Applicants for jobs at the University are unlikely to mind, but language traditionalists are taking aim at “GENDER-INCLUSIVE STYLE GUIDELINES” intended for use in Princeton’s HR communications and job postings.
Out are “all forms of alumna/alumnus/alumni/alumnae,” state the guidelines, which were released without fanfare in 2015 but gained national attention in August. In are alum and alums. Freshman and freshmen? Bad. Use first-year student or frosh.
Princeton now wants skillful employees instead of the workmanlike staff members it might have recruited before, though one wonders if this change would require a pay increase.
News of the guidelines took off on Twitter, where respondents demonstrated their own facility with words, using colorful terms.
HR “has for several years encouraged the use of inclusive language, in keeping with the University’s overall effort to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for all,” Princeton explained on Twitter. It concluded: “No words or phrases have been banned at the University, which places a high value on free expression.”
A University spokesman said individual offices and programs will decide how to achieve inclusivity goals, adding that there are no plans to change “any longstanding program names.”
READ the HR language guidelines on “Using Gender Inclusive Language”
The HR guidelines did create concern in the office of the Princeton Alumni Weekly, already in hot water with alums who think “Weekly” is inappropriate for a magazine published 14 times a year. The new guidelines suggest that two of the three words in PAW’s name are in dispute. (No change is planned.)
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4 Responses
George Brakeley ’61
8 Years AgoWatch Your Language
For almost 60 years my attitude has been “my University, right or wrong,” but this silliness about political correctness (“What’s in a Word? Plenty, HR Says,” On the Campus, Sept. 14) is really making me wonder. Nonetheless, in the spirit of things, I offer one suggestion. Since “prince” is a decidedly masculine word, it is clear we will have to rename the University. I suggest “Royalpersonton University.”
Editor’s note: The “gender-inclusive language” guidelines developed by Princeton’s HR department were “clarified and streamlined” in September “to eliminate any misunderstanding of their purpose and scope,” a University spokesman said. Freshmen and alumni/alumnae are no longer on the list of words to be avoided.
David V. Forrest ’60
8 Years AgoWatch Your Language
I’m a former Princeton Tiger cartoonist who couldn’t resist drawing the above, in response to the University’s recent inclusive-speech instructions.
Editor’s note: The “gender-inclusive language” guidelines developed by Princeton’s HR department were “clarified and streamlined” in September “to eliminate any misunderstanding of their purpose and scope,” a University spokesman said. Freshmen and alumni/alumnae are no longer on the list of words to be avoided.
George Coyne ’61
8 Years AgoWatch Your Language
Published online November 30, 2016
This is in response to the editor’s note with the letter from David Forrest ’60 in the Oct. 26 issue of PAW. You really have me confused now. I thought the “purpose” of “gender-inclusive language” was to eliminate gender distinction. Was I wrong? Now you are “streamlining” the list of “words to be avoided”? I’m sorry, but this silly obsession is unbecoming for a supposedly distinguished institution.
Stephen P. Ban ’84
8 Years AgoOh Person!
Re Princeton’s new “Guidelines for Using Gender Inclusive Language” (On the Campus, Sept. 14): The University community should be adapersondant that their adoption be persondatory as they are written with great acupeople. The guidelines compersond attention; we cannot be personacled by tradition, and must personage our adpersonence thereto. Good personners require it, not just now, but perpersonently. I look forward to reading a senior tpersonis on this topic.
Oh person, oh person, oh person.