fbt

Maybe I'm hedging

annie-spratt-wSOyw11WQxM-unsplash
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash (get it? It's a hedge ;)
Sometimes people say things that rub you the wrong way. Fact of life. People always say that words matter, but sometimes they really don't. Sometimes branding is bullshit, and when people try to rebrand you, you don't have to care. It's when people tell you how to behave when you should probably stand up for yourself.

This week I had some conversations about hedging language. We're working on a digital strategy for Julie's Bicycle and we wrote different sections. Now we are smoothing out different approaches to phrasing, and we realised that I tend to hedge less when writing strategy. I write with a more authoritative tone. It's because I have been constantly asked to prove my authority. I am part of 3% women in open source generally and one of the few considered "experts". That is very annoying for a lot of dudes for some reason. And it always has been. I have constantly had to stand firm, back up my expertise, my opinion. Constantly had to speak up, be confident, blah blah. Nothing I've accomplished in my career has made this no-longer necessary. Writing with authority has helped me establish authority in the past, it's that simple.

On the flip side, my white, cis-gendered male colleague is expected to hedge because historically white men have...well, you know. He worries that people will read my (slightly more) authoritative tone as non-collaborative.

We're literally talking about the difference between "Julie's Bicycle will XYZ..." and "Julie's Bicycle should XYZ..." In the end, we decided to use the softer phrasing for one key reason – my colleague cared about it and I really did not.
Language, friends. There's nuance. Saying that using some common phrase is going to ruin your credibility is a bit over the top. Unless the common phrase is blatantly racist or sexist and you overuse it. Or if you can't wrap your brain around the idea that language matters. I'm just saying that our credibility isn't based on how we turn a phrase, it's based on our competency and integrity. Isn't it? Oh, I might have let in a thought worm there...Credibility isn't based on objectivity so much anymore, is it?

Maybe I'm a mortal

vampire
found it here
The other night I was thinking about vampires. No, I'm not 15 anymore, and if you haven't thought about vampires lately, that's on you. Someday I will write a sequel (or a prequel!) to Maybe Zombies and there will be a vampire in it. I've not attempted to write this book because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway, the conclusion I came to was that I wish it were vampires instead of the pandemic. If I were in a bar with a vampire in town, I'd have like a one in a hundred chance of being vampire meat. In this reality, if I go into a bar, I will very, very likely get sick. Very sick. Actually in the actual reality, the bars aren't open, there are only 9 ICU beds left in my entire state and the other 591 beds are 100% filled with Covid patients.

Reality is absolutely sideways at the minute, and I wish it were sideways in a different way. Contagion is not entertaining. It's terrifying. Vampires, though, with all of their human-like foibles, would be entertaining. Right?

Maybe I need help?

If you cross a werewolf and a vampire, would you call it a Werepire? Or a Vampwolf? What about a vampire and a zombie? Vampbie or Zompire? Check the answers below.

Should be obvious – Werepire and Vampbie. Other names not considered.

How are you?
kofi1
2
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