No more 'Sanity Checks.' Inclusive language guide bans problematic tech terms A Linux Foundation project has published an Inclusive Language Guide to recommend replacements for common tech terms deemed potentially offensive to some users. The updated guidelines, the initial version of which first turned up at the Academy Software Foundation in 2021, have been extended to include phrases used by …
I'm shocked that the master/slave idiom is not mentioned in this article. Anyhoo, each company is going to decide how far they want to go on the 'inclusive' language front. I personally don't see how 'sanity check' is a problem. Who is going to be offended by the concept of a piece of code having a sane or not-sane design? Then there's blacklist/whitelist, which I can see plenty of people having a problem with, although the etymology of the terms is arguably not tied to race per se. Turtles all the way down ... hurtful to slow people?
Blacklist/whitelist are better replaced with the even more descriptive blocklist/allowlist. They can also be abbreviated to block/allow, and the abbreviations used as verbs.
OTOH, I have nothing against blacklist/whitelist. They don't have a derogatory origin, any more than "blackballed" does, and anyone retconning them into being offensive should be hanged.
This madness brought a lot of votes to the worst men and women in the US... .
... and they tink that doubling on it is a good idea?
The idiocracy battle witll be fight between the MAGA and the woke lunatics - the society will lose anyway.
A sanity check is really needed.
Should be shovel. Just to be on the safe side.
I've been caught out using spade, even though the context was completely innocent and valid ... someone objected... Twisted the context and meaning ... Luckily no repercussions for me, but it has a chilling effect as you end up overthinking everything.
See how insidious this has all gotten in the last 10 years.
Cringing at the many comments like this one here. For a reader from the US (this one, at least) they’re as ineptly and punily anti-authoritarian as Boris Johnson zip-lining into a ceremony with his unbrushed hair. I mean, for a number of Brits that sort of thing (and this sort of thing you’re doing here) seem to pass as wittily anti-authoritarian when in actuality they’re just oafish.
Or maybe it just doesn't carry the same connotations over here? If somebody mentioned spades to me, I would think about the garden implement. Indeed, I would refer to the one I was using earlier as a spade, because a spade and a shovel are not the same thing, so one can't fudge equivalence to avoid using a word that somebody, somewhere, might misinterpret.
Not really, no; a language guide published by the Linux Foundation doesn’t quite have the force or power of any of those organizations. That a large handful of men and boys online are predictably eager to cosplay as outlaws of some sort by way of melodramatic sneering at it doesn’t give it that force or power.
That a large handful of men and boys online are predictably eager to cosplay as outlaws of some sort by way of melodramatic sneering at it doesn’t give it that force or power.
witty user name,
Might I point out that in your great virtue you've resorted to sexist language in just a two line post. OK, it's sexist language against a supposed dominant group, and there is a certain kind of hierarchy of isms, which allows a few idiots who claim great moral rectitude to say wildly anit-semitic things and still justify them to themselves. It also seems a sadly rigid way to look at the world.
But it's not about being a rebel without a clue for most people here. It's about standing up for a decent, tolerant society where people can knock along together in something reasonably approximating harmony. In order to do that, like in all relationships, there has to be a large amount of messy compromise. A lot of which can't be legislated for, because people are individuals, with different opinions, different feelings and different histories.
So there's certain discrimnatory language that we can easily just ban. Nobody will miss it when it's gone. There are certain things that we can do for politeness, because it's no loss. Bu people aren't computers, they can't just reprogram their brains, and so we're going to have to also put up with some people getting it wrong. And people don't like to be embarrassed - so the more we punish people for "discriminatory language" when they didn't mean anything by it, the more people will get annoyed, and dig their heels in. So we really want to try to work on intent, and work within groups so we aren't offending the people around us, but aren't being massively confrontational either. i.e. normal, polite human interaction.
But then we have the extremists. The horrible racists who like to be horrible to people. And the incredibly annoying extremists who try to grab power by being loud and obnoxious from the other side. The whole trans debate would be a lot healthier if there weren't a bunch of people screaming and being as unpleasant as possible, in the name of campaigning.
And then even if you get rid of both lots of screaming extremists (exscreamists?) and try to have a sensible debate, you still can't come to a perfect decision. I have a post about this below. Take visual impairment. I know blind people who hate the term severely sight impaired (the correct UK legal definition), because they're blind. But also site loss is another phrase that annoys people, who feel like they're being called careless. And some people who are blind hate the term because it implies lack of any vision to people who don't know better, and these people can see and feel they're being got at, or marginalised by all being lumped together. If your vision is below 5% in the UK, you're severely sight impaired (used to be blind) if it's 5%-10% then you're sight impaired (used to be partially sighted). If you're descibing both groups then people suffering from sight loss.
So there's no right answer. You'll have to talk to people to determing how to talk with them, without upsetting them. On the other hand, they don't get to climb on their high horses and make life impossible for those around them, and try to police all language. Reasonable efforts need to be made to not be casually rude. But people shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable because they say someothing like, "did you watch the match on telly last night?", or "did you go and see John yesterday." We know what they meant, unless there's proof that they're having a go, it serves nobody's interests to turn language into a battle-ground. And if you do, it's those people that you're trying to "protect" who are going to suffer, when nobody wants to talk to them, or feels comfortable doing so.
So here's to messy old awkward compromise - and a hearty fuck-off to both descriminatory scumbags and the kind of people who try to run everyone else's lives for them - because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy about how great they are.
It isn’t sexist language to say the commenters here upset about this seem to be almost entirely male. Some have said so themselves, like the bloke who described himself as a cis het white man. Not going to bother reading the rest of your screed as I see you use the word “ban” in it, echoing the inane melodrama of the headline here.
Wow. I won't use "greybox pentest" lightly ever again. Although at some point the lack of acceptable terms might lead us to using UUIDs for technichal terms, for fear of an outrage. That should give us ~10 years, before d7e909ab-62f2-4fa9-a23a-6fb79657d3c0 is deemed offensive in the context of 4b7a903e-962a-4f68-9dd4-230017a0c5a9
Wow. I won't use "greybox pentest" lightly ever again. Although at some point the lack of acceptable terms might lead us to using UUIDs for technichal terms, for fear of an outrage. That should give us ~10 years, before d7e909ab-62f2-4fa9-a23a-6fb79657d3c0 is deemed offensive in the context of 4b7a903e-962a-4f68-9dd4-230017a0c5a9
I didn't know you spoke LLM!
