Using Inclusive Language to Build Better Relationships with Linguistic Anthropologist Suzanne Wertheim

In this episode of On Record PR, Gina Rubel goes on record with linguistic anthropologist Suzanne Wertheim, PhD to discuss how using inclusive language can build trust and strengthen relationships with co-workers, friends, and family. Suzanne is a national expert on inclusive language and an international keynote speaker with more than two decades of experience researching and speaking about inclusive language. Her book, The Inclusive Language Field Guide: 6 Simple Principles for Avoiding Painful Mistakes and Communicating Respectfully, offers 6 common-sense principles to guide all kinds of communication with all kinds of people.

What drove you to write The Inclusive Language Field Guide?

I’ll be very honest; even though it might sound salesy, my clients asked me to. I liken it to karaoke where you feel like you know a song, but then if the lyrics disappear, suddenly you can’t sing it by yourself. That’s how my clients were feeling with my workshops, my leave-behinds and my consulting. When I was there, everything made complete sense, but then if they had to explain it to somebody else, it would be like that operator thing where they couldn’t get the point across as well as I did, or they also couldn’t reach for the examples that I could. And they were like, “I just need you to be here when you’re not here.” That’s how I ended up writing the book.

Gina Rubel: I love it. Having written four books myself, I know it’s a huge undertaking and it’s a labor of love.

How does our language impact our professional relationships?

I’ll tell you a thing that I tell every single inclusive language workshop attendee, which is every single thing that you say and write can cause your relationships to improve or deteriorate. Literally even things that seem neutral, actually just the act of being in conversation with people, are positive and cause relationships to improve.

Relationships can be a fuzzy-sounding word, but I mean every kind of relationship that involves communication. A relationship between colleagues, between manager and report, between recruiter and job candidate, between company and reader of marketing materials, between company and client, between internal comms writer and employee reading things – all of those relationships are affected. What’s incredibly interesting to me is how quickly a relationship can be ruined, possibly for good, by just a few words.

Gina Rubel: That is so true, and it’s interesting you should say that. Just a few weeks ago, I presented at a public relations class at Delaware Valley University. I always say two things. I say, “Words matter,” and I ask them, “How many of you partake in public relations activities every day?” Most of them don’t raise their hands, and then I remind them that everything they do is communicating with a public, whether it’s you and I talking on a podcast or an email that’s sent or a text. Out of the blue, I said, “If you’re going to apply for a job at my company, please don’t refer to yourself as a lowercase I, because what that conveys to me is that you don’t have self-confidence and that you don’t respect yourself enough to refer to yourself with an uppercase I.” The whole class started cracking up because it’s generational, but to me, I mean it.

Suzanne Wertheim: For the vast majority of human history, communication was face-to-face, or maybe it was letters. The first customer complaint letter is in cuneiform. It’s really old. Somebody was sold some shoddy copper ingot, and it just reads like today’s Yelp review. It’s so funny. There are things that hold steady, but today we have such incredible record-keeping and the ability to distribute words in a way far beyond what was possible until 150 years ago. We’ve got the telephone, and suddenly you can talk to people. “Tele” means far away. You can talk to people far away, but now an email can be screenshotted and sent out and appear on social media. Social media posts can be found through archives. Even if you think you’re deleting things, they’re still there. Your communication record is on record in a way that wasn’t true 200 years ago.

Your personal reputation, your brand reputation, and so many other things can become public and then go wild on the Internet – something you thought was just between you and somebody else or just a conversation that you’re having in-house can go wild.

It’s not just about job applications; it’s about curating something that doesn’t make people angry when they find out you said it behind closed doors because there’s a great chance it’ll get out, especially if it’s terrible.

What are some of the six principles to help guide communication?

First of all, Reflect Reality. The reality is we have a lot of language that is only from one perspective – the perspective of people with power or the majority perspective. We can lose track of reality. In the book, I have gender and sexuality in Reflect Reality. A lot of English doesn’t reflect the reality that nonbinary people exist. If you are speaking to a large audience where you don’t know everybody, there is an excellent chance that people in your audience are intersex, nonbinary, or transgender.

If you’re using words and phrases like “ladies and gentlemen,” “the opposite sex,” or “husband or wife,” these seem so innocuous. I’m giving people the tools of linguistics to pick things up and examine them and ask, “What’s trailing along with this?” This assumption that people are all either male or female permeates so much English, and that’s why I have Reflect Reality as number one.

Another principle is Show Respect. Back to being nonbinary, in English we have a problem with how to respectfully address people, especially people we don’t know. One problem is just in terms of gender and marital status. The word Ms. came around, as an honorific. Until very recently, the 1950s, to address a man respectfully, you only had to know that he was a man. To address a woman respectfully, you had to know that she was a woman, and if she was married or unmarried. If she was married, she was Mrs. If she was unmarried, she was Miss. People said, “That’s really lopsided, so let’s remove marital status from politeness. It has no relationship to politeness, so let’s remove it. You should be polite to anybody, regardless of their marital status. It’s irrelevant.”

