proposal: add speciesist language to inclusive documentation guidance

[samtuckerdavis]

Proposal

Add speciesist language to Write the Docs' inclusive documentation guidance, alongside existing coverage of gendered, racial, and ableist language.

Context

Write the Docs' guides influence documentation practices across the tech industry. The inclusive language movement has successfully addressed racial terms (master/slave → primary/replica) and gendered terms. Speciesist language — phrases that normalize violence toward animals — is the next natural extension.

Why Documentation Communities Should Care

1. Clarity: Speciesist idioms are often unclear, especially for non-native English speakers. "Accomplish two things at once" is more universally understood than "kill two birds with one stone."
2. Professionalism: The alternatives are objectively more professional in technical documentation.
3. Consistency: If a style guide already avoids violent language, animal-violence idioms are a gap.
4. Growing tooling: Multiple tools now support speciesist language detection:
   • Vale style package
   • alex/retext-equality patterns
   • woke rules

Examples

Common in Docs	Clearer Alternative
"kill two birds with one stone"	"accomplish two things at once"
"beat a dead horse"	"belabor the point"
"guinea pig"	"test subject"
"cattle vs. pets"	"ephemeral vs. persistent"
"canary deployment"	"progressive rollout"

Academic Support

• Hagendorff et al. (2023). "Speciesist bias in AI." AI and Ethics.
• Leach et al. (2023). "Speciesism in everyday language." British Journal of Social Psychology.

[plaindocs]

You could probably find a place for that in here somewhere https://www.writethedocs.org/guide/writing/style-guides/, if you put something together in a similar format to existing content I'll merge it in.