I should start using the word 'spade' instead of 'shovel' and give confused looks (making people explain) to anyone who objects.
"Hey, you can't say that!" "Why not?" "Some XXX might get offended." "How? Why? I don't get it... (where's the IT angle?)"
Hey - wouldn't it be REALLY funny if EVERYONE does that... for EVERY possible term that MIGHT have an offensive context (when imagination is stretched to the breaking point)?
I should sanity check that! [I have been known to print out "insane" to stderr when code fails a sanity check - helped debug a problem recently]
and you know, when MY code gets hung, it is WELL hung!
Dr. Who: "Elton! Fetch a SPADE!" [episode "Love & Monsters", one of my favorite Dr. Who episodes next to "Don't Blink" and "Twice Upon a Time"]
Shovels are for shoveling <whatever> from one place to another.
Spades are for digging.
Turning your garden? Spade. Edging your lawn? Spade. Planting spuds/bulbs? Spade. Moving snow? Shovel. Raking muck? Shovel.
That bucket and spade you took to the beach as a nipper? That there's a shovel, not a spade.
It serves a purpose.
By doing something you have shown you have done something. That means you do not have to do the more difficult things that actually work to stop racism, sexism, supporting people with mental health issues. You have used the right language, so now you do not have to spend money on doing the right thing.
It’s tin eared to the current - unfortunate - circumstances with the Orange Shit-gibbon (apologies to gingers and gibbons).
It’s likely to get attention … and embolden the pushback further.
If light of this I would recommend waiting out the shift-gibbons departure. With immunity, weight of the State behind him and a compliant SCOTUS alas there is little to be gained from this… and much to be surrendered.
Sad authoritarian times.
Hopefullly the NRA will urgently “form a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” to push back against Federal Overreach - esp the current militarisation of DC. …. literally what they have been bleating about since changing from a gun club to activism nuts.
At work (Europe) we now have a "BIPOC" network.
I wonder: the "I" is for indigenous people. Which are quite difficult to define in Central Europe, with all of the migration period, the Romans, the religious wars and resulting migration, the killing of of tons of pople during certain events (yeah, black death!), the post WW2 shuffeling around of nations, kicking out people from Sudeten or the Baltics... who is indigenous here? I'm not, I have Southern Europeans in my ancestry, French (Hugenottes), and probably lots others, I'm pretty sure some Middle Eastern ancestors as well, my nose sure looks like the Nazis would have liked to deport me. I rew up in a certain region, my dad could be said to have been roughly from around there (not many of his ancestors), my mom's family is not. Am I indigenous to this area? Hard to say. Actually: impossible to say.
And to be really honest: in my deartment we have people from a number of different places, practising muslims and christians, almost religious atheists, people with more and less pigmentation from different places, openly gay / lesbian / bi, not sure if we have people who transitioned (you don't just ask that shit), people who are very definitely down the spectrum. Male/femae split is I guess roughly 60/40, slowly changeing more to even, judging from our new colleagues and student interns we want to keep after they finish. Apart from university (ok, except for the profs) this is probably the most diverse and open and welcoming lace I know. I see no need for the stupid "BIPOC" network being pushed by the upper levels, and find the name actually actively insulting (the "I" in it is stupid!). If they are self organised it's still a stupid and insulting and insultingly stupid name.
That said: I changed some of my language. Even I can do that. If I can do that, a middle aged white cis het guy, you can. Just.... don't bend over backwards. Slowly adapt.
Yeah, there used to be these things called 'good manners' and 'courtesy', which basically involved being sensitive to social context and showing basic respect for other human beings, avoiding gratuitous offensiveness - that kind of thing.
It enabled a wide range of personalities and backgrounds to get along tolerably well and even care for each other.
Apparently a significant proportion of people no longer learn this stuff, or regard it as useful.
Context is an essential part of the Engish -- and other -- human languages.
People who ignore that context risk missing the true meaning of what was said or written; they also risk feeling hurt or offended.
Our human languages ought not be turned into bland, grey, smooth, tasteless pablum because a small(?) portion of the populace lacks human-language skills, or the will to use them.
Pablumising our languages is doubleplusungood.
Perhaps we should insist that everyone uses Latin from now on - a "dead language" that is still used in certain legal matters as its meanings are not transmutable through common use. Of course, if we actually start using it as a live language, that will change.
Languages evolve and, yes, context is vital to understanding. Without context, much of what is said or written is pointless (though that doesn't stop a lot of people from speaking or writing). I sometimes have to read and interpret very old documents (>1000 years) and, without knowing who wrote them (and why) their meaning can be totally misunderstood. Of course, there's no guarantee we'll ever fully understand it exactly as intended.
It’s surely not meant for you, the BIPOC network at your workplace. Why speak as if it’s meant to be? Why speak as if you’re well-positioned to assess how “open and welcoming” your workplace is to people “with more and less pigmentation,” etc., while acknowledging that you move through the workplace as a cis het white guy? It’s as if you can’t even begin to imagine that people who aren’t cis het white guys might have different experiences of being “welcomed” (or not) than you’ve had yourself. That’s inane. To the extent there are microaggressions directed at them those won’t have been directed at you, because you’re a cis het white guy.
There are no such things as "microaggressions". That's just a term people made up so that they can claim that even when no one's being mean to them, someone is being mean to them. It's like all the gods that are worshiped today have the trait of invisibility. It's to help you justify believing in something without evidence.
Also "cis" isn't an appropriate term either. It's a label one group made up to apply to another group regardless of their wishes. It's not a term this group previously used to identify themselves.
Hence the only macro aggressions I see are against the people you're accusing of being insensitive and aggressive.
Lastly, I'm not a cis het white guy and I'll add that we don't exist in some other realm or dimension. We move through the same exact workspace as everyone else and don't have secret, invisible, magical experiences that only we can relate to. Talk like this is actually bringing BACK the segregation and racism my generation thought it put the final nail in the coffin of decades ago. As Bill Maher put it, people are so desperate not to fight racism but to have racism to fight, that they conjure it themselves. Now in addition to priests and prelates trying to convince us of gods we can't see and don't seem to leave any evidence, we have a new secular religion that tries to convince us that slavery, racism, sexism, oppression, not only exist but are dominant and the norm but we somehow just can't see it either. They fail to heed the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who worked for a day when people were judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. These new secular religious racists feel context/character is meaningless and EVERYTHING is about the color of their skin. I believe King would have fought these people and their reinvention of racism, and that's why I will too. People worked too hard for day where skin color was as meaningless as eye color to have everything rolled back in the name of fighting something we already fought and won.
