'Master' and 'slave': Tech terms face scrutiny amid anti-racism efforts

[free_electron]

Boss and employee?

Manager and worker
Controller and node
Dispatch and Handler

whatever.
Central unit and remote unit

[Simon]

It's actually easier using deprecated words, their meaning is unambiguous. Most swear words were common words once. Words change. and that should be a testament to the fact that things do change, the bad thing goes away and the word takes on a new meaning. The alternative is we all speak raw binary or HEX......

[TimFox]

Whatever terminology comes out of this discussion, I strongly object to substituting "primary" and "secondary", since there is a well-defined universal meaning of these terms for transformers, etc. that is quite different from the current meaning of the allegedly offensive terms.  I have no problem with neologism, where a new word is coined for a new requirement, but I object to changing existing words so that the meaning is obscured. 

[GlennSprigg]

I'm personally sick of these 'terms' being taken out of context.
Everyone wants to make 'everything' 'racist' now, even when not the intention!!
If an 'Asian' restaurant chooses to employ 'Asian' looking people in 'Asian' dress, I don't think that
is 'Racist'??  It's simply an attempt to look 'Authentic'.  However, if they said... "We don't want the
likes of 'Southerners' working here because they are ass-holes", then THAT is Racist!!!
If, in some 'Play', they showed a 'black-faced' person, and it was RELEVANT to what the Play was
about, (even siding towards apparent inequality), then that is NOT racist?!  It is a depiction of what
the realistic 'story' is about. It is NOT a 'put-down' on a particular race/creed...   

I'm NOT suggesting that we should be un-feeling, and say/do what ever we want, but simply for
people to not be so 'Politically Correct' these days, and take everything over the top!
I mean, some people are Black/White/Yellow etc etc, but here in Australia, it is now considered
'illegal' to have a 'Black' doll... ??  Where was the ABUSE for those people?? I don't remember when
I was young, EVER thinking less of anyone because of 'colour', of a 'person' or a 'doll'....

Just don't 'tar' everyone with the same damn brush.......

[DrG]

I suppose "pimp" and "bitch" are out of the question.

[GlennSprigg]

I suppose "pimp" and "bitch" are out of the question.

Maybe I'm just an ignorant 'Aussie'... but I do NOT understand what you said, or why, or to whom???

[tggzzz]

Btw. words (and facts behind them) don't go away by just some people not using them for unrelated purpose. You just leave the (innocent) words to them that use them badly.

Very very true.

One example is in schools, where kids with significant intellectual challenges started to be called "special" rather than the previous unkind names. The kids rapidly adopted "special" as a denigration, pronouncing it "spessshuuuul" in a sing-song tone.

Another example is that I showed my daughter how easy it would be to use any of her forenames as a swear word, simply by placing it in a suitable sentence and using suitable emotion when saying the words in the sentence.

[DrG]

I suppose "pimp" and "bitch" are out of the question.

Maybe I'm just an ignorant 'Aussie'... but I do NOT understand what you said, or why, or to whom???

I don't know whether you are either ignorant or an Aussie but I am sensitive to your needs for understanding and your well being as we are all wonderful and beautiful people.

The first term I used is refers to a man who controls prostitutes and arranges clients for them, taking part of their earnings in return.
The second term is a disparaging adaption of the word's original meaning of a female animal (usually a dog).

Together, I was using the terms in my response to communicate my opinion that the thread is lacking serious merit and so I was being sarcastic...marked by or given to using irony in order to mock or convey contempt.

Irony sometimes means that the truth turns out to be something very different than it appears to be.  The thread appears to be a serious attempt to change established technical terms to politically correct terminology. So, I was mocking what I feel is an astonishingly moronic and mind-numbing idea by offering terms that are usually considered to be politically incorrect in most official contexts and to a much wider audience.

I hope this helps.

[Gyro]

What about Dominant and Submissive, I can't see anyone getting offended by that.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_and_submission


(... Shame, because they would actually convey the required meaning quite well).

[engrguy42]

So I have a question:

For those of us who've been around for a while, when did it happen that people started with the attitude "the entire world has to worry about protecting MY feelings and NEVER do or say anything that might even slightly offend me"?

I mean, back in the old days it was "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". Y'know, the kind of attitude that intelligent, grown up adults would try to take, and teach young kids about. Learn to deal with life and put it in perspective. But now it's all about "likes" and emotion and ego, not rationality. And apparently the worst thing you can do is to offend someone. WTF?   

Somehow we're supposed to know what might offend any of the 7.6 billion people on the planet. It's insane. Where have the adults gone? We're supposed to know (or care) what words offend any random person? WTF?

It must have been in the 80's or something. But it seems like now everyone has bought into the insanity.

We're doomed.   

EDIT: BTW, DrG, the "pimp/bitch" was hilarious. 

[GlennSprigg]

I suppose "pimp" and "bitch" are out of the question.

Maybe I'm just an ignorant 'Aussie'... but I do NOT understand what you said, or why, or to whom???

I don't know whether you are either ignorant or an Aussie but I am sensitive to your needs for understanding and your well being as we are all wonderful and beautiful people.

The first term I used is refers to a man who controls prostitutes and arranges clients for them, taking part of their earnings in return.
The second term is a disparaging adaption of the word's original meaning of a female animal (usually a dog).

Together, I was using the terms in my response to communicate my opinion that the thread is lacking serious merit and so I was being sarcastic...marked by or given to using irony in order to mock or convey contempt.

