back to article Allowlist, not whitelist. Blocklist, not blacklist. Goodbye, wtf. Microsoft scans Chromium code, lops off offensive words

Microsoft's adoption of the Google-developed Chromium browser engine for Edge has resulted in a proposal to cleanse the open-source code of "potentially offensive terms." Issue 981129 in the Chromium bug log lists a suggestion by Microsoft to “cleanup of potentially offensive terms in codebase” aims to rid the software …

  1. jarfil

    This is stupid

    "Blacklist" comes from the phrase "a black list", a list of enemies and rivals to be executed, with the "black" meaning "death".

    What's next, changing the color names themselves?

    1. Dinanziame Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: This is stupid

      Ah but see, there is no need to associate so much negativity with the color black, or positivity with the color white... It's only reinforcing negative stereotypes!

      So let's change these old expressions with unfortunate connotations, hmmmm?

      I'd say it was whitewashing, if only that didn't also have negative connotations.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: This is stupid

        Is SIGABORT still allowed?

        1. AndrueC Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: This is stupid

          And my favourite from the wonderful world of the Windows Shell API:

          SHITEMID.

          1. really_adf

            Re: This is stupid

            I'm surprised not to have seen mention of Android's Log.wtf(), "Report a condition that should never happen."

      2. AceRimmer1980
        Big Brother

        Re: This is stupid

        No, this is ungood.

        1. MiguelC Silver badge
          Big Brother

          Re: This is stupid

          Double-plus-ungood or just plain ungood?

      3. aelfheld

        Re: This is stupid

        Your use of the term 'whitewashing' is a red flag.

        Which likely also has been attributed negative connotations.

    2. seanf

      Re: This is stupid

      FTFY

      "What's next, changing the colour names themselves?"

    3. simonlb Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: This is stupid

      Just wait until they find the two functions named cuntybollocks and twatknackerbollockface!

      1. Avatar of They
        Thumb Up

        Re: This is stupid

        Let me guess. Windows 10 installation function and Windows 10 Cortana installation function?

      2. ForthIsNotDead
        Coat

        Re: This is stupid

        Camel case, please. Pfft... There is no way your code is getting through a code review ;-)

        cuntyBollocks() and twatKnackerBollockFace()

        There. Much better!

        1. Baldrickk
          Pint

          Re: This is stupid

          cunty_bollocks() and twat_knacker_bollock_face() please ;) Although not standard for most languages, I follow Python's snake-case preference here, as it makes things much easer when you involve acronyms.

          as much as I like getIPAddress() sounding like getting a beer...

      3. Fred Flintstone Gold badge
        Pint

        Re: This is stupid

        Post of the week, grin.

    4. el kabong

      Devoting one's time to petty issues when there is so much to do

      Take the migrant crisis, the climate is reaching a point of irreparable damage that is leading to widespread extinctions and population displacement.

      Such a shame to see people at m$ raising such petty issues while leaving the real problems unaddressed. Perhaps their action is intentional diversion tactics to make us look elsewhere, being m$ everything is possible they've done that in the past. Perhaps it's just pure idiocy at work because this is m$ so not really unexpected, we are used to see them behaving like that.

      Whatever the cause it is still a shame. diverting our precious little resources to deal with petty issues for no real benefit, such a shame.

      1. baud

        Re: Devoting one's time to petty issues when there is so much to do

        Well, at least he's trying to fix issues in front of him and that's better than pie-in-the-sky plans to solve the world's ill. And it's an initiative from just 1 engineer (or a small group), not the whole of Microsoft, even if it's reflective from Microsoft's stance on the subject

        1. el kabong

          Then give that m$ engineer a Nobel Prize for saving the world

          He may be dealing with only one petty issue at a time but the compounded effect of all his effort dealing with petty issues add up pretty fast, one day the accumulated effect may become big, real big and soon he will be able to save the world. Hooray!

          Where's the sarcasm icon? I can't find it.

          1. baud

            Re: Then give that m$ engineer a Nobel Prize for saving the world

            Okay, in his position, what would you do?

            1. el kabong

              I'd do my best to avoid fabricating sterile political issues that lead us nowhere

              And I'd code, of course.

            2. Kiwi
              Pint

              Re: Then give that m$ engineer a Nobel Prize for saving the world

              Okay, in his position, what would you do?

              Leave the code as it is, go out side, find someone in my community who has a real need, fix that need as best I can (or help them find/fund someone who can do it better).

              How many people today get offended by terms that yesterday they did not know exist, and last Monday were considered non-offensive and perhaps even the best term available?

              People get told that a term they've found OK is supposed to be offensive, and they get told their friends/loved ones should know better and must be deliberately insulting them when the loved ones are using the best language they know how and only speaking with the best intentions. The PC victim then goes from believing their loved ones are doing them right to believing their loved ones dislike or at least disrespect them, and instead of being kind are being abusive. That leads to a great deal of pain and anger.

              All because some vile piece of PC scum decided they should get their name in the paper by making out a perfectly accurate and acceptable term should be offensive and everyone should have already known that from time immemorial.

              If there is any one in this world who should suffer an agonising and slow death, it is the proponents of PC (not the ones intending to be doing stuff from the best intentions but the ones sticking their nose in and stirring things up for their own motives).

              PS if you respond with a contrary point, you will be acting in an unfair and offensive manner as you may show me an error in my thinking and thus damage my belief that I am always right - in doing so damaging my fragile self-esteem and proving you are just as bad as the most racist person out there. To respond contrary to what I said is to risk offending, insulting or just plain hurting me, and in this PC world you are not allowed to correct any wrong thinking I may have!

              </rant>

      2. Craig 2

        Re: Devoting one's time to petty issues when there is so much to do

        "Such a shame to see people at m$ raising such petty issues"

        Don't blame companies for this, the only reason large corps dedicate time to this sort of thing is because there are too many "I'm offended" professionals out there. eg. The Tourettes charity complaining about the recent Fringe Festival joke.

        Consider this: Person tweets about some innocuous reference in the code - Celeb notices and re-tweets it to billions - Massive publicity & calls to boycott - Billions wiped off share values - Shareholders lose money. <--- This is why.

    5. AIBailey

      Re: This is stupid

      Indeed, it's now getting ridiculous.

      If you're banishing BLACKlist and WHITElist, don't forget to remove any reference to DISABLING something. Sometimes it seems like there are too many people in this world just looking for something to be offended by.

      Sure, if you put deliberately offensive words in there, expect some kind of kickback, but this is just nonsense.

      My sister has an autistic son, and some time ago she was on a crusade to stop people using the term "retarded", saying there was no place for it in the English language. Understandable, as an insult (though this seems to be considered more offensive in the UK, and still gets used a lot in the US). Unfortunately this makes it rather difficult to discuss ignition timing.

      My point is, context is everything, something that Microsoft seem to have forgotten.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is stupid

        You cant use "invalid" data either in case it upsets disabled people either - I had this one brought up by a customer once.

        Its a sort of newspeak where avoiding offence is itself becoming offensive, and being offended gets attention seekers airtime.

        1. James 139

          Re: This is stupid

          But invalid and invalid are two different words, with different distinct meanings.

          People need to stop being homographist.

          1. Giovani Tapini

            Re: This is stupid

            And I'm sure that homographism was another thing that didn't exist until well after I grew up !

          2. fidodogbreath

            Re: This is stupid

            People need to stop being homographist.

            What an incredibly homographobic statement.

        2. katrinab Silver badge

          Re: This is stupid

          "inval_i_d" might be an offensive word,

          "inv_a_lid", the word used to describe incorrect data, is not.

        3. Drew Scriver

          Re: This is stupid

          Oh no! You said "disabled" (i.e. "incapacitated") to refer to "people with a disability"! Shame on you! You ableist! ;-)

          Perhaps we just need to go back to "handicapped"...

          And yes - all this is stupid. Pardon me, unwise.

