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Comment by paulgb | Hacker News Reader

Oh, come on. It's not telling you what to change, it's giving you suggestions. Even the suggestions can be turned off. Most paying customers of Google are using it for business communications. This is a useful feature for them. Language (like everything) has become politicized, so people have a stronger reaction to this than when Word added grammar suggestions back in the day, but it's basically the same feature and Microsoft had a more dominant market position then than Google does now.

(Full disclosure, I'm a former Googler, but that has little to do with this)

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> It's not telling you what to change, it's giving you suggestions.

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...

Can you give an example of where it is making a clearly bad suggestion, and what the adverse impact of adopting it would be?

I don't know if it's on Google's list, would surprise me if it wasn't, but most Latinos find Latinx offensive.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/many-latinos-say-latin...

That poll says most prefer Hispanic, it also says most do not find Latinx offensive. It also seems like a bit of a push poll since it doesn't ask any questions about whether or not they find "Latino" offensive.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/hispanic-voters-lat...

Latinx is revolting, full stop. Nobody who speaks (using the lips and tongue) Spanish as their only language will adopt it.

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.

> Nobody who speaks (using the lips and tongue) Spanish as their only language will adopt it.

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"

German is an English word that English speakers use to describe Germans. It doesn't have any etymological relationship with the word that Germans use to describe themselves.

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 had thought the use of "Latino/Latina" was a clumsy (and very recent) substitute for "Hispanic", but so that it would also include Brazilians.

Latinx is a Spanglish word. You seem offended by the very existence of Spanglish. Personally as a gringo who was born in a majority-hispanic neighborhood in Texas Spanglish is my culture.

As someone who speaks Spanish I agree with you as a matter of taste, the word feels ridiculous when I say it out loud. Latines honestly sounds roughly as ridiculous to my ear. (Of course even though I was exposed to Spanish at a very young age living in San Antonio English is my first language.)

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.

I work in academia. Frequently, I need to convey various levels of confidence about facts when writing emails to my colleagues.

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.

> They consistently suggest that "probably" and "perhaps" and "maybe" and "almost certainly" should be removed from my writing

That just sounds like a poorly implemented feature.

I'm not entirely sure if your question would fit this criteria, but it sounds awfully close to a Negative proof fallacy: https://logfall.wordpress.com/negative-proof-fallacy

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.

> Can you give an example of where it making a "good" suggestion is helpful?

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.

Using that example, who does the suggestion help: the writer, or the recipient?

Why not both?

I forgot to write in my previous reply "Thank you for your levelheaded response. I know these types of discussions can get out of hand, so thank you for approaching without that baggage that sometimes comes with the territory."

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?

I'd rather not outsource my morality to the arbitration of an algorithm, regardless of its provenance being of a company that claims to "not be evil." This honestly seems like a particularly flagrant application of this feature; we have enough human interaction mediated by coercive tech, the way we communicate personal beliefs about one another shouldn't be the next pillar to fall. That it's "just a suggestion", as others have argued to excuse it, belies how strongly its UI implies authoritativeness -- users reflexively view the squiggly underline as a sign that something is unambiguously wrong with what they've written.

The projected cultural judgements are plain in your comment:

> "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.

There are undoubtedly times when this sort of feedback is undesirable. If you're writing fiction, or poetry, or just want to flame somebody (damn the consequences), these sorts of prompts just get in the way. Similarly, if you're writing math equations, there's not much use in a spell or grammar check.

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 hear what you're saying. I'm sure people who work at google appreciate an AI making sure they don't accidentally post some wrong-speak to an internal mailing list. Especially when doing so might get them fired.

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.

There's an example tweet where Google suggests that 'landlord' is not inclusive and 'property owner' or 'proprietor' could be used instead.

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).

I agree that sometimes a landlord might be subletting something and therefore they might not own it, but what you write is mostly ridiculous: if a landlord owns the property, they are the property owner.

I think you missed the point. In math terms: landlords are a proper subset of property owners, not equivalent. Using the latter term instead of the former is likely to change the meaning of the sentence.

