I don't really know how I feel about this, the headline is a bit jarring but I guess it is from their own documentation.
But without more than the one "landlord" example, it is hard to really get a feel for what this may be doing. That is a strange example though... I have never seen anyone complain about the word "landlord".
Regardless, I don't like the idea of Google or any company having the power to dictate what is socially acceptable or not in what should be a private document.
Especially when important context will likely be missed.
To add. I am gay, I have certain use cases for the related "F" word. I can almost guarantee it will complain about it... but using it is also my right. And some people find "Queer" offenses and some do not, I have seen some heavy debates about it in the community. I would not want Google to take a stance on that.
Edit: I was curious to test this theory for myself. It looks like this is only in a workspace document and not google docs as a whole right now. So... maybe someone else can confirm what happens?
Also, depending on a locale those exact words have active and totally unrelated meanings. (cigarettes and weird).
Landlord, landlady, I mean, that's ridiculous. Google and all other language activists will have to deconstruct all languages and purge them of historical artifacts that get in the way --all languages contain these things.
I suppose they can slowly replace everyone's languages with a single universal synthetic language like Esperanto but one that's further purified and also controlled by an Academy that ensures meanings remain static and don't deviate from official definitions and uses.
Totally. I understood that from your phrasing and I was sure you were aware of what you were describing. You set up the pins so I knocked em down. (also, I was fascinated with Esperanto as a kid.. and also with Orwell. So your twisty path to saying Newspeak was right on my wavelength and I skipped a few preambles)
[edit] Your profile says "google fanatic". Is this a good time to maybe elaborate on that? I would love to know..
As another comment mentioned, Google scale makes things very complex; a non incidental (i.e. English) global language might be very welcome in certain groups, but it being de facto requires, as you said, of a governing body that can regulate and enforce that.
At least in Spanish, there is such a body, the RAE (Real Academia Española, The Royal Spanish Academy), which decrees "unanimously" which words and phrases are canonical Spanish and which not, including regulating regionalisms found across every Spanish speaking country. As you might expect, outside a certain... circle, the RAE is a laughingstock.
The idea that a single entity could rule the way people communicate at that level of granularity, so insidiously, from the perspective of a layman looks unprecedented and unfathomable, that is, until you present them with a taste of the modern scale at which mega corporations operate.
So, consider for a minute an organization like the RAE having Google scale and Google reach. Would something like that mean the starting point of a (very) slippery slope, a snowball rolling down, powered by the pockets of the wealthy and the might of the policymakers? A future where the principles governing the cryptocurrency world will end up driving global policy?
I mention cryptocurrencies because one of their most prominent characteristics is that "Code is Law". As i see it, it's the inexorable outcome resulting from the underlying technological platform, its limitations and its philosophies, not something intended but more of an emergent property exposing the fundamental tradeoffs required to automatically run strict policies at a scale that large.
What would it take then for public policy to go the same route? For a hypothetical evil group of policymakers in awe of the success of Google et al exerting such outsized influence, to take over the same path, and to transform actual, fiscal law into an unwieldy paradigm, a sort of "Law is Code is Law".
We already see glimpses of it when there are leaks and whistleblowers illuminate us about the dark operations of the governments using megacorps to influence the public, but how far would success with this sort of policies with "innocent" subjects like grammar would bring them closer to applying it to the whole cake?
Well, back then grammatical genders had not been conflated with sexual genders. It was, pardon the language, inconceivable, that they would be conflated. Lots of languages have gendered nouns and some have gendered verbs.
Nouns aren't actually grammatically gendered in Esperanto. But when a noun refers to something that can physically have gender, male is the root or default.
Esperanto was invented by a single individual who spoke several languages but who didn't have formal training in linguistics.
It basically started off as a pet project of a young (teenage) language enthusiast, so I wouldn't scrutinize his decisions too carefully or expect every decision he made to be optimal.
Or every decision made back then to conform to today's societal values. no language will ever meet that bar. instead of allowing this natural evolution, seems Google (and let's say 10 people at Google) seem to have decided to be the arbiters of linguistic integrity.