        4. Dal90

          Re: This is stupid

          To be fair...it depends on how you accent the words.

          Invalid data = unusable information

          Invalid Data = disabled Star Trek character

      2. Electronics'R'Us
        Thumb Up

        Re: This is stupid

        When I was in the Royal Navy (many years ago), there was always a call for people on shore bases or ships in port with no scheduled departure to remain on the base / ship over major holidays (Easter and Christmas mainly).

        While the majority of the personnel were on leave, I would remain (single and young) and take my leave after they had returned. This was known as retard leave.

        There were advantages; there was really not much work over those leave periods so it was like getting a holiday on the base (I only went on ships a few days prior to departure as I was working with aircraft) over the main leave period and then getting leave afterwards.

      3. Bob Carter

        Re: This is stupid

        Then someone had better tell Airbus to stop the planes software calling the pilots Retard at 20 feet....

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sikGj2flLB8

    6. Tigra 07
      Pint

      Re: This is stupid

      "What's next, changing the color names themselves?"

      SJWs were arguing that the Spanish word for black, "negro", was racist and should be changed last year. The Spanish ignored them, as should anyone with common sense.

      1. Drew Scriver

        Re: This is stupid

        That's right - we need to make sure all words that may be offensive in any language are banned!

        On a related note, I had a chuckle every time our developers used the term "SOA-bus", as "SOA" is the Dutch term for "STD"...

        Gets even better with license plates in the USA, which are often comprised of three letters followed by numbers. English has four-letter-words. Dutch has three-letter-words...

        I get a kick out of people who insist on using words like "herstory" instead of "history". They may have a wee bit trouble coming up with the equivalent term in other languages.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This is stupid

          "That's right - we need to make sure all words that may be offensive in any language are banned!

          On a related note, I had a chuckle every time our developers used the term "SOA-bus", as "SOA" is the Dutch term for "STD"...

          Gets even better with license plates in the USA, which are often comprised of three letters followed by numbers. English has four-letter-words. Dutch has three-letter-words..."

          Take a French person to Shropshire and see their face when you refer to the place as "Salop"...

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. James 139

          Re: This is stupid

          But that's ok, THEY are allowed to use it without it being offensive.

          It's only offensive if someone from a different racial/social/economic group uses words they don't like.

          Oh dear, my eyes just rolled out of their sockets....

        2. Tikimon
          Facepalm

          Re: This is stupid

          "the United Negro College Fund in Washington, DC? No joke - it really exists.

          As does the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."

          Those were both terms chosen by the black community at one point and later abandoned. Every so often, the black "leadership" decide that they want to rebrand, that the Current Name has become offensive. So the last name they demanded everyone switch to becomes verboten but they hang around in old organization names.

          In the 1970's it was all about "Black Pride" and everyone had to say that. Now they're not proud of Black anymore and want "African-American". Anyone want to start a pool to guess the next rebrand name in another ten years?

          1. MJI Silver badge

            Re: This is stupid

            I remember seeing an article about British athletes in the US.

            They are British of mainly Carribean ancestry.

            They got really annoyed about morons calling them British African Americans. They were not allowed to be Black British.

            Can't remember who but pretty sure it was an Olympian. and they were proud of being British.

    7. MacroRodent

      Re: This is stupid

      Besides "whitelist" and "blacklist" are long-established technical terms. It never ever occurred to me someone could see them as politically incorrect.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: This is stupid

        "Besides "whitelist" and "blacklist" are long-established technical terms. It never ever occurred to me someone could see them as politically incorrect."

        To be more precise, "whitelist" and "blacklist" do not refer to the skin colour of people.

        1. katrinab Silver badge

          Re: This is stupid

          But it reinforces the incorrect idea that white=good, black=bad, which is why some people object to it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: This is stupid

            Those people are stupid.

          2. Sir Runcible Spoon

            Re: This is stupid

            Which kind of hospital would you like to be seen in, one with pristine white walls, or pristine black walls?

            The colour black has been associated with negative associations for millennia, same with white etc. - it's the people who then associate these negative connotations to people and link them to the colour of their skin that are the problem.

            This is all revisionist bullshit.

          3. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: This is stupid

            "But it reinforces the incorrect idea that white=good, black=bad, which is why some people object to it."

            I immediately channeled the late great George Carlin, "_uck 'em", when I read that.

        2. MJI Silver badge

          Re: This is stupid

          I am not white I am pink.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: This is stupid

            "I am not white I am pink."

            I'm Scot so according to Billy Connelly, I'm a pale blue person. Unless I've been in the sun without sunscreen and then I'm set of police car lights, blue and red.

          2. Tigra 07

            Re: This is stupid

            I'm like a peach colour. Actually, that's a lie as some parts of me are purple and black, since i'm a little bruised.

      2. OssianScotland

        Re: This is stupid

        But the "woke" among us can see anything as politically incorrect

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Woke

          The contrary term, unwoke, is terribly offensive to people in comas or persistent vegetative state, - which in turn is a terribly offensive term. Anyone using them has to be a sandwich short of a picnic - an insulting term for those restricting their calorie intake or gluten intolerant. And that term, intolerant, is grossly offensive, comparing a condition which you cannot help or choose, with an attitude you learn and can unlearn.

        2. Electronics'R'Us
          Joke

          Re: This is stupid

          This rather suggests that an old joke* may have some truth:

          "The total sum of intelligence on the planet is a constant but the population continues to increase"

          *Many a true word is spoken in jest or as it is in King Lear "Jesters do oft prove prophets".

      3. Tom 35

        Re: This is stupid

        "Besides "whitelist" and "blacklist" are long-established technical terms."

        That's actually part of the problem. I've had to explain what a blacklist is to people (when marketing decided that spamming was a good idea) where blocklist is obvious to anyone. The same for allowlist.

        Even without the white good, black bad problem with the words I think it's a good idea just to remove unclear jargon.

        Removing wtf is worse as that's just people upset about a "bad" word.

        1. Drew Scriver

          Re: This is stupid

          Wait for it - Black Friday (shopping day after US Thanksgiving) is next on the chopping block.

          1. MJI Silver badge

            Re: This is stupid

            Black Friday

            Is that when their financial markets collapsed?

        2. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: This is stupid

          Blacklist didn’t originate as a technical term. It applied to people and organisations and is hundreds of years old.

          1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

            Re: This is stupid

            It is presumably related to the notion of black-balling, which is itself presumably an English translation of the original Ancient Greek.

            Nevertheless, language evolves and "blocklist" is perfectly clear in context so I don't have a problem with it if someone else is willing to put in the legwork of making the changes and re-testing.

            1. Dal90

              Re: This is stupid

              Blocklist is ambiguous.

              Is this the roll of neighbors to invite to a "block party?"

              alllowedList

              nonAllowedList

              ...but that would take more careful thought than mindless political correctness is capable of.

      4. Grikath

        Re: This is stupid

        "It never ever occurred to me someone could see them as politically incorrect."

        To the Professionally Offended they are. Their meal ticket depends on it.

        It's a good gig if you can stomach the hypocrisy and infighting. There's a surprising amount of people that do very well by being Offended on behalf of people who don't care much.

        Sir PTerry parodied this kind of people beautifully with his Campaign for Equal Height.

    8. Balding Greybeard

      Re: This is stupid

      It’s all about context. In the US, a politician recently tweeted, “it’s all about the Benjamin’s”, in debate about US support of Israel. The same term historically referred to Benjamin Franklin’s picture on a $100 bill. One’s clearly offensive.

      Me, I think of white hair, black hair. Devoid of color, all colors.

      It’s time to stop using colors when referring to race; black, brown, or white are not acceptable. In the US the term African Americans is the preferred identification term; Euro, Caucasian, or Asian are preferred too.

      1. dvd

        Re: This is stupid

        Yes, and the whole world laughs at Americans when they use the term African American to refer to someone genuinely from Africa.