Now we’re in a new moment where a similar thing is happening with gender overall. Why do you have to know somebody’s gender in order to be polite with them? In the American South, people are writing to me so upset. They say, “I was raised to say ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ to everybody. I was literally beaten if I didn’t say ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’” This is true in Texas. This is true for a lot of Black people in the South. They’re like, “I’m nonbinary. I know people are nonbinary, but I don’t know what to say to be polite.” Right now, we’re in a moment of flux, and I think it eventually will settle down. Ms. isn’t in full use everywhere, but it’s pretty common in a drop-down menu. What’s less common is gender-neutral options.

Gina Rubel: It’s funny. Before we started recording, I shared with Suzanne something that happened today. A teammate asked me how to address a formal salutation in a letter or email when you don’t know the person’s preferred pronouns, or if you know that they go by they them their. We just had this discussion this morning and I came up with a couple of solutions. What do you recommend?

Suzanne Wertheim: I recommend having processes in place to elicit right up front what somebody’s preferred honorifics and pronouns are. For example, on my contact form on my two websites, I ask people for their pronouns, and I ask people what their honorific is. I’ve got Ph.D.’s writing to me. Some of them want to be addressed as “Doctor.” Some of them want to go by their first name. In the end, we can’t tell what any one person is going to prefer, so the most respectful thing is to say, “What do you prefer?” and then go from there.

This is a problem if your first contact is some kind of cold call. Similarly, this is a question for disabled people or people with disabilities. Sometimes people like to say, for example, “autistic person.” Sometimes people prefer “person on the autism spectrum.” In any large group of people, you will never find 100% agreement on what is preferred for everybody. My recommendation is to have things set up to figure out what it is and then have that in your file on the person. Then you automatically know.

Gina Rubel: I agree with you that you should always ask first, but one of the things I came up with today in our challenge in my office was we don’t know, and we hadn’t asked. It’s a new client, and my bookkeeper wasn’t sure. In our accounting system, you can choose Mr., Ms., Mrs., or nothing at all. In that case, I said just use “Dear first name last name” and don’t use the honorific if you don’t know.

Suzanne Wertheim: Agreed. That is exactly the solution that I recommend to people. The US has been moving towards being more casual for decades. Clothing that used to be only gym clothing when I was in high school is now out-and-about clothing. A doctor used to call my mom Mrs. Wertheim. Now doctors will just call me Suzanne. There is this push toward more and more casual. No judgment, I’m just saying this is an overall move. Using “first name, last name” already shows that you’re being different. People who are coming in and are not in the majority or dominant group are sensitive to when somebody recognizes that they might exist. This is why I’m saying Reflect Reality is my number one.

If you have a thing that says, for example, “spouse or partner” instead of “husband or wife,” then for the majority of people reading that in legal language or benefits, it’s going to be unremarkable. For people who have a nonbinary spouse, they say, “Oh, spouse or partner. They recognized that this person exists.” I feel it’s the same way with “Dear Suzanne Wertheim.” It says, “They weren’t sure what I prefer for an honorific or a respect title, so I can come back and say, ‘In the future, you can address me this way.’”

Gina Rubel: And that’s okay. It’s okay if someone addresses you a certain way to let you know, “My preferred pronouns are” or “I like to be referred to as.” One of the things I also learned today is Mx., which is an honorific that can be used for gender-neutral people. It’s not well-known yet. It’s not just how we communicate here in the US, because there are a lot of other honorifics throughout the world. In some cases, you can ask if someone goes by “The Honorable,” “Professor,” “Duchess,” or whatever it may be. I was just in Europe, and it was interesting to see on British airways all the different titles that are used as honorifics that we don’t use here in the U.S. It’s important for that inclusivity to reflect the reality of the rest of the world, not just your reality where you live and how you think the world should be.

Suzanne Wertheim: I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been spending a good part of March giving keynotes for international companies for Women’s History Month. I’ve been thinking a lot about global communities.

This is one reason why I came up with principles of inclusive language. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who approaches inclusive language this way because most people go by identity. They’re like, “Here’s a group of people. They’ve historically been treated badly. They’re still disrespected. Here are bad words. Here are better words. Here’s a second group of people,” and so on. But that often doesn’t work when you have global clients. The identity framework might work for the US, but what about for India, where it’s not race but caste? Or what about Germany, where it’s maybe immigrant status? You can’t have it so that it’s only for English; you have to give people the opportunity to say, “Well, I’m going to give you examples in English, but you can apply the principles to your own language.”

Let me go back to Mx. and say there’s even one more thing. It’s so new in terms of a widespread thing. It does show up, for example, in the New York Times style sheet. The New York Times is a little stodgy, so I’m always noticing when things show up in there. There isn’t even one way to pronounce it; some people pronounce Mx. as “mix,” and some people pronounce Mx. as “mux.” Things are so new that we haven’t even settled in on a final form. You still have checking to do, but anyone that you check in with is going to be somewhere between excited, grateful, and appreciative that you knew enough to check in. Just even having that knowledge base lets people feel seen, valued, and respected.

