Person First

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In my field of work, person first language is a must.

You ask: What is person first language?

I answer: Person first language requires that you first refer to the individual and then include what it is you wish to describe about that person.

For instance, instead of saying "The brown-eyed girl" you would say "the girl who is brown-eyed" and "the oldest child" becomes "the child that is oldest". Now we all remember being taught about changing word order to emphasize something, for instance that it is a girl that is brown-eyed and not a boy, but the writer in me cringes that every sentence must clang out the same way.

And then I wonder what would happen if we carried this language change to phrases that do not refer to people: instead "the shaggy dog" you would say "the dog that is shaggy" instead of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" it would be "The Wedding that is Big, Fat, and Mine" instead of "Life in the Slow Lane"... "Life in the Lane that is Slow".

Hm... Life in the Lane that is Slow.

That certainly slows things down. Maybe I will keep that in mind for when this blog gets stuck in the doldrums.

Comments

serapio said…
I'm confused. Why is person-first language a must, or even a good thing? Is this about emphasizing common humanity over differences? And how far are you supposed to take it? The usual behavior of these alternations is determined primarily by how heavy the different parts of the phrase are, and secondarily by things like how new the information is, and then what is focused. I would imagine you end up creating some pretty awkward phrases, and get unintended contrasts.
12:59 AM
slowlane said…
That's what I think, but "sensitivity" thinks that it is better to say "persons with disabilities" than "disabled people" or even "the disabled". That's where it starts and then this rule gets applied to more and more situations. It is especially frustrating if you are trying to come up with a title or vary the wording in a letter or training book. It also feels exceedingly condescending to refer to a person using those mental gymnastics when they themselves are perfectly happy to call themselves a "quad" rather than "a person with quadriplegia."
8:47 AM
serapio said…
Yeah. The part about using potentially disrespectful words attributively rather than as head nouns is actually a pretty good rule of thumb, but after that it gets dubiouser and dubiouser.

Goose persons who are silly!
10:21 AM
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