[OSM-talk] LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee holding public discussions on Etiquette Guidelines

[Greg Troxel]

"Amanda McCann" <amanda at technomancy.org> writes:

> e.g. “to dead name [somebody]” is an new English verb which means to
> refer to a transgender person using their old name. Sometimes people
> do it deliberately, in order to misgender a transgender person. “to
> misgender” is another new verb (which isn't even in my Firefox's
> spellchecker!), which means to call someone the wrong gender. Other
> examples “innuendo”, “intimidation”, “retaliation”. For all of these
> words, one can write a dictionary entry, one can define them. Those
> words are in normal dictionaries. These are useful words with specific
> meanings. We could write a dictionary for these words, if that would
> help. It is good to have these technical words. If we do not include
> those specific words, then (to keep the same meaning) we will have to
> have very long sentences, or use simplier words that don't mean the
> same thing. In English this type of specialist langauge is called
> “jargon” (which also has negative meanings).

I would say if you want to use these words then they absolutely need to
be defined within the document.  I would expect that 90% of US resident
en_US speakers do not know what "dead naming" means.  I have literally
never heard th phrase before.  And yes, I know some trans people, and
it's obvious that calling them by their previous names is rude.
(Presumably the guideline would apply to anyone with a changed name, for
any reason, evenhandedly.)  As I just commented earlier, I think it's
better to write out the meaning than to use a term which has not been in
widespread use for 25 years.

I agree with your other points about the care needed to use English to
communicate among non-native speakers and even among native speakers of
varying en_*.
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