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Parent/child implies the notion of progeny and a particular kind of
relationship (see others' mention of OOP).
That relationship is not present in electronic and other technological
situations where master/slave is the proper and appropriate descriptive
couple that has long history of offending no-one and of informing many,
many, many readers of technical documents and articles.
The relationship is more on the order of controlling/controlled,
kinda-sorta. Should we change bus-master to bus-potentate?
Just because people are willing... nay, EAGER to find ways to be
offended, does not imply the faintest obligation upon sensible and
reasonable people to pander to them. In fact, I perceive a duty to
oppose them. There is no limit to which they will not go if encouraged.
Just say 'no'.
Kevin
--
Offense theft: the taking of offense where none is offered. Often
perpetrated by the politically correct and the professionally offended.
Evelyn Lee Barney responded
> Paul,
>
> I have to say this is the only alternative I've heard that I thought
> worked. Like others on this list, I felt stuck with master/slave for
> clarity reasons. However, as parent/child is a common term in
> object-oriented programming, I bet this could catch on easily enough.
>
> Ev
>
> Paul Hanson wrote:
> > This discussion came up recently around here. The designer of some
new
> functionality in our system replaced "master/slave" with
"parent/child."
> No objections so far have come to my attention. That said, if
master/slave
> is suitable for your audience, use that phrase.
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