Don’t use terms that may carry unconscious bias, sensitive subjects, or associations with military actions, politics, or historical events and eras. Use gender-neutral alternatives for common terms.
| Do use these words | Do not use these words |
|---|---|
| manufactured | manmade |
| personnel, staff | manpower |
| work-hours | man-hours |
| worker | workman/workwoman |
| humanity, human kind | mankind |
| allowlist/denylist | whitelist/blacklist |
| carried over | grandfathered in |
| main, primary | master |
| secondary, replica | slave |
| check | sanity check |
| were ignored, miss the mark | fall on deaf ears |
| weakness, something we overlooked | blind spot |
| extremely, very, unreasonable | crazy, insane |
| freeze, become unresponsive | hang |
With thanks to the Microsoft Style Guide on bias-free communication.