RE: Political Correctness (Was Re: Master/Slave)

["RUBOTTOM, AL" <ARUBOTTOM -at- SENSORMATIC -dot- COM>]

I believe [from what my father, a former machinist, told me] that these
terms -- master, slave -- are "purely mechanical" in origin, much like
male-female connector/plug types. There were [still are?] machines in a
machine shop that perform 'mastering' [making a master copy/version of a
tool]; the process of 'slaving' might involve a 2nd machine tool configured
to produce subsequent copies of the master. 

This kind of terminology is so basic, unambiguous and widely understood
[except among TWs perhaps?] that it *should* defeat attempts to supplant
these [allegedly offensive?] terms with more PC or less upsetting labels,
simply by common sense -- it gains nothing in added clarity and indisputably
confuses things needlessly for generations of users and countless others
who've learned to refer to such processes clearly [and without offense, I
would suggest].

In other words, they patently do NOT refer to [or have any connection with]
human slavery, oppression, subjugation of third-world populations by
imperialist war-mongers, or other such depredations in history.

I am reminded of the recent brouhaha over the word "niggardly" [which does
not derive from "nigger" and is not a pejorative term born of racial
discrimination, but rather comes from an older Mid. Eng. word negarde for
miser], that resulted in someone losing his job for using an otherwise
acceptable English word and catching flak for it from ignorant, arrogant,
"hypercorrect" critics who were clueless but powerful enough to wreak havoc
on one man's career, even after their idiotic misunderstanding was
corrected! NO APOLOGIES OR EXPLANATIONS ACCEPTED!

Is anyone actually claiming that master-slave is BAD and we'd be better
served with a different set of terms?!
This verges on "Get real" territory, or should I say, just Get rational...


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Tracy Boyington [SMTP:tracy_boyington -at- okvotech -dot- org]
> Sent:	Monday, May 15, 2000 11:28 AM
> To:	TECHWR-L
> Subject:	Re: Political Correctness (Was Re: Master/Slave)
> 
> v2cdisrc -at- us -dot- ibm -dot- com wrote:
> > Sorry, I can't help myself. How 'bout:
> > oppressor / victim of the oppressor
> 
> I used to work in an office where those were job titles...
> 
> Getting back on topic, is anyone trying to do away with master/slave (and
> those
> other terms that keep coming up here, such as abort) other than TWs?
>