Loaded terms in free software
Loaded terms in free software
Posted Jun 17, 2020 22:57 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)In reply to: Loaded terms in free software by Karellen
Parent article: Loaded terms in free software
Which society is that? Yes I accept that - FOR SOME PEOPLE - it may have hurtful connotations, but for other people (like me) the word "master" doesn't have any of those connotations - it's more master/servant, which is still perfectly normal in society today. Or "little boy" as in "Master Jimmy" the son of the house ...
For the record, I have no objection to any change (and quite agree that any assumption that the master branch is actually called "master" is dangerous), but I really do object to the confusion between the global and the parochial - you may have a parochial problem with the word master, but it's not a global problem (despite America thinking the world ends at its borders ... :-)
Cheers,
Wol
Posted Jun 18, 2020 5:40 UTC (Thu)
by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
[Link] (43 responses)
Posted Jun 18, 2020 7:08 UTC (Thu)
by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
[Link] (2 responses)
Slavery used to be a norm. It's no longer the norm. The UK has a part in changing that norm.
Posted Jun 18, 2020 8:45 UTC (Thu)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (1 responses)
TBF, we banned slavery at the point where mechanisation allowed a rich nation (us) to maintain an advantage over poorer nations which could afford slave labour but not machines. We also compensated slave owners within the empire for the loss of that slave labour, allowing them to afford to mechanise, while simultaneously attacking other nations' sources of income and labour.
Net good? Sure. But not as praiseworthy as you might think.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 12:41 UTC (Mon)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
i.e. we kept slavery out of sight to salve our consciences: it has a *different name now*, it can't be slavery!
(And then we *did* ban it across the empire, thirty whole years before the US had its local slavery war... by, uh, buying out the owners. I'm not really sure giving slavers a huge pile of money actually counts as entirely praiseworthy, even if it *did* end slavery Empire-wide.)
(This is also why I don't think changing a bunch of names will have much of an effect. We did exactly that around 1800 and it didn't have much effect. What had an effect was *eliminating slavery*.)
Posted Jun 18, 2020 12:51 UTC (Thu)
by Rudd-O (guest, #61155)
[Link] (28 responses)
Why is it that anti-racists salivate at accusing Western societies, which fixed social scourges hundreds of years ago, but never actually credit those societies for fixing those scourges?
(Hint: it's a cult.)
Posted Jun 18, 2020 15:51 UTC (Thu)
by ebassi (subscriber, #54855)
[Link] (3 responses)
The UK eradicated slavery first. Haiti has entered the channel. Slavery only exists on non-caucasian countries now The United States has entered the channel.
Posted Jun 21, 2020 11:50 UTC (Sun)
by ehiggs (subscriber, #90713)
[Link] (2 responses)
Slavery was banned in England in 1772 (some would say 1102); in Haiti in 1804. Across British Empire in 1834 (Slavery Abolition act of 1833).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Slave...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_sl...
Posted Jun 21, 2020 12:31 UTC (Sun)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link] (1 responses)
So for all meaningful purposes, we didn't abolish slavery until the 1830s.
Posted Jun 21, 2020 21:47 UTC (Sun)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Jun 18, 2020 16:57 UTC (Thu)
by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Jun 19, 2020 13:28 UTC (Fri)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (6 responses)
Much better to keep language as it is, admit racism did exist, does exist, and will exist, and make sure not to perpetuate it yourself instead of using tartuffian fig leafs. Statues glorifying racism are one thing, everyday’s language is another.
I had the chance to visit Egyptian temples. Seeing Millenia-old monuments, depicting bloody pharaonic victories over various tribes (represented in abject objectively racist poses), defaced Millenia ago by early Christians, before more racist history rewriting by Arab Muslim conquerors, whose descendants complain today or European racism (while continuing to treat the Christian minority like dirt, and looking down on “dark” Sudanese) really drives home the utter futility of making things “good” by rewriting the past.
Rewriting the past won’t make you good. Rewriting the past won’t make you right. The only thing that will make you good and right and thoughtful is behaving good and right and thoughtful.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 14:44 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (4 responses)
No; rewriting the language we use is not about brushing things under the carpet. It's about separating inoffensive terminology (like that used for a read-only server that maintains a full copy of a writeable server's database) from offensive terminology (like that used to describe humans treated as commodity machinery), so that the only uses left of the words in question relate to the offensive uses.
That way, you (for example) know that when someone's talking in English about a slave, they're talking about a human being treated as a commodity, and not about a computer system; there's no chance of someone who's deliberately trying to cause upset claiming after the fact that they weren't referring to humans, but to computers, if the only use left is about humans or historic jargon.
It's similar to the modern loss of the 20th century American slang phrase "nigger in the woodpile". Relegating that particular way of saying "there are important facts being hidden here behind other important facts" to historic uses only is part of making it harder for people who choose to use words to cause upset to then pretend that they didn't mean it as offensive, they were just using a common phrase. We're not rewriting the past by stopping the use of that phrase - we are simply ensuring that it's harder for a racist to pretend that they didn't mean to be rude, they were just using a common phrase that causes upset.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 15:06 UTC (Fri)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (3 responses)
Politicians and markeeting people do it all the time.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 15:24 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (2 responses)
And you (a) assume things about me that aren't true, and (b) thoroughly overestimate the value of coded and loaded sentences for recruiting people who do not currently agree with you.
Bringing your co-believers along with you is easy; keeping the ideology going and recruiting new people is hard, and if you're in a position of having to say "we have a minority view, because we can't talk about it openly", you turn off far more people by having to say "well, we're an unpopular minority with our views" than you gain by the feeling of being part of a secret organisation.