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.As someone who spent a year in a "mental hospital", this sort of shit insults me. "Sanity check" is a totally valid term.
Hell, use the term "check the software doesn't deserve being placed in the Looney bin" for all I care.
I assure you that people who have suffered years of mental illness are a hell of a lot mentally stronger than these do-gooding snowflakes.
They couldn't cope for 5 minutes with some of the crap we go through.
Stop the patronising. We go through enough crap without being thought of as pathetic.
I'm not black, but I asked a black friend about "blackboard" now being changed to "chalkboard" so as not to offend.
He was more offended by this. (Paraphrased) "The board is black. It's a black board. If anything it's racist of them to compare black people to boards on a wall, and also racist to think we'd be somehow offended".
This is all virtue signalling. People trying to make out they care whilst actually doing sod all about the actual issues.
Blacklisting origins: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/blacklist_n?tl=true
Full text: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A02591.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
At a corporate event, I stood in a circle with a few C-suites and HR. A former client walked up and said, “Sergio, I’m looking for James from your company - is he here?”
I glanced around and clocked another circle at the far end of the room. Everyone in it was dressed identically - suits in slightly different shades of corporate misery - and they were all the same height, same haircut, same expression.
So I said, “See those people over there? He’s the black guy.”
He was, in fact, the only Black person in that section, and the quickest, most accurate way to identify him. Sarah from HR gave me the kind of look usually reserved for people who’ve just kicked a guide dog.
LOL. In the early 90s I worked as an IT consultant in Paris. Characteristically for France, very few of its professional staff were non-Caucasian and I was pretty good friends with one of them, a Black salesman / project director chap. `S.` for short. Who owned a rather nice BMW IIRC.
One day that BMW was double parked (probably a mistake, S. wasn't really the nasty thoughtless type) near the reception. So the person whose car was blocked comes and asks the receptionist and there were some folk lounging about:
- blockee : Can you find the owner of the car that is blocking me?
- receptionist: That is S.'s car he's should be around somewhere nearby, he just came in for a sec.
- bystander 1: He's about 35.
- bystander 2: Tall guy.
- bystander 3: Wearing a suit.
- me: He's a Black gentleman
As with the above poster, my favorite morning exercise was thus obviously kicking puppies.
It wasn't a problem with the term I used.
Probably something along the lines of "Ce monsieur est noir" - which I have no idea if it would be appropriate nowadays having not lived in France for 30 years. But I added "Monsieur" to be more formal/polite which would help.
The problem was that mentioning his ethnicity at all was deemed politically incorrect, because we were supposed to be color-blind. Even if, in this particular instance, it made sense because it was a strong determinant in finding him expeditiously amongst all of our, very Caucasian, staff (I think there were max about 4-5 non-Caucasian, non-Asian, staff in our 400-500 consultants). So, not very good at actual hiring diversity, but quite good at pretend inclusiveness.
This is similar to elsergiovolador's case above.
BTW, "Black", the English word, can be used informally, in a neutral, even positive, fashion to designate Black people in French. Probably best avoided in a business setting. I don't think we have anything like African-American transposed to French.
Really one needs to live there to know what's the correct manners of speech nowadays. Especially with all the gendered brouhaha going on, that must be a pain in the French language.
`Person of color` is an Americanism and best understood from knowing the context of the word `colored` which was some kinda Jim Crow (racist Southerner) thing.
While understandable in their home context, it's gotten to the point that some Americans were giving some South African singer grief a year or two ago because she was describing herself as `colored`, which has a very different connotation in South Africa, where it means `mixed race`. And apparently were insistent that she had to see their truth.
You don't have to use `person of color` in the US, but you do have to steer clear of `colored`. By no means is it as actually value neutral as `black`. So, if you mean to say non-White there, just be careful on what you use.
Ain't linguistics a hoot?
At an office I worked in over 20 years ago there was a single black guy working there who had just joined as a student intern. He was a tall, dark Nigerian, in an office full of pasty Caucasians and a few Asians.
One day I was with two managers, and one said something about this guy - I think he was called Michael. The other manager didn't know the group of interns well, so he asked the former to describe which person he was referring to. He then tried with great difficulty to physically describe Michael without mentioning his skin colour, which was very funny.
After a minute of confusion I said - "he means the black guy".
When organisations start producing material like this, it is time to shut them down.
A friend of mine owns an indie auto parts store. He says that people come in daily asking him for master and slave brake cylinders (or parts for same) without batting an eye. He and most of his employees are black[0], most of his customers are not. Nobody involved has any issue with the nomenclature.
Perhaps the hyper politically correct set don't work on their own cars. It probably gets in the way of telling everybody else what they should be offended by.
[0] He's not racist; they are family members.
As a British Asian (Asian looking to the British but with complicated ancestry - not classified as Asian in the country I was born in) I agree with him.
Its really patronising, and reeks of people with "white saviour" complexes.
As I said in my other comment, its a way of avoiding the cost and complexity of dealing with real problems. Do things like removing clues to race and sex and disability and sexuality and gender identity etc. before evaluating CVs when recruiting. Deal with any actual problems people experience.
I've never had a problem with calling a blackboard a chalk board (Good ones are dark green anyway), but it's people who make a point of doing it to the nth degree, but then refer to a dry marker board as a 'whiteboard'. (It's like the inferior blackbord may not have it's name spoken in the presence of the superior whiteboard; connotations I always find funny as people are trying *not* to be racist).
This is all virtue signalling. People trying to make out they care whilst actually doing sod all about the actual issues.
There's nothing wrong with doing the small things too. We went through the git master/main change at work a while ago. It amused me how many tolerant and supportive people could suddenly get all prissy because they were being asked to make a small change that they didn't really appreciate but actually found difficult to remember to do.
I've always been of the opinion if I make a point of the big things when talking to the youth, I should be seen to try to do the little things too, otherwise it can create a subconcious disconnect that doing the right thing is a thing other people do.
A lot of this language stuff I find a bit over prescriptive, but if it makes people happier, then what the hell. (I'm certanly not going to waste my time getting angry about it).
My main issue is that we're trying to USAise the world linguistically, it's generally terms US culture consideres offensive. E.g. I can read a hand wringing article ernestly telling me not to say something has 'hung', then flip to a crypto article that's full of nonces.
