Everyday inclusive language: the small swaps

Behaviour, not a banned-words list

Plenty of advice on inclusive language reduces it to two columns: bad words here, good words there. I find that framing unhelpful — it makes people anxious, and the lists go out of date almost as fast as you can learn them. It's far more useful to think behaviourally: what am I doing with my language? Am I reflecting reality, showing respect and drawing people in — or am I, without meaning to, erasing or stereotyping someone?

That shift matters because it's portable. You can't memorise every word for every group, but you can carry one question into any situation: would this help the person in front of me feel seen, or unseen?

The assumptions hiding in plain sight

Most everyday exclusion isn't in obviously loaded words — it's in the assumptions built into ordinary phrasing. A few that show up constantly:

• Gendered job titles. "Chairman", "spokesman", "manpower", "the right man for the job". Swaps like "chair", "spokesperson", "workforce" and "the right person" cost nothing and exclude no one.
• Assumed relationships. Asking about someone's "husband" or "wife" assumes both that they have a partner and what gender that partner is. "Partner" keeps the door open.
• "Hey guys". A tiny one, and a good example: "hey folks", "hey everyone" or "hey team" does the same job without quietly defaulting the room to male.
• Intrusive curiosity. What feels like caring interest — "how come you use a wheelchair?", "where are you really from?" — can land as intrusive. The respectful default is to talk to people about what you're there to talk about, not about their characteristics.
• Idioms and references. Phrases that depend on a particular culture, generation or first language don't always travel. You don't need to purge them — just notice when they might not land, and be ready to say it another way.

"That was the term we always used"

One of the most common — and most human — responses to a gently flagged word is, "but that's the term we always used; I didn't mean anything by it." I believe people when they say that. Usually there's no malice at all, just habit colliding with shifting language.

But habit isn't the same as good practice, and "I didn't mean anything by it" is about intent — it doesn't change how the word landed. The good news is that updating is easy and rarely needs a performance. You notice, you swap the word, you carry on. No long apology, no self-flagellation — just a willingness to move with the language rather than dig in. If you'd like to understand why words shift in the first place, the guide on how language keeps moving goes deeper.

Mirror, then ask

When you're genuinely unsure what to say, two simple habits cover most situations. First, mirror the language people use about themselves. If someone describes themselves as a "disabled person", follow their lead; if they say "person with a disability", follow that instead. Their words about themselves are your best guide. Second, when mirroring isn't possible, ask — respectfully and proportionately. A light "is it OK if I…?" is almost always better received than either a confident assumption or an anxious silence.

A small story makes the point. A close friend of mine is a wheelchair user, and one day I caught myself mid-sentence — "shall we walk to the pub?" — and got all heated in my head: walk? she's a wheelchair user, is that ableist? She just said, "yeah, let's go for a walk, that's fine." She uses contemporary language about her own activity. I was making a far bigger deal of it than it was. The lesson: pick up on the language people actually use, and don't over-cook every word.

Don't tip into overthinking

There's a version of "being careful" that becomes its own problem — scanning every sentence for traps, apologising for words nobody flinched at, turning a relaxed exchange into an audit. That helps no one, and it often makes the other person feel othered rather than included. The standard is good judgement and proportion, not perfection. Most of these swaps become automatic within weeks. The rest you can navigate by caring, paying attention and being willing to ask.

If a moment does go sideways, that's normal — and recoverable. The guide on getting it wrong gracefully walks through exactly how. You can also read the wider philosophy in why inclusive language matters, or browse the full guides library.