        On top of this, there's an underlying assumption that everyone in Africa is black, which is a pretty narrow and stereotypical view of the continent. It's a big place and there's all sorts of races there.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This is stupid

          Same as well for Asian - among people from Turkey, India or China (just to name three...) it looks to me there are big ethnic differences - and all of them are "Asian". Strange anyway there's no term for people from Oceania...

          And, BTW, why African-American and not Asian-American, European-American and so on??

          The real problem is how much US people are fixated with "races" and have to classify people by that in their narrow-view world.

          There should be only one need to identify people by the color of their skin and that's when you have to search someone (a suspect, a lost one, etc.) - when every detail which helps to narrow down the search could be useful - skin color, hair color and style, height, weight, etc. - in this case the simplest, non-ambiguous term is the better.

          In any other situation, those attributes should be utterly irrelevant.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: This is stupid

            Read a Wikipedia page for American celebrities .

            “Xxx is of Irish, French, Norwegian, Polish descent on her fathers side, and Chinese, Arapaho, Martian through her maternal line,

            Could just say American, would save a lot of bandwidth.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This is stupid

          Including the Dakar Rally.

      2. PghMike

        The term Asian is strange

        It seems to assume that everyone from Asia shares a similar culture, whether they're from Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Siberia, China (and China itself obviously has many cultures internally).

        How this became the SJW term of art for people from all the above countries is a mystery to me, but it certainly seems disrespectful. Or at least stupid.

        1. Kiwi
          Coat

          Re: The term Asian is strange

          How this became the SJW term of art for people from all the above countries is a mystery to me, but it certainly seems disrespectful. Or at least stupid.

          HTH

          HAND

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The term Asian is strange

          It is pretty weird. I've classically thought of all those places as Foreign not Asian.

    9. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: This is stupid

      The word "Microsoft" is offensive to those suffering from impotence. As well as other reasons.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is stupid

        There is a Microhard in Hayes...for balance.

    10. Craig 2
      Joke

      Re: This is stupid

      "What's next, changing the color names themselves?"

      Well technically you guys over in freedomland have already changed the spelling of colour.

      1. John Robinson 2

        Re: This is stupid

        "freedomland have already changed the spelling of colour" - not so, sorry. "color" is the original spelling, in Latin and even in English, before (a) it was exported to the early States and (b) Brits changed to the more fashionable French spelling "colour".

        Yours truly, a bilingual pedant.

    11. Kubla Cant

      Re: This is stupid

      rid the software blueprints of language...

      The expression "blueprints" is offensive to Smurfs!

      (Also, what exactly are "software blueprints"? In 30 years as a developer, I don't think I've ever seen any.)

      1. Pirate Dave Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: This is stupid

        "Also, what exactly are "software blueprints"?"

        Wouldn't that be flowcharts (that no one creates anymore during the design phase)?

        1. OssianScotland

          Re: This is stupid

          UML diagrams, possibly (or am I stuck in a timewarp back to the millennium?)

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: This is stupid

            No, UML still popular for model driven dev.

            1. Kubla Cant

              Re: This is stupid

              re: UML, flowcharts etc.

              1. Not usually blue

              2. More relevantly, the article says "rid the software blueprints of language", and strongly suggests that they're editing the code. If the Daily Mail calls code "software blueprints", it's unsurprising, but i expect better from El Reg.

    12. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is stupid

      I can't keep up with this PC nonsense...Last time we were told not to use the word "Black" we had to use the term "African American".

      I'm not renaming my spam lists again.

      1. IGotOut Silver badge

        Re: This is stupid

        Im still struggling with the new one.

        Coloured people....BAD!

        People of Colour....GOOD!

        1. Kiwi
          Pint

          Re: This is stupid

          Im still struggling with the new one.

          Coloured people....BAD!

          People of Colour....GOOD!

          Is it the result of doubleplus unthink?

          (On their part, not yours, obviously :) )

      2. Alumoi Silver badge

        Re: This is stupid

        What, your former blacklist is now called african-american list?

      3. MJI Silver badge

        Re: This is stupid

        And this really pissed off Kriss Akabusi

    13. sabroni Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: This is stupid

      Aww, did the nasty code review tool make you think about other peoples' feelings? Poor baby, have a good rant about the injustice of it all, ignoring the irony of the fact that you think YOUR feelings are important in this situation....

      Can you make a snowflake out of gammon? What is that, a gammon flake or a rasher?

    14. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: This is stupid

      In classic western films, the bad guys wear black hats and the good guys white. I think the convention goes back to before "talkies".

      1. Kiwi
        Boffin

        Re: This is stupid

        In classic western films, the bad guys wear black hats and the good guys white. I think the convention goes back to before "talkies".

        Hints to it even in the Bible, verses referring to 'evil [people] likes darkness, because their deeds are hidden'. Even on a moonless night far from city lights, there is often some ambient light and white will far more easily be seen than black.

        My first exposure to this was in one of the "Secret Seven" books where a couple of the boys had made themselves up to look like snow men to hide in a field near some old guy's house. Later, inside the house, one of the boys had removed the white clothes and hidden in a dark corner to avoid detection, but had forgotten about the white on his face.. Or something like that.

  2. DJV Silver badge

    About fucking time too and bollocks to people who litter software with bloody profanities!

    (hold on, should I have added sarcasm tags here for the hard of thinking?)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I feel deeply offended by your sarcasm, this MUST be banned immediately!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I am offended by your, almost USian, unwillingness to deal with sarcasm.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Don't knock the yanks (offence intended) - I was pretty effectively trolled by a US colleague last week over the term 'router'.

          Of course, I was using it correctly (roo-ter) when he was using the Americanism (rao-ter*). Of course, being polite I decided to switch when challenged (I am British after all) only to have him start using roo-ter at me instead! Priceless and totally unexpected!

          *no idea how to phonetically do this

          1. nijam Silver badge

            > *no idea how to phonetically do this

            If IPA (no, not the beer) isn't helping, how about row-ter? A router (pronounced rooter) is something that decides routes. A router (pronounced row-ter) is a woodworking tool that cuts grooves or edge profiles.

            1. Sir Runcible Spoon

              I thought about that, but row can also be pronounced row (as is row your boat, as opposed a row with your wife).

              1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

                Just look up the damn definitions and pronunciation - and I quote " /ˈruːtər, ˈraʊtər/ ".

                It's clearly a black and white case of being beaten black and blue until I see red about it, but I'll say it how I want and still be correct ... and with a thick Norfolk (England!) accent on it too.

  3. Steve Aubrey
    Joke

    Physician, heal thyself!

    El Reg's sub-hed says "Redmond suggests nuking 'profanity, geopolitical, diversity' terms from browser source"

    Isn't the concept of "nuking" prejudiced against second- and third-world countries that don't have nuclear weapons?

    And I am obligated to quote: "Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from sarcasm".

    1. MichaelBirks

      Re: Physician, heal thyself!

      Even if it is not discriminatory in the fashion you describe, it could be be considered an unnecessarily violent term whose meaning could be equally conveyed by less damaging terms.

      'Removing' would entirely suffice, I would have thought.

      1. OssianScotland
        Mushroom

        Re: Physician, heal thyself!

        Its a - soon to be - Microsoft product, so Nuking is far more appropriate (probably from orbit, just to make sure)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Physician, heal thyself!

      Not even a joke. I can think of two cities that might not find the term funny.

      1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

        Re: Physician, heal thyself!

        And Manchester will shortly be renamed PersonFrontUpperBodyEr

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Physician, heal thyself!

          Oh, I'm off to S Ladies-Sexual-Organ horpe in a bit

          1. MJI Silver badge

            Re: Physician, heal thyself!

            Oh S****horpe

            And it did happen

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe#Internet_obscenity_filters

  4. Brian Miller

    It was a bright cold day in April...

    and the clocks were striking thirteen.