It's not part of U.S. culture either, and it doesn't actually make people happier. It's the latest generation being obsessed with the idea that it's virtuous to be oppressed (you are either oppressed or oppressors with them). So they feign offense at these terms. It doesn't make actually make them happier and in fact just encourages them to find more things to complain about.
Here in the U.S. it suddenly became a thing to refer to people of Latin American ancestry as "latinx" rather than "Latino" because the "o" at the end of Latino indicates masculine gender. Who invented the term "Latinx"? A group of WHITE ACADEMICS at a university! No word in Spanish even ends with an X! A major survey has found that only FOUR PERCENT of Latinos use the term "Latinx", a figure which hasn't moved since 2019! Meanwhile, major newspaper style guides are requiring use of the term now. It's absurd. And if we all just go along to get along rather than pushing back it's just going to keep going to the point where everyone is referring to people by terms they don't like and using words they don't understand and no one will have the courage to say anything. People need to say "Enough! This far and no farther" and boldly declare that people are not allowed to redefine history, language or objective external reality to suit their belief systems.
I used to work for a national department store chain here. One time a black woman took to the media to complain that her local store was selling a black Halloween Jack O'Lantern with white painted features. She said the pumpkin "was in blackface" and hence racist! VEGETABLES CANNOT BE RACIST. Our company, however, instead of pointing that out, was quick to tell the press this was a product carried only by that one store in a decision by its sales manager (throwing the poor employee under the bus), and that they've pulled the item and wanted to apologize. Ridiculous.
Meanwhile, these people pretending to be offended don't even understand history. Ages before they were born, black people were portrayed on stage and in early film by white people wearing black face paint. There was NOTHING WRONG WITH THE FACE PAINT. The offensive thing were the HORRIBLE STEREOTYPES these characters possessed! Black Americans were portrayed as lazy, thieves, rapists, etc. But these kids today, who have never seen any of these performances and have no understanding of the history involved, think it's the black face paint that's the problem and thus freak out over things like plastic Halloween decorations. Again, when people are this ignorant, you need to teach and correct them, not go along to get along. To do the latter is enabling the ignorance to spread.
You know the funniest thing with Latinx is that a solution was so easily at hand - outside of Ancient History concerns:
"Latin".
But, yeah, a dimwitted idea if there ever was one. And not one too difficult to anticipate if one knew any Spanish whatsoever.
Re. blackface that is a more mixed bag (stupid veggie issues aside). Thing is, for the longest time, Hollywood had a real tough time casting non-White, non-hetero, actors, even for parts concerning non-White, non-hetero characters. If it was the only bit of political correctness skulking about, no biggy.
A lot of this comes from good intentions. If leavened with common sense, the results tend to be good. For most of the population common sense does tend to apply and we chuckle at the stupidity on display at either extremes, while mostly jettisoning actual intentional disrespect.
Not always though: IIRC University of Toronto's student government banned yoga some years back because it was "cultural appropriation". Probably brought back since, but still indicative of a lack of functioning brain cells.
Abso-bloody-lutely AC! I worked in the voluntary sector with mental health service users and they all mentioned that there are FAR more important things to concern yourself with about MH other than renaming 'brainstorming' to 'thought showering' (I shit ye not! and that one was from 14 yrs ago!)
Have a pint. You've earned it
Edit: typo!
> 'service users'
I lived in a flat next door to a woman with Downs.
A young social worker visited them, and though the wall I heard her carer shout "She's not a fucking service user you twat, her name is Joyce".
Considering her carer was a rather hefty black clad biker [1] (probably with tattoos on his piss), I suspect the council worker readjusted their attitude rather quickly.
[1] An awfully nice chap by the way.
I had a "visit" to that "institution" as well. I find nothing wrong with "Hung" - it is perfect descriptive! It applies both to the software ceasing to operate as expected and what I want to do to the programmer who designed [said] software. It's the perfect "equal opportunity", dual-purpose word.
I've got an entire[0] road-kill deer in my little meat locker. He's quite well hung (35F, 83%, constant filtered air circulation, 8 days) and is now ready for cutting, wrapping and freezing.
If you were expecting another variation of "hung", see the AI generated rat.
[0] Hit square in the side of the head by a Kenworth just outside my front gate. I heard it happen, and have it on the gate-cam. Other than from the neck up, there were no broken bones or internal organ damage. Even the hide is in good shape (will be turned into gloves and a couple pairs of moccasins). Of COURSE I'm going to eat him. Waste not, want not!
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A former co-worker of mine was murdered and her body dismembered. :-( If I don't have panic attacks when someone says that "heads will roll", our budget is "on the chopping block" or because of downsizing, some employees will "get the axe", I think everyone ought to be able to handle whitelists, blacklists, master passwords and dummy variables.
by saying these things you are denying these people, who are NOT you and not even LIKE you, who do not KNOW you and have probably never MET you, to FEEL good about themselves in their eternal quest to FEEL superior by putting others down, by coming to YOUR swift and VEHEMENT defense, whether you need it or not, for your OWN GOOD.
I've heard people say in TV interviews, in an equivalent context, "You people STOP trying to HELP me. I do not NEED your HELP!"
All of this rather reminds me of why Ian Dury was moved to write Spasticus Artisticus.
There is a clip of a TV round-table interview in which Mr Dury loses his calm in the face of a hectoring do-gooder telling him what he (a Polio sufferer) should feel & want. The song was written shortly after.
"DEI" is about equality and fair treatment in the workplace.
Here in the USA (for this is where it's a thing) this mostly helps American white women.
This word-scrubbing has absolutely nothing to do with DEI, as you well know.
It shows you don't have a decent argument to make when this bullshit is your only attempt.
It's as nonsensical as saying that the rise of Nazism here is why Trump tariffs need to go.
Just read a casting for "Emily in Paris", an episode actually shot in Venice - only nice-looking people. Italian size dress 38-42 (quite skinny). Other kinf of people should not apply.
That's how much inclusive they are when they have to sell women to the public (and of course audtions with young, nice, slender women are much more interesting for bald, fat, old man managing them...)
Then Hollywood tries to patronize others about DEI....
This isn't really a DEI thing. You can tell because the anti-DEI party is doing things like issuing lists of words that people aren't allowed to use in government documents. The list includes words like "diversify," "bias," and "systemic," regardless of context; if you submit a grant application with one of these words it's automatically rejected. At least when a guide like this gets issued it's not mandatory.
