[notahacker]

If the entire point of using words in a certain way is to get people to reflect on subtle shades of meaning, admire your poetry or reach for a thesaurus, you're entitled to ignore the suggestions. Probably you'll want to ignore grammar suggestions which have been in word processors for decades without hundred comment whingefests and spurious Orwell comparisons too. Maybe even spellcheck if using yer own werrds in yer own pryvate documents is really iMpoRtAnT to yoo[1]. Most people aren't using Google docs to write Ulysses or Riddley Walker though, they're using it to draft documentation and letters to a customer base.

(And elsewhere it's being asserted with equal fury that master/slave replication and assumptions that people are exclusively male shouldn't be flagged because the choice of words doesn't have any deeper meaning...)

Honestly, can you not see how staggeringly self-centred it is to insist that if readers have to Google your idioms that's the beauty of language (even for documents where clarity is more important than linguistic flourishes) but removable squiggly line suggestions are far too much of an imposition on native speakers (who are of course both incapable of making a word choice in error and too vulnerable not to unthinkingly accept Google's suggested alternative in their private documents).

Honestly, the word privilege is overused, but I can't think of anything more apt to describe a cohort of people so far removed from any real threat that the most tyrannical thing they can think of is a clunky grammar check feature.

[1]Ironically, my phone actually insisted on overwriting my pryvate werrds with alternative spellings. Tyranny, I tell you.

[noduerme]

>> can you not see how staggeringly self-centred it is to insist that if readers have to Google your idioms that's the beauty of language

You know what's self-centered? Telling the whole world that they're writing the right or wrong way. Believing everyone reads the way you do. Believing you know what words they should use and what their aims are in addressing a reader.

>> Honestly, the word privilege is overused, but I can't think of anything more apt to describe a cohort of people so far removed from any real threat that the most tyrannical thing they can think of is a clunky grammar check feature.

The grammar check feature is the thin end of a wedge. Who's more privileged than someone worried one of the world's largest companies is setting policies that restrict or nudge private language in billions of documents? I guess "more privileged" would be the people who have no understanding of the history of political suppression of language and think that using the word "landlord" is a form of "harm" or "violence" which entitles a company to involve itself in the content of people's letters (and here, any comparison to spell checking is totally disingenuous). Anyone who believes language is "violence" and supports policing it is either a totalitarian or so privileged themselves as to have never seen violence.

It's not a question of being able to turn the feature off: It's the sheer monomaniacal hubris of people who think they have a right to be the voice in someone's ear or on someone's text document, trying to dissuade them from using words you arbitrarily don't like in a bid to control their behavior. That is exactly the nature of tyranny and totalitarianism. Only people with such extreme privilege as to have grown up far away from those things can pretend it's simply promoting "inclusivity".

BTW bro, have you looked at that photo of yourself at Machu Pichu on your website? You're the poster child for privileged people misusing "privilege".

>> whingefests

This also betrays your kind. "Quit whining" is a favorite line of most bullies. You're the kind of bully who gets their hands on a leftist idea instead of a fascist/racist idea, but show precisely the same lack of thought. They do try to make these virtue signaling behaviors and speech patterns easier for frat boys these days - makes you guys easier to switch off whenever they feel like turning accusations of "privilege" against you.

[notahacker]

Nope, I'm going to stick with the view that it's self-centred to not only think even inadvertently confusing idioms are invariably more important than clarity, but also to insist that even if some people want pointers on avoiding gendered terms or words which have obscure controversies associated with them, corporations must restrict their grammar checking features to stuff which doesn't trigger you.

And no, it absolutely isn't disingenuous to suggest that a feature which suggests some words might inadvertently assume the reader is male or has negative connotations isn't somehow qualitatively different to one that tells you your Flesch Kincaid score could be higher, advises you to avoid the passive voice or starting sentences with "but", and even spellchecks have a subjective component (as I'm reminded whenever I decline a tool's suggestion to substitute Noah Webster's spellings for the ones I was taught). All style guide stuff involves judgements by humans based on what they think is better for other humans to read and none involves any behaviour control (at least not unless the style guide checker is your boss).

You can't have it both ways, if word choices are incapable of alienating people it makes bugger all difference to have a software feature with some words suggesting using some different words. If the beaty of words matters deeply to you, maybe their etymology or gender implications matter to some people who are not you too. Personally I'd say people thinking that landlord is a pretty worrisome term are a bit over the top, but they're not half as over the top as people insisting there's something akin to the suppression of political speech about suggesting "proprietor" as an alternative and anyone who doesn't agree with them is a bully.

