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QST: "Dummy" is rooted in ableist language #35724

@RollingStar

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@RollingStar
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Question about pandas

Although extremely common in the industry, "dummy" has some unfortunate history. One current use is for substitutes - mannequins, stand-ins, etc. This use grew from its original definition, "mute person". Mute people are not substitutes or stand-ins and I would prefer Pandas to not contribute to this view. There are other words, like "indicator", for statistics.

Pandas currently uses "get_dummies" as a function name, with the documentation referencing "indicator" as a synonym.

Citations:

  1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/dummy
  2. https://www.etymonline.com/word/dumb
  3. https://www.etymonline.com/word/indicator

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