It is fair to politely inform, at a distance as required, if necessary, that such and such term may be perceived as hurtful, but otherwise spot on. Let the retards* (see what i did there) show themselves up
*context, no offense intended to anyone but hateful people
Meh. Requesting that people use professional language in a professional setting is not censorship, nor is adjustments to what's considered professional language at an organization. Yes, occasionally people take it a little too far and the result becomes silly, but it's still not effing censorship.
We've been here many many many times. Master/Slave regarding IDE (later retconned to PATA) hard drives and UK phone sockets, not being allowed to use the verb form of retard in case someone got their undies in a knot, etc etc.
And per the article, I've never wanted to hang a piece of software, but some of the coders, maybe on occasion
I find the following terms offensive: stub, placeholder, huddle, meeting, inclusive, validation check, and unresponsive.
I'm sure they won't mind scrubbing all of the repos on the internet of these terms to avoid offending me. And by the way, me and my RNG will be along next week with another list of words which might be offensive.
Isn't this a fun!
This is true
Many languages have male/female forms of address, just as they have formal/informal terms.
Dutch "you" could be Je or U depending on circumstances.
The French have "Madame" and "Mademoiselle" based on perceived age.
Just wish the Language Police would get over themselves and find something beneficial to mankind to do.
Like, say, jumping into the nearest river.
I've never understood the reason for nouns to have gender when they refer to inanimate objects. There's no logic to it, be the language French, German, Swedish or any of the countless other languages that have this feature. You just have to learn the correct gender as you go and try not to get it wrong.
It's an anachronism which adds zero information. It won't go away, but I'd sure be happy if it did.
"I've never understood the reason for nouns to have gender when they refer to inanimate objects. There's no logic to it, be the language French, German, Swedish or any of the countless other languages that have this feature. You just have to learn the correct gender as you go and try not to get it wrong.
It's an anachronism which adds zero information. It won't go away, but I'd sure be happy if it did."
I am guessing the writer is taking the piss here and not some ignorant North American monolingual Anglophone.
Grammatical gender is just a syntactic marker that might have been named differently but for the common but not universal coincidence between natural gender (sex) and grammatical gender for words referring to living creatures. Like other inflections it can be used to indicate or convey the relationship between various words in a phrase or sentence often eliminating the ambiguity found in English.
Some languages (i.e. French, Italian) no longer have a neutral gender, since they removed declensions as well. Anyway, usually the suffix will give you an hint (-e in French, -a in Italian for feminine forms).
German is not a Neo-Latin language and assign genders as it likes. It kept the neuter, but i animate object may be as well masculine or feminine. Why? It's probably lost in ancient times. I don't speak Swedish, don't know anything about it, but may share with German.
You can learn Esperanto if you like a logically built language, but won't help you much.
Over in Blighty...
Teachers have the right to ask pupils to address them as Mx, Education Secretary tells LBC
I say "peepbobellybumdrawers!" to the precious Americans who have fainting fits at perfectly cromulent words like 'Toilet' and 'Died'. Perhaps they don't realise that their euphamisms only draw more attention to their discomfort with everyday real world situations. "We lost Aunt Jane. She passed in the bathroom." Eh? Did you go and look for her then? Was [The Bishop's of Chichester's daughter (an old song)] passing some superflous water? When people with stupidstitions[stet] about death find a server in an unambigiously terminal state do they say "The computer we all loved close to our hearts has sadly passed over the big router in the cloud." ? Normal people say "It's fucked." or "You know that Monty Python parrot?.." if they're trying to lighten the situation. Heaven forfend there should be jocularity for the language police.
'Toilet' is a euphemism, too. It's akin to "bathroom" in referring to a place you might get washed. I think the closest thing to a neutral term in English for installations related to the collection of human waste is "urinal" but it has far from universal application.
If "middleman" is out, presumably so is MITM. There are phrases I can think of describing a person interposed between two other persons, but I can't help feeling they'd be considered more problematic.
"'Toilet' is a euphemism, too. It's akin to "bathroom" in referring to a place you might get washed. I think the closest thing to a neutral term in English for installations related to the collection of human waste is "urinal" but it has far from universal application."
Crapper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper
"neutral term in English for installations related to the collection of human waste is "urinal" but it has far from universal application."
The porcelain wall ? Piss trough ? If recall the installation of one caused no end of trouble in Clochemerle.
You realise that there are even more delusional creatures than these ArOUSeD† nutjobs that want to compel a chap to sit down on the pedestal when a chap only wants to syphon the python ? Point Percy at the porcelain.
† curiously also an equally insane chemical compound. D is conventionally deuterium.
"If "middleman" is out, presumably so is MITM. "
And woman in the middle (WITM) is right out. The imagery potentially evoked is very definitely extremely NSFW.
Just think man as "hand" (L. manus) much of this nonsense evaporates. (Incidentally manus is feminine 4th decl. ;)
"The computer we all loved close to our hearts has sadly passed over the big router in the cloud."
We recently replaced a major, and very old, computer system. I'm torn between having a funeral versus a departmental decommissioning of a tape drive using a log-splitting maul.
Maybe we should just combine them; have the manager say a few words before the first swing...
...that sets progress back, not forward.
It gives the haters just more ammunition, not less.
I've never heard a single black, trans, gay, lesbian in fact the whole fucking Progress pride flag group EVER go, "I wish they didn't use these words".
Nah, from my very long experience of mixing with pretty much every colour, gender and sexuality, all they want is to be treated equally and without the fear of being attacked.
I tend to agree, and would add that support for these types of lists is almost never widespread. They're usually internal documents for small orgs that get blown out of proportion. The main difference between this stuff and what conservatives do is when conservatives ban words, it tends to have the force of law. (For example, you cannot use the word "trans" in an application for a government grant in the US now, even if it has nothing to do with transgender people; it will be rejected.)
I will give one weak defense of this sort of thing, and that's that I've often seen some of the more luridly creative tech jargon confuse people who aren't native English speakers.
Trans people are all about policing other people's language.
I guess it is because when you have constructed an identity based on falsehood and delusion, then it is very important to force other people not to say anything that will break the fragile delusion.
Gay people and blacks - it depends on their social class and where they went to university. Some are all-in on the woke shit, others despise it.
If my using the words "master" and "slave" in a technical context makes a colleague "uncomfortable", then I'd suggest they need to gain a better understanding of how context is essential in determining the meaning of words.
This kind of bullshit comes from people who have made a career out of being professionally offended on the behalf of other people - regardless of whether those other people are offended or not. These people are poisonous, virtue signalling fools and I wish they would just FOAD.
