Recently, Stanford University released a guide to avoid using harmful terms, in which some common words such as American, survivor, victim and immigrant are listed as harmful terms or terms not recommended for use.

The guide points out that American usually refers only to Americans, thus “implying that the United States is the most important country in the Americas (actually the Americas consist of 42 countries)” and is therefore imprecise language, suggesting that Americans should not use the word to refer to themselves, “lest you despise the rest of the Americas” and can instead use “ the US citizens” (U.S. citizens).

Earlier this year, Stanford University launched the Eliminating Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) project, “designed to help individuals identify and address potentially harmful language they may use” and hopes to remove those “harmful terms” from their websites and code.

The initiative's index includes 10 sections on ability discrimination, age discrimination, colonialism, cultural exclusivity, gender-based language, imprecise language, institutionalized racism, person-centered language, violence, and other caveats.