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Edwin Skau asks if we are taking 'political correctness' too far.
Dan Emory opines that we are, ending with "A pox on those who want to force
their PC silliness in tech docs."
I think it is too easy to lump language use into other social changes and make
a statement that tars everything with the same brush. Dan Emory does allow for
some linguistic changes when he says, "I can see that we need a gender-neutral
way of saying he/she or him/her," but he is unwilling to go beyond that.
Why has the so-called universal he gone out of favor? It is because the
audience increasingly does not identify with it. Females no longer feel
included in the masculine pronoun, and not all of them are making a political
statement.
As writers, I think it is our job to address the audience in a way that engages
them rather than in a way that causes them to disengage from the document. We
no longer blindly hold to the notion that only males are reading our documents.
So we adjust to make the female reader feel a part of the audience, too.
When someone asks, "Should I continue to use such-and-such a term," as the
writer who initiated the "Master/Slave" thread did, they are performing an
essential writing task. How will my audience react to the language I am using
(have used or intend to use)? This questioning is less a matter of being held
hostage to some nebulous conspiracy enforcing Political Correctness and more a
matter of writers maintaining an awareness of who their audience is and how
that audience will react to the language choices the writer makes.
Advocating for the audience, I remain sincerely yours,
