April 2017 Newsletter

April 26, 2017

Each of the hundreds of copyeditors who gathered in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida, last week for the annual ACES: The Society for Editing conference was girding themself for some changes to the rules.

“As women spent more time on the court they cut back on a tendency to pose questions politely with prefatory words and phrases like ‘sorry,’ ‘may I ask,’ ‘can I ask,’ ‘excuse me,’ or by addressing the advocate by name. That kind of language gives other justices an opportunity to jump in.”

Taking care with the default language used to describe a female runner.

“As machines are getting closer to acquiring human-like language abilities, they are also absorbing the deeply ingrained biases concealed within the patterns of language use, the latest research reveals.”

“When we use words to describe adult women that are typically used to describe children it changes the way we view women—even unconsciously—so that we don’t equate them with adult men.”—neuroscientist and actor Mayim Bialik

“We need to recognize that the narratives we tell ourselves about immigrant resourcefulness and tenacity also makes us willfully blind to the human cost that makes the $3 banh mi possible.”

A 2013 study in “Psychological Science” found that “people felt more powerful after self-labeling with a derogatory term like ‘queer’ or ‘bitch.’ This sense of enhanced power also led people to view the term less negatively.”

BuzzFeed announces its surrender to the unironic use of the term “millennial” and acknowledges “its journey from cheesy marketing buzzword we tried desperately to combat to just another everyday descriptive word in our vernacular.”

“Stop trying to get an A+ at anything but writing your best work” and more practical advice for writers and creators, especially women and others in marginalized groups.

“Often, the people who make these sounds, in between actual words recognised in the English dictionary, are being especially conscious of who they are talking to.”

Twitter now has a mute feature that allows you to mute “words, phrases, and hashtags, for as long as you want in your timeline and notifications.”

 Reinforcing Linguistic Diversity | Grand Valley Lanthorn

“Faculty and staff are making it their goal to promote equality and respect for all dialects of the English language while acknowledging the skill of code-switching among these different dialects.”

In swearing, younger Americans find words that denigrate people to be most offensive—racial, ethnic, sexual slurs.

On United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz’s use of self-serving doublespeak.

“While it might seem like harmless exaggeration to label your roommate’s strict bathroom-cleaning schedule as OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) or complain that a moody co-worker is ‘bipolar,’ it can dangerously warp our understanding of the real conditions behind the lingo.”

The Fergus Falls Daily Journal explained: “Bullying others is not OK. Body shaming is not OK. Racist views are not OK. Homophobia is not OK. The list goes on, but you get the picture. Let’s debate the issues, not make personal attacks on people.”

“While the Supreme Court still must rule on equal protections for transgender students, the court has at least decided one transgender issue—no misgendering.”

“The Times has updated its guidelines for covering the LGBTQ community. As our understanding of gender and sexual orientation evolves, so does language.”

The Conscious Style Guide newsletter rounds up the best news and blog posts from the world of kind, compassionate, mindful, empowering, respectful, and inclusive language. Note: Spotlighting an opinion is not intended as an endorsement. Please send news tips to [email protected].

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