> But without more than the one "landlord" example, it is hard to really get a feel for what this may be doing. That is a strange example though... I have never seen anyone complain about the word "landlord".
The slippery slope is real. I'm sure they'll come after words like master, slave, "pregnant women", etc.
Yes, but the implication is that if you don't use the suggestions you are evil.
If you type "teh" and refuse to correct it to "the", people will just say you're wrong. But progressives have started to frame everything as being either good or evil. (This used to be the domain of the religious right.) So if you stick to "landlord", you don't have a classic opinion on spelling, instead you're denying "landnonbinary's" right to exist.
Something like this happened 8 years ago when a maintainer refused a merge request to replace "he" with "them" in libuv because he thought it was a valueless change. He was destroyed because of it. https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015
I believe this side of the debate is way too exaggerated. I really dislike this language policing, but slippery slope is a logical fallacy for a reason.
Maybe they'll end up with a similar approach to border disputes on Google Maps, where they show everyone what they want to see.
Imagine how confusing it'd be if all your references to the "master branch" are replaced with references to a "main branch" for anyone else who reads your technical document.
For the 150 million kids who use Google Classroom[0] (which includes Google Docs), these optional little purple squiggly underlines would wield unquestionable authority, indelibly shaping word choice for millions of uncritical children, subconsciously guiding an entire generation away from words that might facilitate wrongthink.
But thankfully the people wielding this power are unelected, unaccountable and far from Capitol Hill. Otherwise it'd be Orwellian authoritarianism, and that'd be awful!
Still sounds silly to me. The bogus anti-CRT panic is a much more real and direct threat to education. Or Texas’ longstanding ability to effectively veto the textbooks used by schools nationwide.
If, say, Ron DeSantis was in charge of the system and was using it to discourage inclusionary language that would bum me out. But that hypothetical is still several orders of magnitude less serious than the current reality of banning the discussion of disfavored topics in classrooms under penalty of law.
One is "regulating" speech in schools only indirectly and with a gentle nudge that can be disabled entirely by school districts or simply ignored by teachers and pupils.
The other is directly regulating speech in schools by force of law, statewide, and with no ability for local districts or teachers to override or ignore it. Imagine if instead of banning discussions of gender identity, the bill banned the use of those words that Google puts a purple line under. I think we would both agree that's bad? Whether you agree with the outcome or not, the Florida bill is a much more serious threat to speech and education.
I think every state has a curriculum and guidelines but we do not, in fact, regularly ban topics from discussion or provide a private right to action for offended parents.
You shouldn't have the free speech to talk about sex with kids in kindergarten or third grade.
Public schools should be for everyone. You can talk about that with your own kids, but not in public schools. Kids shouldn't be forced to hear your speech about sex.
> To add. I am gay, I have certain use cases for the related "F" word. I can almost guarantee it will complain about it... but using it is also my right. And some people find "Queer" offenses and some do not, I have seen some heavy debates about it in the community. I would not want Google to take a stance on that.
Sigh. This has become such a point of contention and it really makes me sad. I despise playing the "I'm gay" card, but I've had so many straight people try and police me for my vocabulary or demeanor. A couple years ago I was walking out of a theater with some friends, and I called a ridiculous scene "gay" in the lobby; to my surprise, a woman in her mid-20s looked up from her phone and rushed over to me so she could lecture me on how derogatory I was being. Having to explain to her that my boyfriend is waiting to pick us up in the parking lot is not a discussion either of us wanted to have.
Again, I really do hate talking about my sexuality, mainly for reasons like this. But I genuinely find the "LGBTQ white knights" types more harmful to my daily life than the people who are just blatantly homophobic. If someone hurls an insult at me, I can just ignore them. If someone stops me to correct my behavior or educate me on queer sensitivity, now I have to humiliate the both of us. I don't want to spend my time doing that.
It's a good day to be a Libreoffice user, I guess.
