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Comment by blarghyblarg | Hacker News Reader

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281...

It's really not a big leap, though. People who are afraid of violating a code of conduct because they're "under the watch of language police" are basically experiencing a form of anxiety that may or may not have a basis in reality.

Being afraid of being sent to the HR DEI board because you named a process 'Child1' then ran Kill(Child1) ... or any less obvious scenario similar to that ... is not going to do great things to your ability to work.

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This tells me more about the impacts of anxiety writ large than it highlights the problem of “language policing.”

"Oh, THEY are policing my language. THEY are watching everything I say!"

You're reading the idea of language policing as some actual thing, like people are hanging over someone watching every word they say. It certainly might be true in some offices or with some coworkers, but, I'm pretty sure feeling that your every word is policed is closer to a form of anxiety than an actual problem in most offices.

Or, your coworkers are basically bullying you over minor nitpicks, which will keep you in a state of mild anxiety.

Either way, having to monitor your every word is definitely closer to being anxious than not, and is definitely going to have some impact on your performance.

> You're reading the idea of language policing as some actual thing, like people are hanging over someone watching every word they say.

I’m not sure where you got that impression. I didn’t say anything like that anywhere. You’re just making assumptions in service to what appears to be some axe grinding.

the point here being: the perception of being surveilled by "language police" on its own is either anxiety inducing or the result of an existing anxious disposition. The actual act of "language policing" is also going to induce or worsen an existing anxious disposition.

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