Inclusive language for IT

Last updated:

March 16, 2026

This guide will enable technologists to communicate with each other and their constituents in ways that invite their participation and help them feel welcome and safe.

Use this guide as a reference for terms to avoid and inclusive alternatives.

Defining inclusive language

Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW–‍Madison. By adapting your language, you involve your entire audience and inspire them to contribute confidently.

Values

Inclusive language values the importance of words and their impact.

Inclusive communication is:

Inclusive of all
Respectful
Accurate

Standards

Inclusive communication is free of language that expresses:

Limitations
Stereotypes
Negative expectations

Impacts

Inclusive communication enables everyone to:

Contribute diverse perspectives
Feel like they belong

Inclusive language: Suggested alternatives

Here are some examples of jargon that obscure meaning and exclude people, along with their meanings and suggested alternatives. This list is only a start. There are many everyday words and phrases with discriminatory origins.

Discriminatory language

Term	Alternative	Definition
Black hat hacker	Criminal, bad actor	Criminal hackers who concentrate on malicious breaking cyber defenses for money or fame.
Black box testing	Functional testing, acceptance testing	A method of software testing that examines the functionality of an application without peering into its internal structures or workings.
Blacklist	Deny List	Listings of known bad websites, IP addresses, usernames, etc.
Gray beard	Mentor	Older, more experienced IT or cybersecurity personality. One sought after for wisdom born from study and experience over a lifetime.
Gray hat hacker	Hacktivist	A hacker who exploits a weakness in cyber defense to bring the weakness to the attention of the owner, with the goal of improving security.
Low man on the totem pole	Junior-level	Person of lower rank or status
Master	Primary	Primary record, file or recording of data.
Native feature	Built-in feature	A feature or functionality of a product that comes directly from the vendor and works immediately when the product is placed in service.
Pow-wow	Confab, huddle, chat, brainstorm	A short conversation
Red team	Cyber offense	Offensive security or “ethical hacking” of any type. This could include authorized penetration testing, physical hacks, black-box testing, web app scanning and compliance validation. This could also include the use of social engineering techniques as part of phishing drills.
Slave	Secondary	Secondary record, file or recording of data.
White box testing	Glass box testing, clear box testing	A method of software testing that tests the internal structures or workings of an application, as opposed to its functionality
White hat hacker	Specific job title, e.g., Cyber Defense Analyst	Ethical hackers who focus on testing cyber defenses as part of an organized corporate development process, cybersecurity plan or strategy.
White team	Cyber exercise cell	Cybersecurity exercise coordination cells. Those who act as referees during exercises, including tabletop events, limited objective experiments, or specific component testing in a real-world scenario.
Whitelist	Allow list	Listings of acceptable websites, IP addresses, usernames, etc.
Yellow team	DevSecOps team	Teams of developers, programmers, application designers, software engineers or architects.

Ableist language

Ableist language conveys negative connotations with respect to various disabilities. Though often unintentional, ableist language conveys disrespect to people with disabilities.

Term	Alternative	Definition
Blind to, deaf to	Ignore	Unwilling or unable to heed a message
Blinding	Anonymizing	Removing irrelevant personal information from documents, as may be done prior to evaluating candidates for a position.
Crippled	Deactivated	A product or feature that has been deliberately limited in functionality
Dummy value	Placeholder value	An arbitrary value used in place of an unknown one, or one to be supplied or defined later
Sanity check	Smoke test, quick check, confidence check,
coherence check"	A basic test to quickly evaluate whether a claim or the result of a calculation can possibly be true.
Tone deaf	Inconsiderate, thoughtless, careless	An insensitivity to nuances or connotations

Gendered terms

Using gender neutral language means speaking and writing in a way that does not discriminate against a particular sex, social gender or gender identity, and does not perpetuate gender stereotypes.

Term	Alternative
Chairman	Chair, moderator, chairperson
Grandfathered	Legacy status, preexisting
Guys, gals	Folks, team, y’all
Man, mankind	Humanity, people, humankind
Manned	Staffed
Man-hours, manpower	Capacity, person-hours
Man-in-the-middle	Attacker-in-the-middle, or the specific type of attack, such as eavesdropping
Right-hand man	Counterpart, indispensable
Sister school, sister campus	Peer university

Violent terms

Terms with violent connotations are distressing to some and may distract from your message.

Term	Alternative	Definition
Demilitarized zone (DMZ)	Perimeter network	A physical or logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organization’s external-facing services to an untrusted, usually larger, network such as the Internet.
Hang	Freeze, stop responding	When either a process or a system ceases to respond to inputs
Kill (a process)	Halt, stop	A command that is used in several popular operating systems to send signals to running processes
Kill two birds with one stone	One fell swoop	Complete two tasks or solve two problems with one action
Nuke	Delete	To intentionally delete the entire contents of a directory or folder, or of a storage volume such as a hard drive or partition

Help refine our inclusive language guide

We want this guide to be as helpful as possible. Please share your suggestions or let us know if there is a term or topic you’d like us to include.

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