    AI-generated Newspeak at your service. Winston Smith will never exist, as his job would be done by a program.

  5. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    I'll still drink BLACK tea and eat WHITE bread.

    If you really want to know all the rude words there are, just ask the pope. He's got to know all of them so he can tell people off for using them.

    1. veti Silver badge

      Black tea and white bread are fine, because the colour words there have no particular moral weighting. Nobody imagines that "black tea" is somehow corrupt, or that people who drink it are inferior to others.

      "Blacklist" and "whitelist", those are another matter.

      Honestly, I can sympathise with both sides of this argument. On the one hand, this sort of self-conscious language shifting drives a wedge between us and every previous generation, which is bad. On the other hand, allowing moral weight to attach to terms that are simultaneously used as objective descriptors of some people - is thoughtless at best.

      And once that has been pointed out to you, you can no longer claim "thoughtlessness" - you'd have to escalate to "a calculated putdown". So really, Google - and anyone else whose goals include "staying in business" - has no choice but to go along with it.

      1. VikiAi
        Boffin

        I am pretty sure the human cultural negativity around the word 'black' has much to do with our poor night-vision and the opportunities that presents for potential predators with better night-vision for sneaking up on us. It likely pre-dates humanity itself, let alone any minor latitude-driven diversification in UV-proeection vs vitamin-D production abilities.

        Fear of the dark-unknown is pretty hard-wired, if only for the protection of little-toes!

        1. veti Silver badge

          So what? The history, while I'm sure very interesting to those who care about such things, isn't really relevant. What matters is what effect the words have today. Citing etymology at this point is really calculated to arouse suspicions that you're looking for reasons not to do the right thing.

          Unless you have a consistent personal history of caring about the etymology of all words, all the time. Which you may have, I don't want to jump to conclusions about you - but if so, you need to recognise (and deal with) the fact that most of the time, it's one of those arguments that only gets dragged out when it's convenient to some other agenda.

          1. Kiwi
            WTF?

            What matters is what effect the words have today.

            That is not the case. The case it that people are choosing to be offended by these things, when there clearly is no intent at offence and you have to jump through a whole multiverse-worth of intellectual hoops to even begin to try and claim it's actually offensive.

            It's like when people get offended at the word "Niggardly" which, of course, has nothing to do whatsoever with the word "Nigger" and it's historical abusive connotations. Or those who will get offended because I used "Nigger" even though clearly not in any context that could rightly be claimed to be offensive.

            Citing etymology at this point is really calculated to arouse suspicions that you're looking for reasons not to do the right thing.

            The "right thing" is not to pander to the whims of the PC scum who are constantly trying to drive wedges in between people. These people have nothing better to do than to try and sew discord by claiming that once perfectly acceptable and descriptive language is now a bad thing.

            The sooner we are rid of the PC-types the sooner we can all get back to working to stress-free good lives for all. While PC remains, this world must be a place of division, stress and resentment - because as soon as a word become acceptable to describe a group of people the foul PC scum make it out to be an unforgivable insult to use said word to describe said group.

            The PC nonsense is wrecking lives and needs to stop. It has gone on far to long.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              The "right thing" is not to pander to the whims of the PC scum

              You were arguing rather effectively, until you unnecessarily added the abusive "scum" to the descriptive "PC".

              1. Kiwi
                Pint

                Re: The "right thing" is not to pander to the whims of the PC scum

                You were arguing rather effectively, until you unnecessarily added the abusive "scum" to the descriptive "PC".

                Believe me, given the harm these cretins do, I've been holding back - just barely - limiting my terminology in reference to them.

                I wouldn't dare say what I would love to do to some of them... I do have a reputation as a kind, sane and somewhat wise person to keep around these parts [cough]....

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: The "right thing" is not to pander to the whims of the PC scum

                  Your choice of words is all very well if you just want to preach to the choir; but it's of no use in winning over anyone with a different point of view, and it instead seems designed to alienate them. Is that your intent? In what way is that outcome useful?

                  1. Kiwi

                    Re: The "right thing" is not to pander to the whims of the PC scum

                    Is that your intent?

                    My intent was to vent.

                    I have expressed the reason I wish to vent elsewhere.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: The "right thing" is not to pander to the whims of the PC scum

                "unnecessarily added the abusive "scum" to the descriptive "PC"."

                I thought he was talking about a sales rep at Dell. No?

            2. gnasher729 Silver badge

              "It's like when people get offended at the word "Niggardly" which, of course, has nothing to do whatsoever with the word "Nigger" and it's historical abusive connotations. "

              Outside a Charles Dickens novel, I have never seen the word "niggardly" be used except to insult a black person with plausible deniability and the additional bonus to call anyone complaining stupid. In other words, I have never seen it used today except by a racist.

              1. Kiwi

                Outside a Charles Dickens novel, I have never seen the word "niggardly" be used except to insult a black person with plausible deniability and the additional bonus to call anyone complaining stupid. In other words, I have never seen it used today except by a racist.

                IIRC the last person I recall using it was President Obama during one of his speeches on a monetary issue (or money around an issue). Are you saying he was a racist trying to insult black people? (some brief searching failed to bring up the incident, but I stand by my recollection that it was used by Obama)

                I learned the word maybe 20 years ago from a Maori politician, who was also using it in the correct context as a financial term (probably Winston Peters but it was a long time back).

                If people would learn what words mean before speaking, they would not show their lack of knowledge by getting upset at a "racist" word that is a) not racist at all and b) being used as the best word in the correct context.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  IIRC the last person I recall ...

                  As it happens, there is a wikipedia entry with some useful context:

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly

                  1. Kiwi
                    Pint

                    Re: IIRC the last person I recall ...

                    As it happens, there is a wikipedia entry with some useful context:

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly

                    I came across that one during my search last night, but it doesn't reference the speeches I recall hearing. I was hoping to find stronger support for my point.

                    Annoyingly, search engines first return the most money-making, then the most popular, then the most -almost-right-by-ultra-twisted-logic results. "Most accurate results based on your search terms" never get a look in these days :(

              2. scrubber
                Facepalm

                Homonyms

                And country is an incredibly misogynistic word...

                1. Kiwi
                  Coat

                  Re: Homonyms

                  And country is an incredibly misogynistic word...

                  But phonetically accurate when the other side is in office... :)

          2. Joe W Silver badge

            If we remove all words that sound like a profanity in any language the list of what can be allowed will be short - but this is the logical consequence of all this. I'd say the idea was a "Knüller", if I would not offend the Norwegians with that.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            No, the real people who have issues with race are the ones who see racism in everyday innocent phrases.

        2. Paul Kinsler

          Fear of the dark-unknown is pretty hard-wired,

          How would voles think? Be afraid of the black darkness, or the white vole-eating things? :-)

          https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02605-5

        3. FrogsAndChips Silver badge
          Flame

          The night is dark and full of terrors!

      2. Alister

        Black tea and white bread are fine, because the colour words there have no particular moral weighting.

        Ok, so why then was blackboard considered to have "moral weighting", or "baa baa black sheep" or any of many more terms which describe colour?

        1. Why Not?

          Don't get you panties in a wad!

          Always amuses me that Baa Baa Black sheep gets the treatment. The whole point of the rhyme is that the black wool is a premium product. So it is hardly derogatory.

          Its the same as calling a spade a spade (or a bowl/shovel a bowl/shovel) being offensive because centuries later someone likens those of recent-ish African extraction (we all came out of Africa according to science and God's chosen people weren't rednecks) to a suit of cards.

          Now I had this discussion about the word chairman a few times and pointed out the word man's origin in German does not denote a gender it is the equivalent of Chairperson, ChairWyf or ChairWer (yep that is where we get werewolf from) would however be sexist. One colleague (a devout christian of African heritage) made a very good point that you should consider how its use makes people feel and adjust your language accordingly out of respect.