For example: "landlords should pay more taxes" is very different from "property owners should pay more taxes".

Your explanation doesn’t square with the weird comment about landlords wanting to be conflated with property owners, which I read as meaning that the parent thought they weren’t subsets.

Apologies if I was unclear. I meant 'conflate' as in 'treat as equivalent'.

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'.

Imagine working on a tax policy and having a proposed tax on “landlords” changed to a proposed tax on “property owners”. If that slipped through and was made public it could be a career limiting mistake.

Imagine working on a tax policy and having a proposed tax on "moles" changed to a proposed tax on "holes". If that slipped through and was made public it could be a career limiting mistake.

Thankfully HN wasn't around when spell-check was introduced.

How there it fix my writing. Their should be absolutely no red underline anywhere because I wrote it.

This is a cute comment, but don't muddy the waters. There's a big difference between correcting "their" / "there" and telling me off for using the word "landlord" because someone in a foreign country wants to police how my country uses our native tongue.

"Everything is inherently political" is no excuse for making things even more political.

You can turn it off. I suspect some people in this thread think no one should have this feature; and it should never have been shipped, so the arguments are rather indirect.

Ironically, this thread is part of the culture wars commenters are claiming to be against.

> I suspect some people in this thread think no one should have this feature

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?

> This feature makes me really angry.

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)

When I'm sitting alone, thinking, I live in the privacy of my own thoughts. Sometimes I have half formed thoughts that others might not agree with. This is important - you can't have good ideas unless you also have bad ideas, after all.

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.

You are welcome to use Vim, or Notepad.

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.

I don’t know what you mean by “service product”. But isn’t “it’s like a piece of paper but better” basically the whole pitch for a word processor like Google docs? Since when is writing not part of Google docs’ core feature set?

Meaning, Google offers Docs to you as a service, not as a consumable. You are not entitled to full control of their product, because that would be antithetical to what a service is; the point of a service is to deal with tasks so you don't have to. Storage, up to date grammar checkers & translators, and now whatever this is; these are all things that Google needs to maintain so you don't have to. The greatest control you could have over these functions is to implement them yourself, and that would defeat the point.

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.

> I think 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?

Docs is incredibly pervasive and changing its defaults would alter how a good number of people think. But that's not even a bad thing, it becomes quite bad when you consider that these changes are being lead more by taste than by ethics. Our social elite have confounded the two - that's the problem. Nobody knows when a word is ethical or not, but the influential certainly know when they are put off by a word. By nature of their influence, many are willing to accept at face value that their "positive" and "inclusive" attitudes are a good thing.

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.

Thanks for responding like this. I think I agree with what you're saying; though I'd still appreciate it if google docs wasn't walking down this road.

What you're articulating is quite a subtle cultural problem. I don't hear many people naming it or talking about it.

Proper english grammar and left leaning political grammar are very different examples. If Microsoft introduced religious grammar suggestions it might offend a few people and provide benefits to others.

> Proper english grammar

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...

With all due respect to descriptivists, when engaging in any sort of formal communication (written or spoken), prescriptive grammar matters. There are "proper" and "improper" ways of communicating on a formal level.

"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.

Descriptivist language can absolutely describe things like "ain't", by saying "here's what it means, and also here's how you'll be perceived if you say it". Similarly, descriptivist language can tell you what people mean when they say "irregardless", and also tell you that it's commonly perceived as incorrect usage. (That's more useful than just saying "that's not a word".) You can look up a slur in the dictionary, and you'll find it there, along with some history and context and how the word comes across to people. Descriptivist language includes "how formal is this", "how offensive is this", "how correct is this", and so on.

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".

"Ain't" is pretty universally viewed as informal language, and therefore out of place in formal communication.

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.

I don't agree that it's political but I do agree that it's contentious for English. However, if we see this as a template for other languages, it makes more sense what with Spanish, French, etc having rigid definitions and control[0] over their respective languages.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise

> Language (like everything) has become politicized

It wasn't ever not politicized.

You're right. Maybe I should have said hyper-politicized.

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