Earlier I saw a tweet where Google Docs flagged the word "landlord" as non-inclusive.

Damn, Google is gonna upset two (probably mutually exclusive) groups of people with that one. Those who refuse to use change to inclusive, gender neutral language and those who hate landlords.

Did it suggest an alternative? "land-overseer"

It would actually be nice if Google Docs could keep the gender right in a sentence. Like if you say, Lucy, my landlord and the suggestion were to change it to Lucy, my landlady.

I swear to god I did not know 'landlord' is gendered, at least not in the modern context. Is this one of those "actor" vs "actress" things?

I think it is like actor actress. Landlord can be inclusive (genderless/generic term) and used regardless of gender and is accepted use --but if you want to be specific you can use landlady.

In american english it had become genderless, but that isn't acceptable to gender-existentialist that insist on forcefully assigning gendered interpretations to everything possible.

damn thought it was a joke, it was not!!!

I don't know what to say I'm speechless as a non-American looking in.

genuinely curious if "master bedroom" or "slave drive" gets the same treatment.

> A growing number of real-estate professionals have stopped using the phrase ‘master bedroom’ amid a broader societal rethink of the language we use

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-real-estate-industry-m... :p

I really don't understand this part of America

Its replacement suggestions were Property Owner or Proprietor. Those both seem like decent replacements.

Neither of those terms carries an implication that the person is the lessor of a rented property, as opposed to an owner/occupier.

They are decent replacements, but I also don't think "landlord" is actually a gendered word in modern language, so I'm not sure what there is to be offended about.

It's not about being offended, it's about having control. The power to change words, and what that represents.

"Landlord" is gendered; people still regularly use "landlady" to refer to a woman property owner/lessor.

There's room for a neologism here. Maybe "landliege" to keep it sounding feudal?

Microsoft Word already shipped their version of this feature, and it informed me that it was not inclusive to describe the main character of The Music Man as a "salesman".

And do we now have to watch "Death of a Sales Associate"?

"Pregnant woman"

Presumably the core of this feature is things like the n-word. But how far does this go into grey areas (ie things some folks believe are problematic but not everyone)? And do "suggestions" count as censorship?

I mean if someone is choosing to write the n-word I don't think a Google suggestion box is going to change their mind.

The use cases I see here are either words with multiple meanings (particularly when the meanings differ between cultures or the offensive meaning is on the obscure side) or words that are meant completely harmlessly but are historically linked to (or even just sound too much like) something racist/sexist/etc.

This could be helpful for people who were about to accidentally say something offensive, and maybe it could also give pause to someone that was trying to be subtly inflammatory. But flagging words like "landlord" seems on the sensitive side to me. I wouldn't call it censorship but it does further normalize hypervigilance about language use given how sensitive it does appear to be.

I would feel better about it if I knew more about the settings - if I dismiss the landlord suggestion (for example) once will it stop giving me that suggestion in future docs? I would use if so. If not it will definitely get on my nerves and I'd like to turn it off outright. Hopefully that is an option.