Indigenous Peoples Day recognition and other language changes we're thankful for this year
  Giphy As copy editors, we're always examining what's wrong in a draft and, perhaps too often, rattling off our grammar pet peeves. So we wanted to mark this time of year by celebrating what we think are positive changes made by some of the standard gatekeepers and guides of modern American English. Here's what we're thankful for this year.
The Associated Press Stylebook updates
In our last newsletter, we wrote about how pervasive ableist language is — and how important it is to edit it out of our writing. AP's new entry on ableism, added in April, explains the term ("the belief that typical abilities — those of people who aren't disabled — are superior") and encourages avoiding language that implies this kind of prejudice against people with disabilities. It also updated its disabilities entry to include a warning about using disability vocabulary in unrelated circumstances, such as idioms and metaphors, saying, "Words that seem innocuous to some people can have specific and deeply personal or offensive meanings to others."
Speaking of changes that may seem small to some but can have a larger meaning, antisemitism is now one word in the AP Stylebook, a change we had made earlier this year after consulting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The previous style, anti-Semitism, alluded to the existence of a Semitic race and was rooted in Nazi ideology.
AP also added an entry instructing writers to avoid the term anti-Asian sentiment, which we often saw used as a euphemism for racist comments or actions against Asian people. Instead, be more specific and call it anti-Asian racism, bias, or discrimination. This guidance came at a crucial time, when hate crimes against Asian Americans were skyrocketing as a result of racist scapegoating.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to swiftly changing language and mini style guides, but we are thankful for this one change that should be here to stay: AP added a virus variant section, which includes direction on how to label variants of viruses without naming the country where they were first identified.
All the pandemic-related words added to Merriam-Webster
The past couple of years have been marked by uncertainty, and having a clearly defined vocabulary for our changing world has helped us articulate what we're going through. Merriam-Webster adds hundreds of words to its dictionary every year. This year it included many related to the pandemic, from pod and bubble (in the isolation sense) to long COVID to super-spreader to breakthrough (as in a case of infection in someone who is fully vaccinated) to vaccine passport. As much as we never want to hear some of these words again, it's important to have language to describe these times, and we're thankful the online version of M-W stays up to date.
The White House recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day (but we simply must talk about the apostrophe!)
 For the record, the president and BuzzFeed News also have different styles on this point, among many others.
Congress revising its rules to be more inclusive
Among the extensive revisions to the House rules adopted by the 117th Congress were changes to make language more inclusive and gender neutral. These included using chair instead of chairman/chairwoman, themself instead of himself or herself, and parent (and parent-in-law) instead of father/mother, and child (and child-in-law) instead of son/daughter.
The Biden administration removing the term "illegal alien" from government communications
The Department of Homeland Security was directed to stop using the words alien and illegal alien in both internal and external communications, and instead use the terms noncitizen, undocumented noncitizen, or undocumented individual. The change represents a shift away from language that dehumanizes immigrants.
It's great to see the singular they catching on in more corporate style guides, as one of our Twitter followers noted. This massive style guide from Google includes plenty of fascinating pieces of advice, including avoiding ableist euphemisms and using gender-neutral language.   What recent language changes are you grateful for? Reply to this email or tweet at us @styleguide!
4 Things We're Reading 1. ScienceAlert: "Regardless of The Language You Speak, You'll Likely Call One of These Shapes 'Bouba'" 2. Washington Post: "A French Dictionary Added a Gender-Neutral Pronoun. Opponents Say It's Too 'Woke.'" 3. The Conversation: "What Americans Can Learn From Other Cultures About the Language of Gratitude" 4. The A.V. Club: "Brit Awards Say 'Cheerio!' to Gendered Award Categories"
And finally, a tweet:  Twitter: @styleguide
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by Dru Moorhouse, Emerson Malone, Sydnee Thompson, Sarah Schweppe, and BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here or on Twitter. And make sure you check out the BuzzFeed Style Guide.
📘 All definitions, etymologies, and other information in this newsletter were found via Merriam-Webster.com, the Online Etymology Dictionary, Collins Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, and Wordsmith.org, unless otherwise noted. |