          There are times when you explain and times when you substitute to be polite to your audience. I now use the equally ancient term 'chair' though joke about talking to the furniture. Blackboards can sensibly become chalk boards.

          I call a bowl a bowl to ridicule the professionally offended.

          I do however defend baa baa black sheep and explain its origin because its improper use is the problem and it is an excellent teaching moment for children.

          Allowlist and Blocklist make a sensible step towards this new era of politeness & respect.

      3. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

        "Reply Icon

        Black tea and white bread are fine, because the colour words there have no particular moral weighting."

        Don't you believe it. My Mum in Law - one of the nicest and most inoffensive people you could imagine - was told off by a nurse (of a non-reflective nature and apparently so well balanced she had a chip on each shoulder), when she asked for "black tea". Apparently, said nurse considered only "tea without milk" was acceptable.

        Gobsmacked.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I can see the argument that NHS tea is too inconsistent to actually reliably call a black tea.

          Unlike Earl Grey which usually contains black tea but is a blended tea.

          Then if we really want to get pedantic we can start discussing green and yellow teas, and why oolong is considered as a category of its own.

        2. mmccul

          Yes, because there's no such thing as green tea or white tea or yellow tea ... (okay, oolong and pu-erh aren't given color names in English typically).

          I'm told that what most call black tea is referred to as red tea in some places, and black tea in those places refers to pu-erh.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        "Black tea and white bread are fine, because the colour words ..."

        Are you sure? Only the rich people could afford soft white bread, while hard black bread was for the poor ones...

        From "Heidi": "The baker in Dorfli makes the white rolls, and if we could get some of those he has over now and then–but I can only just manage to pay for the black bread.”"

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Back to front

        "On the other hand, allowing moral weight to attach to terms that are simultaneously used as objective descriptors of some people - is thoughtless at best"

        Surely the answer to that is to stop referring to people by their colour, and leave the inoffensively meant terms alone?

      6. Drew Scriver

        Sure, but black tea actually is black and white bread actually is white.

        I put my hand on a white sheet of paper just to be sure nothing's changed, but I can (re)assure everyone what my hand is positively not white.

        Just for the fun of it I put my hand under a color scanner. RGB: 161 102 86. That's RED, folks. Not even close to white, as people insist...

        1. Kiwi
          Pint

          Just for the fun of it I put my hand under a color scanner. RGB: 161 102 86. That's RED, folks. Not even close to white, as people insist...

          Do you find it hard living with what life has done to you?

          I mean, when you look in the mirror at what you are today - do you see RED???

          :)

          (Would love to use joke, coat and troll icons as well - but if you don't like the joke at least you can chuck the glass at me :) )

        2. Ordinary Donkey

          Just for comparison I put my tea under a colour scanner but it got all steamed up and stopped working.

          1. Kiwi
            Paris Hilton

            Just for comparison I put my tea under a colour scanner but it got all steamed up and stopped working.

            That happened with a SJW I knew once. I asked him to get some more black ink while he was out. Stormed off going on about me being racist and quit the job when the management told him to stop wasting time.

            Shame... I was wanting to know if we could use him as a new heat-source for our boilers.

            [Even Paris would have more brains than most SJWs combined!]

      7. nijam Silver badge

        > On the one hand, this sort of self-conscious language shifting drives a wedge between us and every previous generation, which is bad.

        Worse than that, actually. In much less than a generation, the newly-approved euphemism inevitably become the new, exactly-as-bad, insult. Most of us, surely, have witnessed that often enough already.

    2. caffeine addict

      I doubt it's genuine, but there was a story that in the 1990s Islington (?Harringey) council tried to ban "black coffee", preferring "coffee without milk"

      1. drand

        Coffee without milk?!

        Otherwise known as "Coffee". If you want to spoil it, you can ask for "coffee with milk". Same applies to tea I suppose (though if I wanted to gum my mouth up with tannin I'd rather have a bottle of Barolo).

        1. caffeine addict

          Re: Coffee without milk?!

          This would be the programmer's answer, I agree. It's concise and complete.

          But to the general population, the response "coffee" is followed by a question about milk.

          1. Sir Runcible Spoon

            Re: Coffee without milk?!

            I always ask for my coffee 'as God intended'. Seems to work.

            1. caffeine addict

              Re: Coffee without milk?!

              Inside a civet?

              1. Sir Runcible Spoon
                Happy

                Re: Coffee without milk?!

                Inside a small mammal? Ok, that one wooshed - please explain as if to an idiot :)

                1. Andytug

                  Re: Coffee without milk?!

                  The most expensive coffee in the world, famous for the beans having passed though a wild civet before being made into coffee.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak

                  1. Sir Runcible Spoon

                    Re: Coffee without milk?!

                    Gotcha, thanks. I have heard about that, so it must be just my memory that's faulty :)

                    1. Kiwi
                      Pint

                      Re: Coffee without milk?!

                      Gotcha, thanks. I have heard about that, so it must be just my memory that's faulty :)

                      I don't blame you.

                      I'm glad I'm poor enough not to accidentally buy this stuff!

        2. Baldrickk

          Re: Coffee without milk?!

          Is that Americano or filter?

      2. OssianScotland

        It is true - I lived in the Peoples Republic of Islington around that time and council cafes would not let you order white or black coffee.

        1. caffeine addict

          Have you got a cite? The only references I can ever find are references to the story, not the event*. The only thing I see actually stating one way or the other is The Socialist Worker, but that doesn't do anything other than say "LIE".

          * which likely means it *is* a legend.

          1. OssianScotland

            No citation, just a memory of a menu board offering "coffee with milk" and "coffee without milk" - and several of us being very amused at the time.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Everyone knows it's either taken Julie Andrews or Whoopi Goldberg.

        1. Kiwi
          Coat

          Everyone knows it's either taken Julie Andrews or Whoopi Goldberg.

          That's offensive! If I was to make a black coffee under those terms, I'd then be 'making Whoopi' - and that as you know is a sexual reference that is offensive to the prudish types and the celibate types (many of whom are so by choice - not their's but the choice of every one else!)

          [Dad-joke time - what were Mr and Mrs Goldberg doing at the time she was conceived? Why, they were making Whoopi!]

    3. Nightkiller

      I have found a delightful addition to this problem, including

      Indigenous North Americans who call their fellow sell-outs Apples - Red on the outside and white on the inside and

      Eco- Warriors who are called Watermelons - Green on the outside, red on the inside.

      but they are so numerous that they cannot fit on this page.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon
        Coat

        Do they not have green apples then?

  6. IGotOut Silver badge

    Idiotsband Morons

    Both medical terms once upon a time....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Erm...

    My memory may be failing me, but I vaguely remember something about Microsoft code using something like 80081E5 (Boobies) as an error code to pass back to Linux? Someone with a better memory than mine may remember.

    People in glass houses and all....

    1. Glen 1

      Re: Erm...

      Ask and ye shall receive (sometimes)

      "Microsoft has ‘fessed up to inserting the hexadecimal string “0xB16B00B5” in the Linux kernel."

      Link

    2. sinsi

      Re: Erm...

      Back in the DOS days, Microsoft had the "BABE" INT 2F interface for Smartdrive.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Erm...

      and let's not forget the whole "netscape engineers are weenies" thing.

  8. RobThBay

    WTH, WTF?

    What's wrong with WTF??? How could "Wow, That's Fantastic" be a bad thing??

    :))

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: WTH, WTF?

      Well, true fact - “WTF” was thought foul. Whatever. Terribly foolish.

    2. Kiwi
      Pint

      Re: WTH, WTF?

      How could "Wow, That's Fantastic" be a bad thing??

      Are you, perchance, the writer (or the muse for the writer) of the Joe Swanson character on Family Guy? :)

    3. Gnarfle

      Re: WTH, WTF?

      According to my son, WTF means WHERE'S THE FOOD!

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon
        Coat

        Re: WTH, WTF?

        Surely that would be WTFF?

