Language Matters at Our Consumer Place

Language is hugely powerful, and so we believe it's worth paying attention to it!

This section of our website is rapidly expanding, so stay tuned!

We have consciously chosen to use some particular words in this website that may be unfamiliar to you. Here, we try to be clear about our language choices.

• Consumer: What do we mean by the term "consumer" and why do we use it?

  We use the term 'consumer' throughout this website and in the work we do as part of the Our Consumer Place team. It is important to understand the term and why it is being used, even if you don't like it. Click here to read our explanation.

  See also this wonderfully insightful (and very funny) video on "Self labelling and Identity", in which a number of articulate people express their views on self-labelling. Click here. We are grateful for permission from Digital Education Strategies, The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Ryerson University to link to this resource.

• "Consumer Perspective":

  All of the work at Our Consumer Place is grounded in consumer perspective - that is, we want more than consumers to be participating in other people's projects - we want our lived experiences to be valued as crucial sources of insight! To read more about what we mean when we refer to "consumer perspective," click here.

• "Mental Illness":

  On this site, and in our work more generally, we tend to put "mental illness' in inverted commas. Click here to read why.

• Consumer Developed Initiatives: What on earth are they?

  We developed the language of "consumer developed intiative" (CDI) to be clear about the cultural shift that we support. Click here to find out more about what this means.

• Acronyms: Click here to read a few words about acronyms in the context of consumers.

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