Look, I have a friend who just got out of the psych ward over an intentional OD. This person is doing better now. But I really don't have time to deal with these mental midgets getting hung up over these retarded ideas of inclusive language when there are people with real problems out here.
Just off the top of my head:
Stub reminds me of cigarettes, and we shouldn't be encouraging fat slob coders to smoke.
Sanity check vs Validation check? Something can be valid, but still be not sane.
Why am I forbidden to use pow-wow? The whole world uses borrowed phrases and words. I presume that native American (an imposition on the peoples who lived in the lands later named America?) are not allowed to use English words? Or French or Dutch or...
Well, if it's being used by someone in the C-suite to describe actions by their underlings, I would say that, in far, far, too many cases, it perfectly encapsulates their mentality. As such, I would give them a pass.
Also, their job offer.
"we shouldn't be encouraging fat slob coders to smoke."
I don't know. You realise that the regular intake of nicotine would make them better and faster coders ?
Trust me there is nothing like a drag on a cancer stick to focus the mind and crystallize abstract concepts into a concrete solution.
Tell the coding slobs that nicotine is protective against Alzheimer's (but don't tell them it's because they won't live long enough to be afflicted or collect a pension. ;)
"Hung" with respect to something not working has no relationship to anything "violent". It's an analogy to mechanical problems where things moving through a machine or chute get "hung up" (stuck) on some obstruction instead of passing smoothly through. The application of this expression which originated in the mechanical field to the software field is both clear and obvious. This is a very common expression and I find it very difficult to believe that anyone is not familiar with it.
As for "dummy", a dummy is a thing that stands in place for a real person or thing, to for example allow a tailor to work on clothing or to display finished clothing. Insults using this term are making an analogy to an actual dummy, they are not the primary definition of the word and the same thing could be done with any word which replaced it as it is an analogy. A tailor's or display dummy is a very common thing which everyone should have seen at some time or another and again I find it very difficult to believe that anyone is not familiar with it.
I do not for one minute believe that any of the people who raise objections to these terms have spent even a single minute doing any research into the etymology of either of these words and they are simply making shit up to justify their existence instead of doing something useful.
This post has been deleted by its author
Mobile phone could be offensive to people with mobility issues.
We should avoid references to the W*b as it may traumatise archnaphobes.
Any protocol that does a handshake is likely to trigger oddly-armed amputees.
And designs that use algorithms are culturally appropiating Arabic zeitgeists.
Can somebody explain to me why Blackboard is a problem but Whiteboard isn't?
Has this sort of situation been Whitewashed?
That would be the sort of thing a White coller worker would do while drinking White wine in Whitechaple.
Are we going to rename White Dwarfs - That must be classed as offensive.
Taking words that are common in practically every language ever tells me that, if you wish, you can find offense where non actually exists.
> Can somebody explain to me why Blackboard is a problem but Whiteboard isn't?
Honest answer: I think they implicitly have an "oppressed" ranking, and then apply that to the motion that one shouldn't "punch downward".
So, for example, they consider white people to be (in some ways) superior to black people, and white people therefore have a "noblis obligae" towards their lessers.
I think the basics impulse to stand up for the little guy is praiseworthy, but basing it on such demographics leads to some logically absurd results
> ....why Blackboard is a problem but Whiteboard isn't?
I have not heard "blackboard" in the wild since I was a college freshperson. The 1960s school's boards were all GREEN, b/c some busybody said it was better for our tender eyes. Since nobody knew if this greenboard fad would last or turn to blueboards, purpleboards, etc, we said "chalkboard". (Yeah, even then it was not chalk.)
"it[green] was better for our tender eyes"
Live and learn.
The school "chalkboards" were a very dark green in 1960s NZ state schools but we're very definitely black in Queensland AU during that time.
Never knew the reason. I recall teachers in NZ frequently using yellow chalk (for contrast?) whereas in AU, natural white chalk.
I suppose dark saurian green was a safe colour. Only madame Vastra could take offence and she was capable of looking out for herself; frequently making a meal of it, I understand.
If hang or hung are "violent", then some major rework of Linux internals and the unix standard is clearly in order.
SIGHUP contains that naughty word "hang" and clearly in association with "death".
SIGHUP - Hangup detected on controlling terminal or death of controlling process.
And then we get to the real violence, the extensive use of "kill". I imagine that some people may support getting rid of this one though if it gives an excuse for banning Systemd on the basis of things like "systemd.kill". I would list all the references to "kill" which come up if I ask "apropos", but it's too long.
And what about "touch", that sounds like a naughty word if you think about it the right way. We're not supposed to be touching inappropriately after all, and the software development process is certainly not an appropriate place for it.
https://www.markreds.it/2018/07/02/linux-is-sexy/
$ unzip; strip; touch; finger; grep; mount; fsck; more; yes; fsck; fsck; fsck; unmount; sleep
https://www.appservgrid.com/paw92/index.php/2019/04/01/20-funny-commands-of-linux-or-linux-is-fun-in-terminal/
20. Linux Tweaks
$ who | grep -i blonde | date; cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
>Linux.
Most of the funny jokes are from GNU.
strip --version
GNU strip 2.44.0
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License version 3 or (at your option) any later version.
This program has absolutely no warranty.
touch --version
touch (GNU coreutils) 9.6
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon,
David MacKenzie, and Randy Smith.
grep --version
grep (GNU grep) 3.11
Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by Mike Haertel and others; see
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grep.git/tree/AUTHORS>.
grep -P uses PCRE2 10.45 2025-02-05
yes (GNU coreutils) 9.6
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by David MacKenzie.
sleep --version
sleep (GNU coreutils) 9.6
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by Jim Meyering and Paul Eggert.
who --version
Packaged by Gentoo (9.6 (p0))
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by Joseph Arceneaux, David MacKenzie, and Michael Stone.
date --version
date (GNU coreutils) 9.6
Packaged by Gentoo (9.6 (p0))
Copyright (C) 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by David MacKenzie.
GPLv2;
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
for details.
The vocabulary police are at it again?
The terms "blacklist" and "whitelist" themselves are not racist - taken at face-value they refer to two ends of the colour spectrum.
Racism is about intent.
This is like when I was growing up in the seventies - there was a whole thing about getting blackboards renamed to chalkboards.
This stuff itself is racist - the word "black" is bad. You can't use it. It's bad to call something black.
I'm white, a mate of mine is black. Another mate is blonde. A girl I know is a redhead. Another is brunette.
These words are just descriptors.
