The World According to Nick
My take on Software, Technology, Politics, and anything else I feel like talking about.
Monday, December 06, 2004

Racially Offensive Computer Terms 

The Most Politically Incorrect Phrase of the year has been announced:

The computer term "master/slave," which was banned as racially offensive by a Los Angeles County purchasing department, was named the most politically incorrect term of the year on Thursday.
...
"We found 'master/slave' to be the most egregious example of political correctness in 2004," said Paul JJ Payack, president of The Global Language Monitor.

"This is but one more example of the insertion of politics into every facet of modern life, down to the level of the control processes of computer technology."

In response, the Hard Drive Controller Liberties Union released a statement praising the work of Server Farms for smuggling hard drives to the North by way of the Underground Hard Drive Railroad.

Personally I always found most computer terms to be more easily given sexual connotations, rather than racial ones. You have "hard drives" (floppy drives on Viagra). Maybe you didn't know, but when the hard drives are really going hard, they grind baby. Master/Slave of course could easily be referring to BDSM... not that I know anything about that. There are more... but you get the idea. Only a bunch of nut case politically correct junkies would think that talking about Master/Slave in regard to hard drive controllers would be racist.

Comments:

Post a Comment

About Me



Name: Nick
Home: Wauwatosa, WI, United States

I'm a Software Consultant in the Milwaukee area. Among various geeky pursuits, I'm also an amateur triathlete, and enjoy rock climbing. I also like to think I'm a political pundit.


 View My Profile

Archives
 Home Page

Subscribe to this Feed

Search Archives
Previous Posts
Falling Behind
If This Had Been The Other Way Around...
Group Therapy
Do We Need Freedom of the Press?
I Know Where I'm Shopping
Delusions of Grandeur
I Shouldn't Enjoy This
Let It Snow
Ahhh... The Power of Cheese
Not Thinking About the Consequences

Personal Links
Carnival of the Badger
The Coding Monkey
del.icio.us Links
Flickr Photos
Blog Critics Reviews





Blogroll Me!

music
books
video
culture
politics
sports
gaming

www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Nick_Schweitzer. Make your own badge here.

Credits

Blogcritics: news and reviews







This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com

RSS-to-JavaScript.com

Listed on BlogShares

Design By maystar