  9. HmYiss

    Wow.

    M$ really embracing the whole full retard ethos these days.

    Seriously though, you guys really don't have to work that hard any more (in fact not at all) to make me hate your shit on principle... but your efforts are nonetheless appreciated.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Snow Wombat
    Facepalm

    Here come the Gozers!

    Yup.. looks like the rainbow hair'ed mafia is sinking their claws deeper into MS..

  13. b0llchit Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Programming and computers as a casualty

    I too have serious problems here. The terms HARDware and SOFTware are absolutely profane. If I say to have HARDware, then the women get offended or assume I have a viagra problem. If I say to have SOFTware, then the women will be put off or assume I have a viagra problem. Neither HARDware nor SOFTware should be used or diversity will suffer.

    It is therefore suggested to ban computers and programming completely, including all words associated with the sciences of making said stuff a reality. Calling HARDware SIGNAL equipment will be misunderstood as advancement. Calling SOFTware as FIRMware will only remind us of less hard HARDware. There is no way we can solve this problem. Kill this computer stuff now! We cannot tolerate discriminatory terminology at all. Better safe than sorry.

    1. Kiwi
      Facepalm

      Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

      We cannot tolerate discriminatory terminology at all.

      You should look into the automotive industry (and engineering as well) - things like <grease> nipple, nut, bolt, screw, shaft - all supposed to go. You know how some cars have an extra wheel with a (hopefully) properly inflated tyre attached in case of punctures? Well you cannot call that the "spare tyre" as that could be considered insulting to us fatties.

      Don't forget knobs of course...

      Gas - potentially offensive/mocking to IBS sufferers.

      Lights - obvious reference to skin colour and thus white elitism.

      I'll leave the good people of El Reg to come up with many more - perhaps from real life perhaps imagined (all above Gas in my post has been experienced or read (in the press) by me)

      icon - still need a "despairing for humanity" one - closes we have :(

      1. simonlb Silver badge

        Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

        Oooh automotive... I get all light-headed when I think about rubbing a well oiled gudgeon or fondling someones trunnion.

        1. Ben Tasker

          Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

          Does that light-headedness lead to you thinking about a wankel?

          1. Kiwi
            Pint

            Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

            Does that light-headedness lead to you thinking about a wankel?

            Dagnammit! I was about to head to bed, but now I'm gonna have a hard time sleeping thinking about engines and crank shafts and those pistons going up and down and up and down harder and faster inside those slippery tubes...

            Even the shape of a spark plug will be getting someone upset. Or just the term "plug"...

            [Sorry for the other post - obviously had old data in the paste buffer and didn't proof-read!]

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. caffeine addict

        Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

        As long as we can keep our flanges...

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

          Don't be so ming e y!

      3. Outer mongolian custard monster from outer space (honest)

        Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

        Personally I'm happy that bastard files haven't been renamed yet. I take great delight in indicating this to my son by handing him the one with the makers having etched "Flat Bastard" on the body near the tag.

        To other poster, its gudgeon pin in engineering terms. A gudgeon is a small freshwater fish.

        1. OssianScotland

          Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

          As you probably intended, that needed to be read a couple of times to be sure you weren't offending gravitationally challenged people* of indeterminate parentage

          *probably should be "beings" in case I'm being species-ist

    2. simonlb Silver badge

      Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

      I'm also pretty sure someone would complain if you replaced SOFT with FLACCID.

      1. Giovani Tapini

        Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

        Never mind those male and female connectors for USB etc....

        A minute behind another poster with the same genius mind, but i'll leave this in :)

    3. Wade Burchette
      Childcatcher

      Re: Programming and computers as a casualty

      Don't forget about the male and female adapters. Putting a male power plug into a female adapter is akin to rape because the female adapter has no choice but to accept any male adapter that the master chooses to insert. We should change the names of these adapters otherwise people would think of the exploitation of women!

  14. Teiwaz

    Now we know why Windows isn't improving...

    If this is an example of the commits to Windows.

    ....The source is probably so squeaky clean you could take it to meet your 'ole mum and Maiden Aunts though...

  15. mark4155
    Coat

    Political correctness et al

    I served as a local authority Councillor about 25 years ago. I climbed the greasy pole to the heady heights of Chairman... Sorry "Chair" of the Cemeteries And Crematorium sub-committee.

    However I digress, my first committee meeting was Highways & Traffic. Debate focused on a stretch of country road where motorbike riders where regularly being involved in accidents. I stood up and said this was an accident "blackspot"...... oh dear.

    Was then accused of being a racist in the local rag (paper) by members of the Green Party ..... who used to put in expense claims for driving an internal combustion engine for even half a mile.

    I wish I could say they were gay old days.....

    Toodle Pip!

    1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: Political correctness et al

      Yeah gods, local government.

      I once had somebody tell me: I know about the working classes, I studied them for my dissertation.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it wise?

    I remember that in the dim and distant past, it was a given that you should not change code simply to refine names or comments unless there was an urgent need. To do otherwise was to risk introducing bugs or regressions in code that was already working satisfactorily.

    Every such change can, of course, be tested, but I wonder if that will happen in this case. After all, it's mostly a 'search and replace' exercise, isn't it? Purifying language and naming, however justifiable, risks turning correct code into problematic code.

    If their recent track record with Windows 10 is anything to go by, it seems that Microsoft have already gone through an internal language purge.

    1. Halfmad
      Stop

      Re: Is it wise?

      Black/white has a long history in infosec too and is used for other terms. We going to rename "Black Hats" as "Block Hats" now? lol

      White hats are not Allow Hats? :)

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Is it wise?

        White Hats are Ku Klux Klan members and definitely not a synonym for Good Hats in the eyes and ears of the liberal tendency.

  17. eldakka

    What next?

    Are they going to ask accountants and bookkeepers to stop using red and black ink for debit/credit amounts? And tell the financial industry, auditors, the press, to stop using the phrases (based on the colour of the ink used in the aforementioned bookkeeping) "in the black" for profit and "in the red" for losses?

    1. Why Not?

      Ah we are in the Native American? We need to earn more!

  18. RyokuMas
    Facepalm

    Hold on a second...

    As a practicing Seventh Day Advent Blockist, I find the term "Blocklist" highly offensive...

    1. Giovani Tapini

      Re: Hold on a second...

      As a practising Minecraft player, Blocklist means something entirely different...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Conventional Ethics

    The folks who run the Black Hat hacking convention are in real trouble

    https://www.blackhat.com/us-19/

    Luckily this year's bash is just over.

    In colour, Black is an absence of light so you could shorten that to AOL, but perhaps that has been done before. Oh well.....WGAS

  20. trevorde Silver badge

    Source code profanity

    Years ago, when there was a furore over swear words in the Linux kernel code, I grepped through our source for 5h17 and f*ck (words redacted for the sensitive). There were a quite few instances, all attributable to a certain potty mouthed developer in our Cambridge office!

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: Source code profanity

      I grepped through our source for 5h17

      Over five and a quarter hours of grepping? That's dedication!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Gimp

    We need to solve this once and for all

    The best and the surest way to resolve this recurring controversy is quite clear to me: we must remove all extraneous nouns, verbs and adjectives from all source code and all messages communicated to the users. After all, essentially any word, or a word which is spelled almost the same, or a word which sounds almost the same, or a pictogram which looks kind of similar after folding the printout of the source into an exquisite origami chrysanthemum will be offensive to someone somewhere in some of the languages we speak.

    From now on, we shall refer to all functions, methods, and variables by their decimal ordinal numbers. If the computer language specification requires so, then until the specification can be corrected it shall be permissible to insert a single letter at the beginning of the designator. To avoid giving offense, that letter shall be same for all source files within a project tree. Numbers 4, 9, 13, 17, 39, 666, as well as all other numbers deemed offensive by the Supreme Peoples' Denumeration Triumvirate shall not be used and shall be retroactively removed from all sources.

    That ought to take care of most of the problem.