I had a South African friend at uni back in the 90s and he referred to himself as Coloured. He considered it a distinct race / culture and staunchly wanted to be referred to as it. To him it was an important part of who he was, similar to the way Cornish is to some in the UK.
I remember talking to an African American woman in the early 2000s and the subject of South African came up and we spoke about him. She was utterly offended when I used the word 'Coloured' to describe his race and it took me a long time to calm her down and explain what it meant. Language can be super tricky sometimes!
It's years of scapegoating that caused Trump and Farage, the general public don't give a crap either way about professional language guides, but you tell them that people are getting something paid for by their taxes and they go all knuckle dragger racist.
Some bloke in Epping tries to kiss a girl and there's weeks of demos that "they are all the same", imagine the same logic applied to the driver of that car in Liverpool who ran all those people down, drivers "they are all the same".
This post has been deleted by its author
SPI busses use 4 signals : CS , CLK , MOSI and MISO
ChipSelect, CLocK are fine but some people are offended by MOSI : Master Out, Slave In and MISO : Master In , Slave Out.
So they changed that now to COPI and CIPO : Controller Out, Peripheral In and Controller In, Peripheral Out.
I've been dutifully saving copies of data sheets where the signals are still referred to by their correct names.
I think it was Texas Instruments who were the first chip maker to start with this nonsense. Quite depressing really when an engineering firm starts jumping on the woke bandwagon and denying the role of context in the meanings of words.
Many years ago (late 80s to early 90s) National Semiconductor (now part of TI) had a 3 volume set of databooks (yes, real books!).
In the special functions book the LH0033 / LH0063 buffer amplifiers were featured. These were designed for video applications and the databook stated Fast and Damn Fast Buffers.
In the applications section for the parts where the physical PCB layout was being discussed it had the headline:
ACHTUNG!
This was because the output transition rates were very fast (for the time - we surpassed that many years ago) and needed careful consideration for the manufacturing capabilities of the day.
From a time when people didn't take offence at every silly little thing and besides techies were known for their sense of humour quite aside from their perceived social issues. (which is actually not the case with most).
"So they changed that now to COPI and CIPO : Controller Out, Peripheral In and Controller In, Peripheral Out."
Bit of a bugger if the protocol were extended with a "peripheral unasserted late" COPULATE
Which reminds me of my deceased but born deranged granny† who seriously thought cats should have lead weights attached to their tails as it was so rude (the sight of cats' bums that is.)
What was she thinking of ? Really all that lead contaminating the environment ! Spent uranium would be ecologically and etymologically sounder. ;)
Cannot but think she could have been a foundation member of ArOUSeD but for the fact she was functionally illiterate ...hang on (oops) ... right the first time.
† the other arguably slightly saner one managed to chain smoke herself to death aged 43. Kippered in her prime. :)
Does that even mean the same thing?
A validation check is normally there to make sure something is working. "This counter should increment by one every time this button is pressed. It does? Excellent, validated."
A sanity check is there to make sure that it makes sense for the counter to increment rather than decrement. That the button isn't behind a sheet of steel when installed and cannot be pressed.
These appear to be totally different types of check.
It's like replacing Master/Slave with Client/Server or Primary/Secondary- all three describe different relationships.
At least when SPI did this they changed it to "Serial data in" and "Serial data out" so it made sense.
I find many of those suggestions so deeply offensive that I cannot bear it.
This is just ridiculous and is just another act of the professional offence seekers looking for something to get upset abut. Now than I am offended by these suggestions will they be hung? Of course not because their offence is more important than anyone else's.
As a serious note, black is merely a descriptor. It requires context to make it derogatory. If you're describing people as gammons, then you are deliberately setting out to be offensive - as the term was designed to be offensive.
Although, on the other hand, white people ain't white, the vaguely pink bastards! Which is surely offensive to people who actually do have white skin.
"but if looking at some text, asking the question, and perhaps saying things differently can save a coworker unnecessary discomfort, then why not?"
If your co-worker suffers discomfort at hearing the word "hang" or "dummy" then there is something very wrong with them and they should seek psychiatric help.
We cannot and should not be expected to go through life assuming that everyone we meet has a severe mental disorder.
Why not? Because no one is offended by "sanity check" or "whitelist" or "dummy variable". There are, however, people who *pretend* to be offended for sympathy and attention. And when we give in to them, we normalize this behavior and even encourage it. It becomes a collective delusion. Apparently they don't teach fables and fairy tales anymore in school. Otherwise people would remember the one about the Emperor's new clothes and what happens when we all pretend because it's easier to go along. We look back and laugh at our primitive, barbarous ancestors who became convinced that ghosts and devils and dragons were real. Then I read articles like this and wonder if I'm watching exactly how beliefs in imaginary things by a society are formed.
This post has been deleted by its author
"perhaps saying things differently can save a coworker unnecessary discomfort, then why not?"
Answer: people should be a bit more robust. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you. That was always what I was told as a child when other children made hurtful remarks.
"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you."
Grow a thicker hide. More spine ... atop which a brain might potentially grow.
With rampant moral inflation too many have become so precious that we can no longer afford their maintenance.
The nursery saw applies to particular use of words such as a reasonably direct insult.
Inflammatory speech that leads to the sticks and stones is another matter altogether.
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you
Well that's a fucking stupid thing to say for starters.
Deliberately hurtful words and bullying work, because words can hurt you.
On the other hand, you can't realistically cater for offence that people might take for absolutely every utterance you make. Thus society has to come to some kind of compromise.
The sensible place for which is that bullying isn't allowed, and accidental offence needs to be forgiven - or in fact ignored, since there's nothing to forgive if there's no intent.
Mum used to teach blind children. I'm still not quite sure how I should say that. The formulation of people with blindness has merit, because we're not supposed to be labelling people - but the with is horrible, and suffering from is wordy and rubbish. Correct current terminology is children suffering from sight loss or children with severe visual impairments. I know a guy who's blind who hates sight loss, because it implies that he carelessly lost his vision one day, possibly while out walking down the street.
But on the other hand, some people who are severely sight impaired hate being called blind, because they have some small amount of vision and most people think blind means "can't see anything" - which it doesn't.
This makes it impossible to please all of the people all of the time. However using blind in a generic sense should be fine. If you're talking to someone specifically then you can either ignore the whole issue, or ask them. One of the things Mum wanted to normalise was normal language like "did you watch that program on TV last night?" or "did you go and see your Mum yesterday?"
