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Stanford pulls 'harmful language' list (insidehighered.com)
21 points by nverno on Jan 12, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments


I managed to digitize and archive it on Github [1] in case anyone's curious what was there.

[1] https://github.com/naveenarun/StanfordHarmfulLanguage


“Balls to the wall” is an aviation idiom, similar to “maximum thrust”. It refers to the ball on the end of a throttle being pushed to the firewall when wide open.

I don’t know if it’s the only error made by the HR rep that through this together.


It wasn't put together by an HR rep.


Sadly, no, it was the product of 18 months of collaboration between a committee and “stakeholder groups”. Had it been made by a single overzealous HR person, that would’ve been significantly less embarrassing for Stanford.


I was going to contact Stanford and other universities. I detest the words "the," "at," the number "four/4," and the letter "b" and was going to ask them to put those words on the list of harmful language. Maybe it doesn't harm many other people, or maybe I'm the only one - so what? If I am offended and harmed, then I am offended and harmed.


One fun one to look out for, is healthcare, one word. It’s a neologism that means the network of companies and government functionaries which control your access to health care, two words.


Too much pedantry doesn't work. Maybe focus on education?


The administration must continue to grow in order to meet the needs of the expanding administration




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