But change is so hard!!~1!one!
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I always preferred “tab” over “fag”, but I’m from Northern England.
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That’s what I said when I last got quoted for car insurance. The agent I spoke with was like, ‘wha’?’ over the phone. I got more detailed.
What about master cylinders?
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Guess you’re just going to have to get a doctorate.
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Anakin Skywalker was born a slave, and there are hundreds of thousands of words of metacommentary about that language choice. Internet’s a funny place.
There’s also master/slave device designation on Serial Peripheral Interface bus used nearly everywhere. I think that in all these instances master/slave should be renamed to dominant/submissive or dom/sub for short. This way it wouldn’t have current unacceptable connotations - dom/sub relations are consensual, where slavery is obviously not.
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In my California youth, “mister” was the formal address of an adult man with “master” indicating a pre-adolescent boy who was most likely master of nothing. Anglish be a funny tongue.
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That’s not a difficult problem. Parental bedroom? Couples bedroom? A suite?
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@dreamofthedarkstar also talked about the other meaning of master, “someone who is an expert in something”. would that also need to change?
Master (in the meaning of master craftsman) also implies a certain hierarchy between master and apprentice, although nothing of the sort between an enslaved and their slaver.
I am aware that the US, that kind of training and title for craftsmen doesn’t exist, but in many countries in Europe that is still part of the education system.
I would have thought that people can tell the difference, but many questions here indicate people confuse those two meanings of master.
So maybe we should refer to experts simply as “meister”, that might resolve that confusion, too.
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I mean that term used in American real estate has always weirded me out but not necessarily because of associations with slavery. Rather it conjured up weird ideas about a pater familias system in which every homeowner is a very stereotypical hetero normative family with children in which the parents (and especially the father) are the unquestioned heads of a very hierarchical family structure.
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I very much doubt that. For me “master bedroom” sounds quintessentially American. I only know it from movies and I don’t think anyone in Europe uses that term.
Did you grow up in the 19th century?
I only know ‘Master’ as the appellation for a boy without further titles in an aristocratic household from 19th century and earlier novels.
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No, but some of my elementary school teachers likely did.
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Why not? Expert?
Sure.
None of this is really that difficult.
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The title exists, but is entirely self-applied. I coined the term Chief Distiller for my job description because people were referring to me as a Master Distiller (back when I had >5 years of practice). My reasoning is that the term Master can only be granted by other recognized masters of the field. Chief implies authority and experience, while still lacking the authoritative nature of Master. There are about a dozen humans on the planet I would accept that designation from. I’ve seen it used by a few other craft distillers in the last few years. Unfortunately, the vast majority of brewers and distillers use this term simply because they’re the owner or head of production.
Edited for clarity.
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Unlucky example. The “slave” drive is actually a secondary drive on an IDE controller. It does not just copy the actions of the primary. IDE was unable to simultaneously process instructions to different drives on the same controller and in some cases secondary drives without a “master” present, though. That’s why the “master” and “slave” nomenclatura for IDE drives was already dropped 20 years ago.
Things are, however, different with databases or bluetooth roles or with oscillators in analog synthesizers, where the “master” and “slave” prefixes as a strictly technical term still makes sense.
Anyway, the idea of “master” and “slave” referring to “black” and “white” is racist, stupid and deeply US-centric. During the long and barbaric history of slavery the USA were the only example of slaves being necessarily black and slave owners necessarily white. In other words: Nobody outside of the USA automatically associated “black” with “slave” or “master” with being “white” until the latest outbreak of shortsighted and strictly symptomatic political activism told us to.
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And it doesn’t hurt you or any other white programmer one iota to change it.
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Nobody outside of the USA
Just curious here. There are 300m people in the US. Roughly 7bn people world wide…so you are speaking for all 6.7bn people on this one?
That’s rather presumptive or arrogant. Not sure which.
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I admit I did not read every single post on this thread; but I think this bears saying regardless of it perhaps being repetitious.
There are countless/endless examples of ubiquitous uses of terms, words, or phrases that have no origin or derivation in anything offensive or marginalizing to any person(s); however, those very same things are still associated with said offensive things if only in spelling and pronunciation. To that end, using said term, phrase, or word is also in most cases unnecessary as there are alternatives that have no connection whatsoever and serve the same purpose.
The point here is that yes…perhaps you find yourself inconvenienced like a Realtor no longer calling it a “master bedroom” and saying “primary bedroom” instead; or perhaps a IT professional who no longer says “master/slave drive” and instead call such things “primary/secondary drive”. You may be inconvenienced or even annoyed…but it isn’t about you.
I repeat for emphasis…IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU.
I do not feel the need to identify my preferred pronouns as I feel it is unnecessary. But if someone else feels the need to do so, how is it nothing other than common courtesy and respect for me to accept their choice and use their preference? It’s not. It’s easy. It’s simply the golden rule…treat others as you wish to be treated.
I personally do not bristle at “master bedroom” but if it is something that makes others do so and they prefer we change it, then change it…any person refusing to accommodate such things is simply…well I’ll let John Waters state it…
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Also, if you care more about preserving language then you do about the comfort and well-being of your fellow human beings… perhaps it’s time to reassess your values.
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What about MCs, masters of ceremonies?