It does no service to the kids to teach them to be hyper-sensitive about language and so be offended by casual conversation all the time - when no offense was implied or meant. And most totally blind people do watch telly, they just listen to the dialogue or nowadays have it audio-described*
There is no way to legislate for this. We have to manage our social interaction by not being arseholes. Or at least trying our best not to be, and when we fuck up, to apologise and learn for the future.
*Mum took one of her pupils to the cinema, to see the film with audio-description. They'd apparently changed their timetable, but the "helpful" person at the ticket desk did offer that she could book them for a film with subtitles instead!
To be fair, people can say the most stupid shit when they're rushed and don't have a chance to think about the implications of what they're saying. Or sadly, just don't bother to think.
I'm a liberal and I rolled my eyes at this so hard they clicked. Sure, language matters, and we should try not to be offensive. But when someone manages to be offended by "sanity check" I have to question their sanity.
This is extremist virtue signalling without merit. And worse - it only serves to give ammo to the fascists. It does nothing to protect any sane and rational person.
We've trained AI on 25+ years of data where these terms were acceptable.
Is someone planning to go through the training data and "correct" all this? If not, AI will likely be very confused by the humans acting a bit daft....
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. My process didn't stall, it hung..."
.. and the Alliance for OpenUSD
I think I could find that offensive and exclusive because it continues to promote US hegemony and the dominance of the USD. Other currencies are available and OpenUSD should be renamed to be more inclusive. If they need help, I can offer my consultancy service and demonstrate my own inclusiveness by accepting GBP, EUR, or lots of SEKs
(Also DNS needs to be more inclusive given Mx records imply a single gender. Hosts should be allowed to choose their preferred pronoun and support MR, MRS, or as the hosts are mostly inanimate, IT.)
No words or phrases have been “banned” and a guide of this nature plainly has no power to “ban” words or phrases, nor does it claim to. It’s beyond inane to speak as if entirely voluntary recommendations are a “ban” and disappointing to see an otherwise thoughtful publication like the Reg eagerly wade into grievance politics. That headlines like this can be relied upon to draw hundreds of remarks from thoroughly commonplace white men and boys eager to posture as if they’ve been marginalized or transformed into outlaws is not in itself a good reason to gin them up.
Try submitting source code to a project hosted by the Academy Software Foundation which describes some parts of the code as being master and slave processes and see how fast you get told to remove the nasty words before they will accept it.
Sounds like a ban to me!
A virtual beer or two to anyone who can pull the “words we can’t use” list from the imaginary publiclibertyonline[.]com website in GTA4.
The one available when Nico would browse the internet.
I dictated this while driving, dreaming of a manual tranny and distracted by memories of my master disk becoming slave when a jumper fell.
Do all you guys who rail against language changes like this insist on still calling black people negros, gay people fags, women broads, etc?
Languages evolve along with societies. That's normal, natural and good. Perhaps history will regard as the crazy ones the people who think evolution and progress should end where THEY feel most comfortable, ignorant of the fact that what makes THEM comfortable very likely made their parents, and certainly their grandparents rather uncomfortable.
TL/DR Chill, fellas. The world changes. Resist if you want, but always remember who's choice it was to be left behind.
TL/DR Chill, fellas. The world changes. Resist if you want, but always remember who's choice it was to be left behind.
Aren't you making some big assumptions, sweeping generalisations and stereotyping? Why assume gender? Why not write 'chill, people' and be more inclusive? Do you think it's really 'progressive' to define ever smaller boxes to lump people into and risk marginalising them further? Or are you one of those people that delights in being offended on behalf of people who probably aren't that bothered.
But that grouping also includes a lot of Hollywood who've spent the last decade or so being 'progressive' instead of just producing entertainment. And now risk being left behind, or another favorite progressive phrase 'on the wrong side of history' when their blockbusters lose billions. And then blaming their audiences who just aren't buying what they're selling. Plus indies and foreign producers seem to manage just fine. See for example most Korean productions who entertain, and often include strong female characters without creating ludicrous girlbosses. Sue Storm kicks a god's ass because girl powah! One can only suspend disbelief so far. Also amusing that for a movie that supposedly promotes the power of family, they try to solo the boss instead of, well, teaming up.
Meanwhile, I'm having fun watching 'The Uncanny Counter' on Netflix. Their heros aren't billionaires, they run a noodle shop and kick demon ass.
So this is about the inclusive language guide published by the Alliance for OpenUSD whose mission statement is:
"To foster the standardization, development, evolution, and growth of OpenUSD."
Now, I had to look up what OpenUSD is as I don't work with 3d modelling, but it seems that it is industry standard software in that field. They're a private organisation, they can do what they want.
What I find more concerning is a public organisation banning words from all their internal documents and public communications in an effort to control the political discourse and to discriminate against people.
The list of words is here.
https://pen.org/banned-words-list/
And the public organisation is the US government.
But apparently it's the Alliance for OpenUSD we're should all be angry about. This looks like a distraction.
I suspect that "hung" etc. date from the days of electro- or even steam-driven-mechanical user devices such as the gloriously noisy Teletype and its zippy replacement the DecWriter. How fondly I remember the way output would come to a dead stop and leave us, er, hanging. Sudden silence, dead keys. Oh yes.
"Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it. And it gets worse with every generation. For some reason it just keeps getting worse. Smug, greedy well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins." -George Carlin
Smug, greedy well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins." -George Carlin
I think one of the worst aspects of the culture wars are the effects on comedy. Especially when comedians can use humor to raise social issues and then ask 'why are you laughing?'. Also the more I think about this, the more I realise how fundamentally broken a lot of IT, especially IT security is. The whole thing can be built on outdated social models like class, and privilege, with strict rules applied to keep objects in their place. I realise that Microsoft has made great efforts to create a more egalitarian framework that removes boundaries. But this might not be a good thing for society, and nor might naming a process 'Karen' because it wants to communicate with the supervisor.
This seems to be exactly the wrong way round.
Language follows attitude. We can observe empirically that, for example, the sort of person who is careful not to leave baby-changing tables deployed in accessible toilets and doesn't go around obstructing pavements is the sort of person who is more likely to refer to a hole that does not go all the way through a workpiece as a "stopped hole" rather than a "blind hole".
But to expect that merely requiring people to say "permitted list" instead of "whitelist" will, in and of itself, make them less likely to perform racist acts, is the fallacy of the undistributed middle writ very large indeed.
Some people absolutely need to fix their hearts. But it's not enough to suppose making them talk as though they have already done so will have any real benefit in achieving this.
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