I feel you 100%. I don't come off as gay (nothing wrong with that if you do, but as I generally say... I knew I was a nerd far earlier than I knew I was gay). I don't wear rainbow anything.
So unless we are talking about my partner, you may not know. There have been times I have been working closely with someone for a year plus and they were shocked to find out.
I say that because, yeah being called "homophobic" for the way I speak... is one of my biggest pet peeves. Like I get it, your heart is in the right place. But this policing of language is the easy stuff, it is a feel good "I did something for someone else" that really doesn't move the needle at all.
It is the same thing when white people get upset about a person of color using the N word. Or any other words that have been demonized in the past but as a community many of us are actively trying to take back those words.
Frankly I hope that there is a point that the "F" word is no longer considered derogatory because we took it back. We took the power away from those that wish to use it as a homophobic slur. We turned into something else entirely. But we can't do that when there are tools like this that will forever continue to give those that wish to use the words in a negative way power over language.
I too have never heard of "landlord" being non-inclusive, and I actually do follow a lot of un-inclusive talk(ie guys, motherboard, whitelist/blacklist, master/slave database, black/Black off the top of my head), and the suggested replacements aren't even actual synonyms - "property owner" and "proprietor" don't mean the same thing as landlord. A property owner may not be renting a property to a 3rd party, and a proprietor is the holder of any business or property, not just housing properties that are rented to 3rd parties.
I don't even understand what the problem with landlord could be...is it because it is masculine and landlady should also be included? Because I know literally zero people who have ever made the distinction that a landlord is a male. Or is it the "lord", implying an underclass(more like master/slave)?
I'm guessing that landlord/landlady doesn't leave room for alternative genders. Perhaps they need to invent "landperson". But inventing new words is probably outside their remit for this feature rollout. Bonus for removing the class implications. Oh and any trace of usefulness in the word's historical meaning.
Yeah this is actually a good example of how comfortable capitalism is subsuming subversive countercultural forces for its own purposes.
Landlord is a fairly loaded, and therefor powerful, word. It doesn't hide the archaic relationship it represents, or the power imbalance inherent in it. I'm sure a lot of landlords would prefer we use a more euphemistic term that does obscure those elements.
It is also gendered, which is unrelated to the first thing but can provide a proximate reason to encourage people to switch to a euphemism.
I'm not trying to conspiracy-brain this or argue that's a specific intended goal of google or this product or anything. It's just a fun illustration of a powerful and frightening trend that has been noted in all kinds of spaces for decades at this point.
Now this is a fucking interesting take. Yes, "landlord" has a history rooted in the middle ages, when lords literally owned the serfs who lived on their property. The (google-initiated??) attempt to remove that word from the language even after it survived into the modern day could very well be a subtle first attempt to see whether a corporation can deprive us serfs of the words we need to describe their dominance (and the offense it embodies to individual rights).
It's not quite conspiracy brained, because someone else pointed out here that no one - not even the wokest of woke - took issue with the word "landlord" before. This appears to be an example of a marketing team at Google going through tons of patterns and words that they would flag and trying to find one that won't yet be offensive to anyone because it's not yet become part of the culture war. They may even have invented it themselves just for the purpose of marketing this, uh, "feature".
I think you're right close to the center of describing what's happening in the corporate thrust to leverage wokeness as excuse to control speech on platforms. And I'm someone who appreciates good moderation - and always tried to practice it in my forums - but this ain't that.
That's so nineties it's quaint, even cute. Using the default masculine was totally reasonable for policewomen and actresses and manhole covers... but only made sense when the goal of rearranging language was about removing inequality, rather than establishing new hierarchies based on "identity" - which is a thing you can claim you chose or claim was forced upon you, as it suits you, depending on the rhetorical context. No, definitely a single or dual gender noun won't work. Maybe a system of emojis or animated gifs instead of the "lord" part of the word. We might need a new version of Unicode for this.
Someone else mentioned locale differences (and has been mentioned a few places here) and that particular example came to mind since I have it in my first comment.
Not being British, I don't know how often that is used now (anyone know?).
