G’day folks, the promoters of Orwellian newspeak are at it again — this time, in Australia.
2016 Australian of the Year (yes, that’s a thing) David Morrison has been panned for campaigning to ban the use of terms like “guys” to refer to mixed-gender groups in the work place.
The former army chief and member of the Diversity Council announced on Wednesday the launch of the “Words at Work” campaign, calling on Australians to stop using derogatory and gender-marked terms in the workplace — including “mum” (don’t ask), “girls,” “gay,” and… “guys.”
“Exclusive language, gender-based language or inappropriate language, has as much a deleterious or disadvantaged effect as something where you’re saying something blatantly inappropriate to another human being,” General Morrison told ABC News Breakfast.
Take a look at this short and rather cringe-inducing instructional video, made specifically for the occasion.
In it, you can see a group of women rolling their eyes at a male colleague who addresses them as “girls.”
General Morrison also said he was now trying to stop using the word “guys” when speaking to groups of people.
“I have now removed that from my lexicon as best I can, I think it’s important,” he said.
The only problem? Unlike “girls,” which applies exclusively to females, “guys” is commonly thought as a genderless, unisex expression when used in its plural form. Both the Oxford and Webster Merriam Dictionary explain the term can refer to people of either sex, as in “Do you guys want some coffee”?
a : man, fellow b : person —used in plural to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex <saw her and the rest of the guys>
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned that Morrison’s campaign was going “too far” and could interfere with freedom of speech. “There are some generic terms that should not cause offense,” she said in an interview in Sydney.
Words do matter — particularly when used in a negative fashion. Yet, if anything Morrison’s latest comment shows a baffling lack of understanding of his own language, and feels like a trivial waste of time and money when there are other real issues at stake — like the fact that Australian elected officials, such as Darwin mayor Katrina Fong Lim, are still enduring things like having their house defaced with racist graffiti.