    1. Luke McCarthy

      Re: We need to solve this once and for all

      All menus should be removed and replaced by toolbars with icons but no labels or tooltips. On the plus side, all applications will be fully internationalised by default, assuming no culture-specific icons or icon colours are used, reducing the burden of translation. We can remove font rendering from the operating system to save space and reduce complexity.

    2. The Real Tony Smith

      Re: We need to solve this once and for all

      We could just remove all the comments, that would reduce the size of the problem at least

      (This wouldn't actually work on some code I've seen in the past)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: We need to solve this once and for all

      > From now on, we shall refer to all functions, methods, and variables by their decimal ordinal numbers.

      Too late, done already. I refer you to LDAP's Object Identifier Descriptors. The one I often have trouble with is 2.5.23.3 accessControlInnerArea. (Fnarr)

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah, takes me back

    Definitely not new - quite a few years ago I ran smack bang into fairly strong reactions to my use of the blacklist/whitelist terms in some documents I was producing. I was to be frank completely puzzled as to why what seemed to me to be the smallest/non technical element of the proposal kicked off such a storm.

    Ah, to be young and naive - these days I carry more bureaucratic battle scars than a viking berserker.

    1. HmYiss

      Re: Ah, takes me back

      Whether you were naive or not depends on how you dealt with the time-wasting vermin. Something you neglected to include in your wistful, somewhat hollow ruminations.

    2. QuantumWarrior

      Re: Ah, takes me back

      Sounds like classic bikeshedding to me.

      For anyone not familiar the term stems from an example about a fictional plan for a nuclear power station in which the finance committee devolve into discussing the construction of the staff bike shed and the menu options at the canteen since they're the only parts of the project they actually understand. The writer then concludes that the time and effort spent discussing any given part of a project will be inversely proportional to the money or complexity involved in that part.

  23. Chairman of the Bored

    Johannes Brahms said...

    "If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.” ...

    1. Steve K
      Coat

      Re: Johannes Brahms said...

      Or her pardon...…

      Do I win?

      1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

        Re: Johannes Brahms said...

        I'll see your "her" and raise you to "it's" and "their"

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Johannes Brahms said...

          huh its, not it's in that case

          1. Anomalous Cowturd
            Headmaster

            Re: Johannes Brahms said...

            Do you mean it's not it's, it's its?

            It is, isn't it?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Johannes Brahms said...

        Maybe he was a gentleman and didn't insult women?

      3. Grikath

        Re: Johannes Brahms said...

        "Or her pardon...…"

        Not necessary in that day and age.. Any lady would have been married or chaperoned, and the male accompanying her would have been obliged to take out any offense to her to the offender. So just addressing the male bit of the audience would have included everyone.

  24. Arkyn

    A different perspective...

    Looking at this through the lens of conveying meaning, I can see how this might be a useful change. The words 'allow' and 'block' are more descriptive and a lot easier to understand for people who weren't familiar with the existing terms or people who might have English as a second or third language.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A different perspective...

      But that wasn't their reason, though

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A different perspective...

      The meaning of "blacklist" is broader then "blocklist". A blacklist doesn't imply blocking automatically - it may mean special restriction apply or more controls are needed.

    3. schermer

      Re: A different perspective...

      Well, it won't be a problem for the people that have any of the current european languages as their native tongue. In all these the word used to describe black has also a negative connotation. It has nothing to do with skin color, however. Besides, skin can be brown, or very deep-brown, almost black; but to be pure black it must have been charred (and that is not compatible with a healthy constitution).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A different perspective...

        I guess those terms are so old and widespread they exist in literal translation in many European languages - in Italian is "lista nera" which is a literal translation - just like "libro nero", black book.

        Anyway, at least we don't call some people "blacksmith"....

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In other news, the next version of .NET will only support dynamic typed languages because all variables are created equal.

    1. Alister

      Strict typing is repressing a variable's right to see itself how it wants to be.

      1. Craig 2

        "But I identify as an integer"

        Shut it $userloggedin, you're boolean and always will be.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          To be fair, in VB.NET I wouldn't be a surprised to find

          Dim WhetherTheUserIsLoggedInOrNot As String = 'Yes they are'

      2. Kubla Cant

        We are all variants under the skin.

    2. Alister

      Thank the gods for Quantum computing, up until now, bits have had to be one or zero - a clear case of gender typing.

      Now with quantum, a bit can be anywhere on a scale from one to zero, and can change that at any time if they choose to. No more binary repression!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Variable has an intrinsic bad meaning.... like in shifting, irregular, wavering, vacillating, inconstant, inconsistent.... we need a language with constants only.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        That would be inflexible and unwilling to change.

        Yeah, this one can run and run, if that wasn't vaguely insulting to people in wheelchairs.

        This is why I don't give in to f*cking political correctness - the INTENT matters, not the words that are used. We've all suffered less than ideal word choices - I have a large margin of tolerance for that if the facts and results clarify the actual intent.

  26. devTrail

    Typical policy

    Phoney political correctness in order to change unwritten standards and reduce interoperability. Google will eagerly accept the proposal and eventually plugins additional tools and everything exchanging blacklists will stop working.

  27. codejunky Silver badge

    Another step

    And we continue into a beige world. The good news from this is that obviously there is nothing more important to worry about in your life when this level of stupidity is what matters.

  28. Cuddles
    Facepalm

    FFS

    That is all.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Many offensive terms just in the Chrome menu

    New tab - smoking reference

    History - obviously blatant male-oriented view of the world

    Bookmarks - offensive to the illiterate

    Cast - reference to magic/witchcraft offensive to many world religions

    Cut - insensitive to sufferers of self-harm

    More tools - 'tool' is an offensive derogatory term for someone

    Many more are found in the settings pane

  30. TheSmokingArgus

    The perpetual outrage-diversity crowd's word games is getting a bit long in the tooth. Reminds me of just after the turn of the century, when Microsoft led the charge on obliterating referring to hard disks as "Master" and "Slave."

  31. Flywheel

    Reminds me of the time I used the word "sniggering" in an online forum posting and it changed it to read "sblack personing".

    Bollocks innit?

    1. OssianScotland

      Posting in an Aero-modelling forum, I found my use of the term where the pilot of a single seat aeroplane sits was replaced by "thingypit"

      Round Objects

      (yes, Sir Humphrey, I know who Round is, and even what he/she/it objects to)

  32. Pete4000uk

    Just STFU

    And sort Win 10 out.

  33. katrinab Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Police officer is a bit of a mouthful

    I prefer to use the word "pig".

    1. Kiwi
      Pint

      Re: Police officer is a bit of a mouthful

      Police officer is a bit of a mouthful

      I prefer to use the word "pig".

      If you'd met the ones I know, you'd not be so polite.

      (And you'd probably agree that their partners would never refer to them as being "a bit of a mouthful')

      (Ok, getting annoyed and hateful now, best get to bed and to sleep, perchance to dream...)

  34. adam payne

    Redmond suggests nuking 'profanity, geopolitical, diversity' terms from browser source

    I'd I thought Microsoft would have bigger things to concentrate on.

    PC going nutter by the year.

  35. /dev/null

    I wonder...

    I wonder if the function die_you_gravy_sucking_pig_dog() in shutdown.c from 4.3BSD-Reno onwards (and still there in FreeBSD today!) would pass this purity test or not?

  36. LenG

    The solution is simple

    Remove all comments.

    All variables to be 6 character randomly generated strings. (No vowels to avoid unintentional word formation).

    All error messages to be replaced by "Something went wrong" in 10 languages randomly selected from all the languages into which the phrase can be meaningfully translated.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      "No vowels to avoid unintentional word formation"

      I'm afraid in some languages that may not work...

  37. razorfishsl

    Yep... becasue as soon as someone says "black-list", I immediately think about water melon Fried chicken and wood piles....