BTW bro, thanks for checking out my website. Not sure why you think that old pic gives you great insight into my background, but let's just say I haven't lead such a sheltered existence I feel bullied by a user configurable linting tool and people not agreeing with my opinion on linting tools.

[noduerme]

My original comment was about Google's style guide for developers, which is not an optional set of suggestions. But as far as the linting tool, it is not something people are installing themselves who want to correct their grammar. It's a default-on layer over private writing in one of the most widely used pieces of writing software in the world. Its purpose is not to correct grammar or even to suggest stylistic improvements, but rather to nag people to make politically charged and slanted word choices, explicitly telling them that words like "mother" are politically incorrect.

A decade of social media has shown that small changes to UIs, news feeds, opt-out features and suggestion algorithms have radically changed human behavior. This is a dark pattern attempt to change human behavior. A neutral tool for typing documents has no business making this an opt-out feature. The aim of it is not to improve people's writing but to literally make people think twice about using certain words because someone, somewhere might be offended by them. The trouble is that when this becomes foremost in one's mind while writing, it absolutely warps the ability to speak honestly. It politicizes everything.

And these are not suggestions made by humans. They are being made by an opaque AI. If that AI decides that a word is politically incorrect, a nudge like this can effectively dampen the usage of that word in practice, without any sort of wider debate.

Consider how this will play out when China and Russia require Docs and other word processors to include "nudges" like this, for example about the Ukraine war, or Tibet. Of course, you can still type what you want to, but the chilling effect of seeing a warning pop up about a word you've just written is enough in many places to make you delete it. Just because it's being done first in the name of inclusivity or social justice and 'who could argue with that?' doesn't make it OK. It's a blatant attempt to control human behavior.

[notahacker]

There's no "honesty" in calling a database a "slave" or assuming your user base is male. If Googlers compiling are wrong that calling a database a "slave" actually normalises slavery then nobody is actually hurt and no meaning lost by the trivial move to rename it something else, and if they're right... well you're free to make a case that the normalisation of slavery is an inherently wonderful thing under threat, I guess, but is a niche position (and people edit in response to the prompt precisely because most developers using the term have absolutely no intention of normalising slavery)

Consider how this already played out when the words in question were profanity. People cracked jokes about the clunkiness of a feature that censored the town of Scunthorpe but nobody old enough to get into cinemas came up with absurd comparisons to the Great Firewall of China or talked about it as mind control or bullying. No slippery slope was fallen down, and despite swear filters being pervasive in style guides and on user generated content tools, self-proclaimed free speech advocates ignored them to the extent they're actually insisting the social justice people did content filters first. I guess it's easier to be indifferent when you don't despise the cause behind it...

[noduerme]

I'm not a proponent of slavery, nor was I one 20 years ago the first time I set up a slave server. You don't think it's the least bit wrong to artificially call people names just because you decided to change the language in a completely ridiculous way and they didn't want to play-act along with you that you were doing a great thing for the world?

The "honesty" is inherent in calling a thing what it is. Red and green still exist, whether or not there are blind people who can't see them. Asking people to avoid the word "red", as in "redlining", is asking people to agree that 2+2=5. Some will do so out of fear. Some will do so because they're browbeaten with retarded arguments like the ones you're giving.

2+2=4. The people who thought the Great Firewall was a good idea for Chinese nationalism are just like you. They believed in doing the best thing for the most people, at the expense of anyone who disagreed with them. And like you, their real reason was not in fact to help anyone; it was showing that they had power to push their agenda.

>> I guess it's easier to be indifferent when you don't despise the cause behind it...

This is the real nut of it. If you find yourself indifferent to something because you're in favor if the cause behind it, but you would be outraged if you were against the cause behind it, then you had better speak out against it - because it will come for you eventually.

It always comes back and bites you. I'm a grandchild of holocaust survivors. No one spoke up for us. You are creating the conditions by which everyone is afraid to speak their mind.

I hope your own people do come for you first, and I'm confident they will find something in your Facebook or Twitter history to kick you out of society as language changes in the next few years and you find yourself left behind. My advice to you then is: Remember that you didn't speak up for anyone else you disagreed with.

This'll be the end of this; I'm done wasting my time on someone who can't understand the basic principles at work here. I hope the best for you and people like you when the fascists take over and tell you which words aren't inclusive of their idea of equity.