The vulnerable diversity of evidence-based research on transgender fetus entitlements

[LittleFuzzy]

Well, even in the WaPo article, it was always only about budget documents.

[wiggin]

Well, even in the WaPo article, it was always only about budget documents.

I don't really get the fuss over either the original WaPo article or the NR explanation. I've routinely read style guides that suggest you avoid certain words, generally because they are overused and largely devoid of meaning (or because they are freighted with meaning/consequence that you might not want to impart). For example, when submitting papers to a great number of STEM journals, they abhor the word 'novel' - it's not that they don't want to publish novel work, they just think the word is useless. Ditto with applying for grants from government agencies - there are certain words and phrases that won't get you anywhere. Right now I'm working on a massive document for the FDA that is littered with linguistic landmines.

So when I read the WaPo article, I thought it rather unlikely that some political appointee at HHS would be dim enough to try to force something like this on the staff; rather, the article itself seemed to suggest that it was a very specific type of document with a very specific type of language that was being discussed. Any reasonable reader would have come to the conclusion in the NR piece even without interviewing a bunch of people.

[Aimless]

Twitter Link

The plot thickens:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...ds-yuval-levin

[Ominous Gamer]

Every organization has some sort of style guide. Hell, even my social media team does, even though it mainly focuses on the oxford comma, numbers, and time formats. But I'm not seeing the connection between a style guide for formatting or for useless words and a style guide thats built around the fact that the GOP is so easily triggered, there is a world of difference between the purpose and intent behind that compared the examples people keep providing.

[Khendraja'aro]

I don't really get the fuss over either the original WaPo article or the NR explanation. I've routinely read style guides that suggest you avoid certain words, generally because they are overused and largely devoid of meaning (or because they are freighted with meaning/consequence that you might not want to impart). For example, when submitting papers to a great number of STEM journals, they abhor the word 'novel' - it's not that they don't want to publish novel work, they just think the word is useless. Ditto with applying for grants from government agencies - there are certain words and phrases that won't get you anywhere. Right now I'm working on a massive document for the FDA that is littered with linguistic landmines.

So when I read the WaPo article, I thought it rather unlikely that some political appointee at HHS would be dim enough to try to force something like this on the staff; rather, the article itself seemed to suggest that it was a very specific type of document with a very specific type of language that was being discussed. Any reasonable reader would have come to the conclusion in the NR piece even without interviewing a bunch of people.

So, then make the case for "fetus" being banned. I'd also like to know how to describe research into "transgender" issues.

I'd also like to know why the word "fetus" is such a hot issue when it comes to congressional budgets.

[RandBlade]

I'd hazard a guess that fetus is a big-deal sadly because American evangelicals tend to consider the appropriate term to be more "baby" or "unborn baby" and that "fetus" leads to questions regarding abortion that might be better off avoided for funding.

[LittleFuzzy]

I don't really get the fuss over either the original WaPo article or the NR explanation. I've routinely read style guides that suggest you avoid certain words, generally because they are overused and largely devoid of meaning (or because they are freighted with meaning/consequence that you might not want to impart). For example, when submitting papers to a great number of STEM journals, they abhor the word 'novel' - it's not that they don't want to publish novel work, they just think the word is useless. Ditto with applying for grants from government agencies - there are certain words and phrases that won't get you anywhere. Right now I'm working on a massive document for the FDA that is littered with linguistic landmines.

So when I read the WaPo article, I thought it rather unlikely that some political appointee at HHS would be dim enough to try to force something like this on the staff; rather, the article itself seemed to suggest that it was a very specific type of document with a very specific type of language that was being discussed. Any reasonable reader would have come to the conclusion in the NR piece even without interviewing a bunch of people.

I do wonder how the CDC offices and programs are supposed to describe their work without using the word "vulnerable" still. That's literally how you define epidemiologically relevant populations.