    Words only have the meaning we give them..., if we want them to be racist they will be racist...., this is just controlled speech via the back door...

    This is the danger of allowing companies like m$ into opensource projects...... because they bring ALL their political baggage with them...

    1. Grikath
      Facepalm

      And "pure" open source projects are pristine and free of political activism and PC warriors?

      Go pull the other one, it's got bells on.....

  38. BGatez

    fuck a bunch of microsoft

  39. Gnarfle

    According to my son, WTF means WHERE'S THE FOOD!

  40. chartupdate
    FAIL

    Naming convention fail

    About 15 years ago I was shown around the server room of a well known independent media organisation.

    They had settled on a naming convention for machines for ease of identification, each one denoting what type of platform it was, the core function it performed and the OS platform it was running. This did unfortunately mean that the (S)erver running (EXC)hange on Windows (NT) was branded SEXCNT01. Although its Disaster Recovery twin was DR-SEXCNT

  41. Jimboom

    We are all the same colour on the inside

    These so called offensive words used to describe different groupings of people is wrong... just wrong. I have never seen an actual black person just has I have never seen an actual white person.

    I have seen pinky/peachy/cream coloured people before. I have seen Mocha/Caramel coloured people before.

    Perhaps using the Dulux colour pallet to describe peoples enthnicity would be less offensive?

    1. Kiwi
      Pint

      Re: We are all the same colour on the inside

      These so called offensive words used to describe different groupings of people is wrong... just wrong. I have never seen an actual black person just has I have never seen an actual white person.

      We have refugees from Somalia (and other nations) not far from here. Generally quite decent people too, so far as my interactions with them go.

      I have to say that they would pretty much meet the definition of 'black'. They are quite dark-skinned.

  42. jayeola

    man pages!!

    man pages -- > triggered!!!! grrrrr

    lscpu --> this CPU is "littleEndian"!!!! Outrage

  43. This post has been deleted by its author

  44. OssianScotland

    Black Body Radiation?

    No further text needed

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What are we supposed to do...

    Are we supposed to burn all previous books that use white/black list... I remember of a group that burned books in the past, things didn't end well for everyone as I remember.

  46. Tardicus

    Are people really getting triggered by this?

    This is hilarious to see what the world has become, over hyper sesntive idiots who now get offended for other people. Might as well call it the #000List and the #FFFList

    1. Kiwi
      Flame

      Re: Are people really getting triggered by this?

      This is hilarious to see what the world has become, over hyper sesntive idiots who now get offended for other people. Might as well call it the #000List and the #FFFList

      Sir, your statement is highly offensive! You should know that the "0" kinda is visually similar to ladie's private parts, and the "F" obviously represents a four-letter word. You cannot claim innocence, you must have known that before you posted and thus were deliberately trying to be offensive!

      "Blocklist" and "Allowlist" are also out as they indicate some level of privilege. Obviously these words are being promoted by elitist privileged older white males to remind every one else of their place in society!

      The only acceptable terms henceforth shall be "List" and "List". And don't you DARE try to come up with a way to differentiate between the two, as that would be DISCRIMINATION!!!!!!!!!!!

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remember someone I knew vaguely ~20 years ago who worked in documentation at Sun who was on a mission (? is that an acceptable word - I assume crisade isn't) to "persuade engineers to stop talking about master/slave interfaces" ... 20 years later see that she doesn't seem to have had much impact!

    Then again, I remeber some years earlier that another engineer where I worked was informed that a customer had looked at code we'd supplied and had not been impressed to find a routine named "F---ING.AWESOME.BOOTSTRAP.LOADER" (n.b. "---" was actually, obviously, "UCK":-)

    And on a completly different tack, I had experience of a Chinese engineer who saw that other engineers wer shortening signals names by dropping letters from the name so he tookup this idea enthusiastically - but I had to point out the that reducing the name "xxx_counter" from a large collection of registers by removing the 'o' and 'er' from their names was not the best choice.

    Also, we had some IP from another company where the design contained two "fucntional units" identified as J and K .... so all the interface signals were prefixed by "fuj_" and "fuk_"

  48. TimeMaster T
    Facepalm

    ouch!!

    I just /facepalmed so hard I think I bruised my self.

    so whats next? is MS going to start filtering Office360 documents and Outlook mails for "inappropriate content" ?

    1. Kiwi
      Windows

      Re: ouch!!

      so whats next? is MS going to start filtering Office360 documents and Outlook mails for "inappropriate content" ?

      Well.. Why else do they insist on keeping them on their servers rather than on your local machine?

  49. jdow{^_^}

    3 observations

    1) Back in the 1980s I was working on some code that ran on the late unlamented GRiD Compass aleged computer. It used a lot of UNIXish terms inside it's multi-threaded OS. One was the technical term for the treatment of a split in the execution road that leaves no path not taken, fork(). A former Presidential candidate's company served on the Air Farce's code review team. That process spat out the comment "Get the 'fork' out of there." It took considerable effort to convince them that was a term of art related to forks in roads. It is heart warming to discover this sub-group of homo sapiens sapiens still exists. But in this case maybe we should carve an exception out of the endangered species act.

    2) NOW we understand how Microsoft makes its decisions. I wondered how they managed so many very serious and often very obvious bugs. Now I know. They spend their time on trivia.

    3) Microsoft is too big. So is Google. Break them into focused chunks such as OS only, Office only, Compilers only, Search only, and political correctness only.

    {O.O}

  50. Kev99 Silver badge

    Oh, for the love of Mike. GROW UP! Blacklist and Whitelist originated from the color of paper used. Microsoft acting like a 4 year old who had its toy taken away is what's really offensive.

  51. Paddy

    Meta

    Everyone thinks they have an equally valid opinion on what is offensive. I guess this isn't the forum that attracts those with a more learned or professional interest in the subject?

  52. dank_army

    Do as I say not as I do

    Funny enough I just finished reading some Azure documentation which was written fairly recently. "Whitelist" appears quite alot! Guess the Azure team didn't get the memo...

  53. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    Just you wait ..

    There's so much more stupidity where that came from, and (in my opinion) mostly from people who have not been able to contribute to society in any measurable positive way.

    Next up: fire retardants. And we can't call them suppressants either, that would be too dictatorial.

    If I recall correctly, it was Scott Adams who coined the term outragists a couple of years back and boy, was he right. Ah yes, found it.

    Sigh.

  54. spunkypete

    I'm triggered

    Well that's binary fucked then. CPUs will have to be based on a more fluid, diverse and inclusive logic

  55. Hamtaro

    No, just... no. Don't play dumb, this affects NO ONE.

    Seriously? In 2019 yet the word "blacklist" and "whitelist" triggers someone? Stop trying to enforce crap that isn't needed, no one wants to follow your rules to make sure your pwecious wittle fweeings don't get hurt. Have some consideration for other people. We don't want to do stuff differently to make someone feel better about themselves. It's just like the more than two gender crap. Go act special somewhere else where you are not seen as some special snowflake that desperately wants attention.

    I can already tell it is the LGBTQ+ people at Microsoft that are doing this, they always make crap so unnecessary to make them feel more special.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No, just... no. Don't play dumb, this affects NO ONE.

      Isn't "BLT" the correct phrase now?

      (or have I been making an ass of myself in sandwich shops for nothing?)

  56. aelfheld

    Poor Mr. Blair

    Pity he was unable to see, & hear, Newspeak realised.

  57. aelfheld

    Ambitions beyond the asylum

    Why in Heaven's name are we allowing people who are incapable (or lay claim to being) of bearing the slightest adversity - 'safe spaces', 'crying rooms', 'puppy therapy' are not the hallmark of a robust, sane individual - be allowed to distort the language? This is aggression masquerading as powerlessness.

  58. onebignerd

    Pathetic! I think the late Joan Rivers said it best; "Oh, grow up!"

  59. GrahamsTenPenneth

    getFucked()

    {

    says it all really

    }

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