I suggested replacing “native speaker” with “proficient speaker” in a technical document. Now I’m getting pushback of the I’m-all-for-inoffensive terms, ’Proficient’-isn’t-an-objective-standard, but-they-won’t-understand-our-football-idioms, sort. Ya think there might be a racism problem in tech.? Sheesh.
@drifa Why does your tech document even care about that one way or the other? o.O
unless there's some weird context I don't know I don't think native speaker is an offensive term here.
@Doephin It's being used in an attempt to make sure a document is written well. The false assumption underlying that use is that everyone born in majority-English-speaking countries is a competent writer, and no-one born elsewhere is. It's both racist and pointless to make that assumption: if one wants competent writing/speaking, one can specify a proficient writer/speaker instead.