University language dictates

For some time, the universities of the world have been at the forefront of cancel culture—trying to put woke  blinkers on their students and staff (and largely succeeding!) This shows up particularly in what their IT departments do to impose censorship guidelines on their web users.

Some time ago I reported here when Brandeis University’s IT department put out its Oppressive Language List (since re-titled Suggested Language List) – and now the great Stanford university has done the same. Their IT department has issued a list of words that should not be used on any of their websites.

 For a start don’t call web users ‘users’ because that makes them sound like people addicted to illegal drugs. And never allow anyone to say they are ‘addicted’ to something (relatively) harmless such as chocolate or TV soapies—because that trivialisers real addictions that people struggle with.

Really? Why not treat your readers as being intelligent and able to distinguish between the different uses? Why not assume readers can understand how context changes the weight of words?

Now Stanford’s IT department wants to ban language about animals. They claim that although ‘there are different ways to skin a cat’ or ‘flog a dead horse’ or ‘kill two birds with one stone’, all trivialise violence against animals. Really? Again, why not respect the intelligence of your readers? Why not assume that competent users of the English language understand what idioms are and how they work?

The real problem here is that the Stanford IT department (just like the Brandeis University’s IT department before it) actually doesn’t understand how the English language really works, and then tries to impose its ignorance on everyone else. Ignorance is not a good basis for censorship!

https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/language-43/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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