The Double Register: How Workplace Power Now Compounds Itself

The Strategic Linguist Podcast · Jun 16, 2026 · 20m

Picture a team meeting. Someone makes a comment about a colleague’s accent — not a slur, nothing disciplinable, just a brief impression. The room moves on. Later, the same colleague submits a report drafted partly with AI assistance; their manager, who also uses AI but would never say so, flags the writing as “not quite right.” Both moments feel minor. Neither registers as an event. Together, they enact something more systematic than either appears to be alone.Power in contemporary workplaces has always operated on multiple registers simultaneously, but two of those registers are now…