to argue for "Latines", which at least kind of makes sense and doesn't sound like something invented by an English speaker who had only ever seen Spanish written, not spoken.
Your argument isn't cogent to me: it's an English word used in an English context. Your line of reasoning could be used to argue that "Anglo-Saxon"[1] is not a legitimate term because the Germanic tribes didn't use the term to refer to themselves.
1. The same goes for "German", "Chinese" or "Belter"
Latino and Latina are Spanish words that American English speakers have adopted in the last ~80 years due to the significant intermingling of Spanish and English speakers. Their use spans a spectrum of Spanish-only speakers, bilingual speakers, and English-only speakers. Not only does the English word "Latino" (my eyes roll typing that) have an etymological relationship with the Spanish word "Latino", their etymologies haven't even diverged. English speakers who took a Spanish class in high school even pronounce Latino in the Spanish way, "lah-TEE-noh" instead of "luh-TEE-no", because they think of it as a Spanish word.
I have friends who self-identify as Latinx, and use the word, I have friends who say Latine, I have friends who say Latino. Language evolves and I don't think your vitriol is warranted.
Generally speaking, when a wide sweeping change is going to take effect, the onus of proof about why it should be done is on those advocating in favor of the change, not on those defending the standard. That is, "How is this change useful?" vs. "Why wouldn't this change be useful?" The latter assumes the change is good and asks for proof which cannot exist yet, while the former focuses the questioning on the underlying value of the change prior to implementation.
This particular change is a complex one. It clearly has w*stern politics crammed into its carcass, which are tedious to read, and doubly so to speak on. For that reason, I'll try and avoid such topic. Besides, I tend to assume your question is asked in good faith, so I would simply ask:
Can you give an example of where it making a "good" suggestion is helpful?
Under optimal circumstances, the ability to "help" the writer would be subjective, right? Under suboptimal conditions, the suggestion would be: unwanted, unneeded, or wrong.
Sure:
Upon writing, "That guy is a loser," a response from the computer: "You're using using emotionally-loaded and ambiguous language. Consider revising to provide constructive criticism."
Ideally, the feedback a computer would provide would be similar in scope and wisdom that feedback from an experienced human editor would provide.
> "You're using using emotionally-loaded and ambiguous language
Whats wrong with emotionally loaded content? Are you afraid of feelings? That statement doesn't seem ambiguous at all to me - but even if it was ambiguous, I believe ambiguity is sometimes appropriate.
I'm partially with you - I don't often utter things like "That guy is a loser" either. But there are still plenty of contexts in which I'd happily write those words. For example:
- When writing dialogue in fiction
- When supporting a friend with an abusive partner, to let them know emotionally that I'm on their side in the conflict
- In conversation like this
But to go deeper, the language I use is an expression of me. There are very few things as intimately tied to our identity and world view as our choice of language. I can't think of many things as dehumanising to an adult as taking away their choice of how they express themselves.
Imagine if the suggestion, when writing about the war in Ukraine was "Using the word 'war' is inflammatory to some audiences. Have you considered 'military exercise' instead?". Or "Using the word 'they' is ambiguous language. Have you considered using he/she instead?". It doesn't feel as good when you don't agree politically with the suggestion.
To this day people cite doublespeak as one of the most chilling aspects of George Orwell's 1984. This whole thing spooks me for the same reason.
But as others have said, writing feedback -- automated or otherwise -- is a resource. Sometimes it's helpful, particularly in the professional context. Other times, it isn't. We still have the freedom to choose when to use it and when not to. And I see no harm in having the tools available to help when needed.
I just think politically controversial writing suggestions should be opt-in. We don't all work at google. And not all documents are corporate memos. Its extremely important to a liberal society that people are free to think and express heretical thoughts without feeling like we're being watched and judged for doing so.
Getting political judgements ("suggestions") from an omnipresent AI looking over my shoulder while I write sounds dystopian. That sort of technology skeeves me out. I don't trust the sort of people who think this should be turned on by default with access to my private notes. And you shouldn't either.
Saying both is fair. I generally assume there is a primary intended target, but both is workable too. Your assessment is that both parties benefit from the change?
Thankfully HN wasn't around when spell-check was introduced.
That there is such a thing as “proper english grammar” is itself inherently contentious and political. DFW's review of Authority and American Usage unpacks this a bit, if I recall. It's hard to find online because it's still under copyright, but I found this: https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWAuthorityAndAmericanU...
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise
"Ain't" is a perfectly normal construction in some dialects of English, but if you use it in a formal setting, people will notice and will think it's strange.
It could be useful for a product like Google Docs to tell you not to use dialectal grammar like "ain't." If you're writing a formal document, you probably want to avoid that kind of language. However, if Google Docs goes beyond that and starts telling you to replace completely normal words like "blacklist" with woke alternatives like "blocklist," that feels more like an attempt to establish some sort of religious orthodoxy. It gives the same vibes as if Google Docs were to start trying to push Evangelical religious sensibilities on its users. It's not helpful, unless you think your audience is extremely uptight and you want to avoid upsetting them.
It's useful, especially for people who aren't already steeped in cultural norms, to have a reference for "how might I come across if I say this". Words simultaneously communicate meaning and connotation, and it's helpful to understand both the meaning and the connotation. People aren't going to misunderstand the author of a text that says "blacklist"; they're going to understand just fine, perhaps including ways that the author would prefer not to have been perceived, or perhaps in ways the author intends to be perceived.
Tooling like this won't change the minds of people who are determined to be offensive (with or without the added assertions that they don't think it should be considered offensive). The point is to inform people how they may come across. It would be incorrect to say "this word is universally considered offensive", just as it would be incorrect to not label the word at all; it'd be more correct to say "this word's status is [disputed/transitional], with [an increased trend towards being considered non-inclusive], and consequent [doubling down by conservative language users]; consider avoiding due to any or all of offense, controversy, or politics".
Until just two years ago, "whitelist/blacklist" was completely normal language with no racial connotations, and I would wager that it's still viewed as completely normal by the vast majority of people. However, in just the last two years, people of a certain political persuasion in the US have decided to make these phrases into an issue.
If it is critical for you to communicate and come off well to a relatively small subsection of upper-middle-class liberal Americans, then these suggestions might be helpful. If it is critical for you to communicate with fundamentalist Evangelical christians, then a different set of suggestions might be helpful. I view the two situations in exactly the same way. However, if you're just writing for a generic audience, then these suggestions come across as unwelcome proselytizing.
It wasn't ever not politicized.