But this also brings up important discussions like what if you are doing a time piece. You could be talking about a bundle of sticks. "Don we now our gay apparel" is something many of us sing (or at least hear) and I don't consider it offensive. But you wouldn't really write anything "new" with it, but if what you are writing is related to that time period... then it fits.
Side Note: South Park has a FANTASTIC episode on the "F" (gay) word that to me is one of the best episodes they have ever made and does a great job at pointing out that this issue is not cut and dry by any means. Season 13, Episode 12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F_Word_(South_Park)
>> Not being British, I don't know how often that is used now (anyone know?)
Anecdotally, in Glasgow, it is still far more common to hear “I’m going out for a fag” than “i’m going out for a cig” - maybe 5 to 1-ish more common.
That said, smoking is pretty rare these days, certainly compared to ~20 years ago when the indoor ban was introduced.
There’s plenty of the population here would draw a blank and look at you confused if you tried to use the word as a slur - they’d eventually get what you mean but the slur term is not really used here, it’d be jarring to hear someone use the word that way.
Thank you for the insight, that makes sense. I mean I know I saw it referenced in comedy a lot so why change it.
Yet here we are with Google (likely, again I can't confirm it but what are the chances that "fag" and similar words are not part of this list) imposing a US English view on the world. Even if it is just a recommendation you can ignore, slowly that influences you.
How does a red squiggly line make a problem here? In a non-English language I get tons of false-positives on actually correctly written words and I just either ignore them, or “add to dictionary”. I assume dismiss or something similar is just as easy to do here, it really doesn’t worth raising our heart rate over.
Which is why this kind of feature is useful. I'm British and I live and work in the USA. Having software prompt me that the word I use for cigarettes may not be interpreted the same way here provides me real value.
I see the potential value in it, but are you always writing for a USA audience?
If you are not, you are using a tool that (seemingly) is pushing US language norms on other users of the English language.
Further, because the app could be pushing you to not use those words that are perfectly suitable in your culture. Overtime you may find yourself not using them in every day which would be gradually changing your unique culture.
Maybe there is some functionality here that I am missing that actually takes audience into account. But from what I can tell from the outside this is pushing one English ideal onto the world.
Google Docs has a language setting, which I use already - if I'm writing for a US audience I set my document language to US/English and it helps me with spelling words like "favorite" and "neighbor".
US language norms have been taking over the entire world ever since syndication of US-produced media began.
Even thirty years ago there were jokes about how you could go to Australia and understand every word they said and not understand what was said at all. That's decreasing each year.
100 years ago you could recognize where in the US someone was from very easily; now we all speak variations of "Californian".
If that's how you wish to express yourself, go ahead, but if you're writing as yourself (as opposed to writing in the name of someone or something else) there's nothing wrong with using the words and spellings from your own dialect rather than that of your audience. Would you try to hide your accent when speaking in person?
I am already overexposed to these American cultures, and I find the idea of them telling me that the way my culture speaks and expresses its self is "wrong" to be rather disturbing, considering the effect that mass exposure to US culture has had on us.
I wonder where the rabbit hole ends. If the acceptable replacement for landlord is 'property owner', what happens after someone points out that 'property owner' is easily a synonym for 'slaver' if you go back a few years?
I strongly believe in equal rights for all, but it is hard to ignore the mounting evidence that a lot of people just want to go through the motions and not try actually make it happen.
But without more than the one "landlord" example, it is hard to really get a feel for what this may be doing. That is a strange example though... I have never seen anyone complain about the word "landlord".
Regardless, I don't like the idea of Google or any company having the power to dictate what is socially acceptable or not in what should be a private document.
Especially when important context will likely be missed.
To add. I am gay, I have certain use cases for the related "F" word. I can almost guarantee it will complain about it... but using it is also my right. And some people find "Queer" offenses and some do not, I have seen some heavy debates about it in the community. I would not want Google to take a stance on that.
Edit: I was curious to test this theory for myself. It looks like this is only in a workspace document and not google docs as a whole right now. So... maybe someone else can confirm what happens?