Microsoft Word’s Inclusive Word Checker
I’ve heard of this stupid feature before, but had largely forgotten about it because I had read that it was optional. Then The Right Scoop made a post about it.
It is dumb, but fortunately, it’s exclusive only to Microsoft 365 users (of which I am one). And, so far, it appears to be opt-in, and not turned on by default.
How To Geek has a post about how you can go about enabling it…just follow these instructions, but uncheck all the items in the Inclusiveness section if, for some reason, it’s been enabled.
If you have a standalone version of Office, then you won’t have access to this feature, fortunately.
There are alternatives if you’re angry enough to ditch Microsoft altogether. There’s Libre Office, which is fantastic and free. Open Office is another open source productivity suite that you can use. If you want to use something in your browser, there’s Google Docs (so far, they don’t have a “woke language checker”) or Zoho Writer.