Irony sometimes means that the truth turns out to be something very different than it appears to be.  The thread appears to be a serious attempt to change established technical terms to politically correct terminology. So, I was mocking what I feel is an astonishingly moronic and mind-numbing idea by offering terms that are usually considered to be politically incorrect in most official contexts and to a much wider audience.

I hope this helps.

Much better articulated !!  Have a great day, and thanks from 'down-Under'... 

[Simon]

Btw. words (and facts behind them) don't go away by just some people not using them for unrelated purpose. You just leave the (innocent) words to them that use them badly.

Very very true.

One example is in schools, where kids with significant intellectual challenges started to be called "special" rather than the previous unkind names. The kids rapidly adopted "special" as a denigration, pronouncing it "spessshuuuul" in a sing-song tone.

Another example is that I showed my daughter how easy it would be to use any of her forenames as a swear word, simply by placing it in a suitable sentence and using suitable emotion when saying the words in the sentence.

Yes which is why changing words because of how they are used is silly. indeed i call the people that make such silly demands special, maybe 10 years ago I would have called them retards.

[madires]

Whatever terminology comes out of this discussion, I strongly object to substituting "primary" and "secondary", since there is a well-defined universal meaning of these terms for transformers, etc. that is quite different from the current meaning of the allegedly offensive terms.  I have no problem with neologism, where a new word is coined for a new requirement, but I object to changing existing words so that the meaning is obscured.

Another example is DNS. We talk about primary and secondary nameservers. The primary nameserver controls the zone file of a domain and the secondaries fetch a copy from the primary. And for bind (namerserver software) the configuration statements for defining if a nameserver acts as primary or secondary for a domain are "type master" and "type slave". Those are technical terms used all over the place. Words/terms can have many meanings and the meaning is derived from the context. When I'm talking about an SPI slave I'm not talking about a human slave, and vice versa. Banning a word because one of its meanings is conceived negatively doesn't solve any problems, but it will make communication harder. You would have to create new words for each of the original meanings. The result will be a disimprovement of the whole situation.

[schmitt trigger]

Well, now that we are scrutinizing words, how about trans-former? And multi-vibrator?

Disclaimer, **This is an ironic post**

[Gregg]

The fuel of social media has given audience to many otherwise insignificant ideas that certain groups consider a bandwagon they need to support for whatever dubious reasons they may have.  It started out claiming to be progressive but has turned into regressive.  Now everyone is 'special' and are specially offended by anything they consider offensive. 
My thoughts are more aligned to Dana Carvey's character of "the church lady"
"Isn't that special?"

[jpanhalt]

The fuel of social media has given audience to many otherwise insignificant ideas that certain groups consider a bandwagon they need to support for whatever dubious reasons they may have.  It started out claiming to be progressive but has turned into regressive.  Now everyone is 'special' and are specially offended by anything they consider offensive. 
My thoughts are more aligned to Dana Carvey's character of "the church lady"
"Isn't that special?"

He was one of my favorite skits when SNL was still funny.   One of my daughters developed a good mimic of his "Now, isn't that special" expression.

[james_s]

This came up about 10 years ago, it was stupid then and it's stupid now. Proposals like this come off as hyper-PC and frankly kind of make a mockery of the real issues.

Master and Slave accurately describes exactly how these devices behave together. Inanimate objects do not have feelings, they are not sentient, your hard drive or sensor is not being oppressed by being relegated to slave duty. It makes no sense to keep inventing new euphemisms to describe the same thing every time somebody decides the old word offends them.

[rsjsouza]

Control is the end goal. For these child adult people that surface these concerns trying to guilt others into their "virtuous" way, no amount of censorship will ever be enough. Change, bend, knee or flee will always be answered with more demands. Goalposts move fast and always steer the discussion away from the important problems and the people that actually suffer.

[james_s]

Control is the end goal. For these child adult people that surface these concerns trying to guilt others into their "virtuous" way, no amount of censorship will ever be enough. Change, bend, knee or flee will always be answered with more demands. Goalposts move fast and always steer the discussion away from the important problems and the people that actually suffer.

That's my biggest issue with this, it never ends. I've been around just long enough to see several cycles of word is in common use> word gains negative connotations> replaced by new euphemism> word gains negative connotations...

Activists are never satisfied, they never say "ok mission accomplished, good job, we're done", instead as soon as they get what they asked for the move the goalpost and get right on the next thing without skipping a beat. It's all pointless ultimately because the word itself was never the problem. You can't stop people from insulting other people by trying to eradicate the word they were using as an insult, they just find a new word to convey the same message.

[Simon]

Basically these people are just slightly more reality than conspiracy theorists.

[bd139]

Don’t give them too much credit.

A stupid person with good intentions is as dangerous as a bad person with the same.

[PlainName]

So seeing as how there is round rejection of the jumped-up n00bs who don't understand decades or more of engineering language usage, how come there is still a push to use MiB instead of the good old MB that everyone understood before they were told they didn't? Or is that 'different' in some PC way?

[Simon]

Yes it's different. It's a different problem, it's a problem of such similar meaning/concept that no one can be bothered to differentiate and no one will remember which one is which.

[bd139]

That one was actually marketoids getting in on the whole thing. Marketoids ruin everything.

"Hey chaps if we reduce 1024MB to 1000M per GB it means we can sell less bytes and make more money"

Obviously when this came to technical folk this was a complete shit show. You can't provision a medium size SAN and the client asks where a couple of TiB disappeared from the quote and say "oh we quoted 1000MB per GB"

[PlainName]

That would be a good answer if you got the stated size out of it anyway, but the usable capacity is never the same as either value