Yeah, I’m the same way - also a googler, I used the term “grandfathered” in a meeting with a bunch of people and someone on Meet chat corrected me to “legacy” or something, and I said, “oh, okay, no problem” and corrected myself and moved on.
So - I used a word that someone didn’t like, they corrected me, I adjusted without deep apology and moved on, and everything was fine. Who cares? Why is this such a huge issue, language evolves all the time.
My suspicion is - of people who run into problems with language at tech companies, half of the problem is due to their reaction to being corrected.
I mean - it feels like you’re creating a combative situation where one does not exist. “And just who are you?” - what is the point of that? To what end and whose benefit?
As the person who experienced this particular moment, I can assure you there was nothing combative about it. It was a one off comment, a one off response, everyone moved on.
Is every disagreement you experience combative? Every correction? I tell you, I had a catch-up yesterday with a former team member that turned to the subject of web3, and that friendly debate was approximately 50x more combative as the moment I described.
That isn't language evolving, that's you being arbitrarily 'punished' for no better reason than to reinforce the false idea that the other person is better than you. The right response is to refuse because that treadmill is endless and its potential speed is unlimited.
You were being "corrected" by someone else, weren't you? They knew the "right" language and you didn't. What do you think would have happened if you'd disagreed with this particular correction?
Like if I had said, “thanks for the feedback but I’m going to continue using this other word”? I think we probably would have just moved on and the individual would have been offended, but - why would I do that? To whose benefit? Mine?
Because, look, I’m a successful, senior, valued individual who is respected and liked by my team. In the grand scheme of my life, if someone wants me to use one word vs another, why do I care? I have thousands of things that are more important to worry about than that.
It’s the same way that I work with someone who likes to be addressed in emails by their full name - okay, no problem, remind me once and I’ll just move on. Or a coworker I had who was from Africa and did not want to be referred to as “African American” - sure, fine.
Doing so diminishes me not at all, because I don’t define my worth based on whether I use the correct (or incorrect) word or not.
It seems like a lot of the objections that I see in this thread have to do with people having issues being “corrected” or “policed” or “silenced”, all of which have to do with how they interpret how those moments have wronged THEM. Another option would be to let it go. Yet another would be to see themselves as making the faintest possible effort to make sure people feel welcome.
I think we probably would have just moved on and the individual would have been offended
That's the gap between you and others in this thread. What we've experienced is not that one individual is genuinely offended and everyone just moves on, it's that they immediately run the HR/management with crocodile tears in their eyes, and then demand you be fired. They conclude that the only reason to refuse their request is because you're an ideological enemy and don't care about anything else.
And that's why it's bad. It's not about genuinely taking offence, and never was. It is about establishing dominance over powerful institutions so they can turn them all into Twitter - weapons in a never-ending dystopian culture war that can never be won because the victory conditions change every day.
Starting when I was a kid, I used the expression “gypped” without concern or awareness, and then at some point someone maybe in high school or college took me aside and explained that it was based on a stereotype. I was nonplussed for a minute, and then I moved on. And I just don’t say that anymore. I don’t feel bad about having said it in the past, I don’t have any deep guilt, I just…got on with my life.
So I guess the password is “don’t use a colloquialism based on an ethnic stereotype “, and that seems pretty straightforward and reasonable.
Similar thing happened to me- I used the term "biner" to refer to a carabiner, but was told that it was an insult used to refer to hispanics who collected beans in the central valley of california. At the time, I was in Connecicut. I've also had people tell me I can't call a particular card suite a "spade".
So - I used a word that someone didn’t like, they corrected me, I adjusted without deep apology and moved on, and everything was fine. Who cares? Why is this such a huge issue, language evolves all the time.
My suspicion is - of people who run into problems with language at tech companies, half of the problem is due to their reaction to being corrected.