There’s been some interesting discussion this week on my Twitter feed about use of language and ways to improve it. It’s not just about being inclusive but sometimes just to communicate better.

And it all started with this one…

Then there was a further thread on language, from which I’m going to pull a few examples (which I’ll shameless reword in some cases to make them clearer)…

• Removing gendered words from your vocabulary (e.g. “Hi Guys, how are you?”)
• Eliminating “just” from requests (e.g. “I’m just checking in/following up”)
• Not apologising when an apology isn’t necessary. For example, we sometimes apologise for doing our job (e.g. “I’m sorry. . . but”)
• Avoiding calling things easy or simple. This includes ‘just’, ‘obviously’ or other language that casually implies something is easy/obvious
• No more colloquial phrases – see my recent post on this subject

Whether you agree with them all or not, these are definitely worth some thought.

Do you have anything that you’d like to add to this list?