I generally dislike the overly PC nature that we face at times. I am all for showing respect, but dislike it when people are shamed to hide thoughts that come to mind.
The thought police is a wrong idea. We shouldn’t feel guilt at what shows up in our conscious mind. Try to measure on how we act on these thoughts.
That being said, I attempt to better myself, and at times this means retraining the language that I use.
One of the somewhat minor nit picks of late has been the term “normal”. The vaste majority of the time I can exchange the word for “typical” and it works much better. Being abnormal comes across as more strange than being atypical.
“No, but” vs. “Yes, and”
My wife has trained me well on this one. When one of my younger kids gives an idea, rather than jumping on a minor mistake and giving the perfect answer, affirm what was correct and add to the conversation.
This follows the age old rule of improv. You will find that it works well with kids, and adults for that matter!
Hell yeah!
If there are speech patterns that you want to change, how do you go about doing so? It is hard to catch yourself whenever you come across one of these patterns.
One great way to do so it through the magic of autocorrect! I can go into my phone and computer and make sure that I don’t say “guys” as often as before. I can fix up my typing left and right, and this builds a new muscle memory that can come with me into my speech.
You can also have fun by going into your friends devices and cleaning them up a little. I love the kid who pranked her mother by changing “no” to “HELL YEAH.”
Ah those crazy kids. Typical!
Fellow Humans
It is one thing to change what you type or say, but you often want to change what you see and read.
The great new TV show Mr. Robot has a protagonist who has managed to think “evil corp” when he sees “e corp”, and that is how you see the world too… through his eyes.
In the world that we are in, content and advertising is being spewed at us all day and one of the magical abilities of being human is that you can’t not read something if you look at it!
Some take this into their own hands. One great topical example is the browser plugin that changes the term migrants to fellow humans. As an “alien” myself, I always found the term somewhat other.
This isn’t about being politically correct, but showing you a different way to look at things. We have so much bias, that having tools that try to unbias us will probably pop up more and more.
Not only can I change my ways of writing, I can change how I consume them too, and a flywheel can start to turn.
Are there terms that you have tried to change in your communication?