Gina Rubel: This is a bigger conversation, but it’s okay for the person to say, “I prefer they, them, and their,” and to our listeners, don’t take it personally. It’s not about you, it’s about them. It’s about them owning their identity, knowing who they are, and sharing that with the world. I have seen people take it personally and it’s just not necessary.

Suzanne Wertheim: I would add to that to also give yourself some grace if you did not grow up with this grammar because the grammar gets fixed in our heads around puberty. You don’t really become a native speaker of another language after puberty. Then you consider it like a second language, so you’re bilingual or multilingual if you learned it as a kid, and then as an adult, you learn things later and it’s harder.

I’m Gen X, and for a lot of people I know, the weight of the millions of times we only used he or she to refer to a single person pushes us forward, and we’re talking on autopilot or our tongue is just moving faster than our brain, and the wrong pronoun comes out.

I’ve got exercises in my book, and I’m pretty sure my first exercise is to practice saying “they” for a single person, because you have to push against that fixed grammar in your head and you’ve got to push against literally the millions of times you haven’t said it that way. Just like anything, when you’re acquiring a new skill, it takes practice, and pronouns are one. If it’s a new skill for you to say “they” to refer to a single known person, put in some time and effort practicing it, and then if you make a mistake and somebody says, “Oh, actually I’m they them,” don’t feel attacked. Don’t freak out and don’t over-apologize. The whole idea is to be respectful as opposed to using language that subtly says, “Oh, you’re a weirdo. Oh, you’re so special.”

I was talking to a nonbinary person who uses they them, and they were telling me that they had a manager they had to continuously correct. “Oh, actually they them.” The manager never changed, so obviously wasn’t practicing, but would over-apologize in such a terrible way that this person felt really marked, the way that you apologize to show “Actually, you’re the problem.” The apology that isn’t an apology. I’d like to advise people to also avoid that. It’s not an attack on you if somebody says, “Oh, actually they them.” They’re just saying, “Hey, here’s some new grammar and I might have to remind you of this new thing because your brain is going to take a while to adjust.”

Gina Rubel: It’s not easy for Gen X or Baby Boomers, which is the majority of the population right now. I have two friends, each of whom has a child who’s nonbinary, and I really practice to say, “They are my friend’s child,” not daughter or son. It’s all of that practicing, and I get it wrong all the time. It’s force of habit.

How can you recover and move on from a language mistake?

The more that you have established good intent and that you are in the process of learning and you’re open to constructive feedback, the more grace people will have for you, and the more you can apologize and move on. There’s a difference with someone who’s signaling in all these ways, “I don’t care.”

We were talking earlier about politeness. I’m aiming things for people who want to be polite and who want to be respectful, and there are people who don’t care about being polite and respectful and my feeling is, “I’m not going to spend time talking with you. You’re going to end up with relationships that have deteriorated, including professional relationships, if you don’t care about being polite to people.”

Gina Rubel: Or you’ll just be in relationships with a very homogeneous group of people who think like you. That’s okay for them, but it’s not necessarily okay for us.

Suzanne Wertheim: I agree, although if everybody wants to treat everybody else with disrespect, those relationships do end up failing too. If everybody’s like, “I’m top dog, you have to respect me. My perspective is the only perspective,” after a while not everything is about race and gender, it can be about time zones or about a restaurant that you like.

Any way that you demonstrate to another person that you’re open to constructive feedback and you take it well, that can be applied to language. You wouldn’t expect to read a book about French or Spanish for a few hours, put it down, and be like, “Well, I speak French now.” That’s not happening. Well, inclusive language skills are language skills, and our brain works differently for language than it does for any other human skill we have. It’s so complicated. There’s so much on autopilot, and there’s so much that needs rewiring. If you show people that you’re available for constructive feedback, and then you take it and say, “Oh, thank you for sharing that with me,” it’s the best skill for any professional relationship. It’s also very true for language.

You can even be proactive and say to people around you, “I know that we’ve got a new etiquette. It’s different from the one I grew up with. If you see me saying or writing something wrong that’s old-fashioned or out-of-date that might be offending people, can I ask you to just bring it to my attention?” Then as long as you’re a safe person, people will say to you, “Hey, you keep on starting meetings with ‘Hey, guys,’ but that’s really upsetting the women on the team. Not all of them, but two of them. Can you switch to ‘Hey, everyone’ or ‘Hey, team”?

Language is a collaborative project. Words have meaning because we’ve agreed that they have meaning. Words have cultural power because we’ve agreed on what the cultural power is, and it’s always shifting. If you understand that it’s an ongoing process and you can’t do it yourself, that’s how you set yourself up for success.

Suzanne Wertheim

Website: https://www.suzannewertheim.com/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-wertheim-ph-d-1508464/

Gina Rubel

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