It's why politicians like to talk about the "silent majority" - the idea is that people who aren't actively opposing you probably agree, but don't dare say it. If everyone's actively opposing, it becomes harder to make that argument.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 17:56 UTC (Fri)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jun 19, 2020 21:55 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
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Everyone needs an "us" and "them". In nature, species (and groups, and tribes) all want "Lebensraum". And unfortunately, skin colour, or accent, or any other distinguishable feature, rapidly becomes a basis for said "us" and "them". Isn't that how Peacocks grew such long tails?
Cheers,
Posted Jun 20, 2020 6:56 UTC (Sat)
by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
[Link]
Posted Jun 18, 2020 22:47 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (14 responses)
And conveniently forget that most white slave traders bought their slaves from African ports, from African tribes! They did NOT go into the interior and capture the slaves themselves ...
Cheers,
Posted Jun 19, 2020 8:09 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (10 responses)
That, in turn, conveniently forgets two truths about the African tribes capturing slaves:
We can go deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, but there's no getting away from the fact that European colonials created the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and irreparably altered the African slave trade from its original sense.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 9:09 UTC (Fri)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (9 responses)
All other things being equal, the French went into Agincourt with enough war tech to win the battle easily. They lost because the English made good use of the tech they had, while the French leadership let glory-seeking feudal lords squander their heavy cavalry advantage in fruitless charges over a narrow muddy battlefield (and that in turn was more a result of a loaded political situation French side than clear mismanagement by the French commander).
Posted Jun 19, 2020 9:20 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (8 responses)
The French had the volume of tech, but no significant technical advantage - the English had the same tech level. Now imagine that the French showed up with firearms, so they could kill the English archers at long range - so that they killed off the English troops before they could even notch an arrow.
With that level of advantage, the French would have won despite their incompetent leadership - and the only way for the English to win would be to also show up with firearms.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 10:52 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (5 responses)
Basically, it was longbows versus crossbows - the French crossbow was far superior in range and power. The problem for the French was that our longbows were the equivalent of a sem-automatic versus a muzzle loader - in the time it took for a crossbow to reload our archers could run the missing range and fire four or five arrows.
Incidentally, talking of firearms at Agincourt, did you know that one side apparently DID turn up with firearms?! According to my musket-toting friend, Agincourt was the first European battle at which they made an appearance.
Cheers,
Posted Jun 19, 2020 11:04 UTC (Fri)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (4 responses)
Our tech and the French tech were comparable but different - they had range and power, we had rate of fire.
Compare, however, our longbows or the French crossbows to a British Land Pattern Musket or Charleville Musket; if the French had been equipped with those instead of crossbows, and had sufficient ammunition, it wouldn't have been much of a fight; such weapons would be overwhelming.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 14:59 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDnKciXrmnc
I'd have to rewatch to remember enough to comment myself in this thread though.
Posted Jun 20, 2020 7:22 UTC (Sat)
by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470)
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We (French) lost in Agincourt but we learned our lesson and won the last battle of the Hundred Years' War with a "massive usage of field artillery".
Posted Jun 20, 2020 15:45 UTC (Sat)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (1 responses)
So you can not even argue that crossbows were more or less effective than bows, muskets or rifles, they were not used to their potential in this battle.
Posted Jun 20, 2020 16:52 UTC (Sat)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Jun 19, 2020 13:44 UTC (Fri)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (1 responses)
They knew it and the English knew it. The English were so convinced of it they were in full retreat before the battle.
That’s why the battle had such an echo. The French managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of a sure victory (or the English managed to grasp victory from the jaws of a sure defeat, depending on which side you you look at it from).
Contemporaries were amazed at how things played out.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 13:46 UTC (Fri)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link]
Posted Jun 19, 2020 8:48 UTC (Fri)
by ncm (guest, #165)
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Slaves were kept in Africa, but the conditions were radically different. Slaves could own property, their children were not slaves, and they could not be maimed or killed. The condition was more akin to debt peonage. Any slave could reasonably expect to be free again someday. But once sold down the river, their life as social beings was over.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:33 UTC (Mon)
by Rudd-O (guest, #61155)
[Link] (1 responses)
I saw another commenter in this thread try to move the goalposts by including "Western human trafficking" as whataboutism to the open air slave markets today. Needless to say, I'm not impressed with that dumb nonargument, because that response was yet /another/ form of unfairly criticizing Western civilization, except human trafficking is a global problem rather than a problem specific to the West.
Posted Jun 22, 2020 16:43 UTC (Mon)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link]
We should do something about that, as well.
"Stop buying petroleum from those countries" would be a good start.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 6:05 UTC (Fri)
by TopherIsSwell (guest, #139628)
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Posted Jun 18, 2020 12:55 UTC (Thu)
by mfuzzey (subscriber, #57966)
[Link] (8 responses)
There's a difference between saying "racism is not my problem" or "my country has no racism problems" (which Wol wasn't)
I live in France.
France, as a former colonial power, has a lot of skeletons in its cupboard as well.
What we don't have (or if we do it is so minor as not to be noticeable) is people trying to change language in unrelated domains.
The "let's change technical language" camp seems to be mostly American.
Posted Jun 18, 2020 23:02 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (6 responses)
Given that modern English is a whole bunch of *similar* languages, not one language, there isn't any such thing as "British English". Down south us Saxons speak English. Up north them Angles speak Scots. And the true Scots speak Gaelic. (While the Welsh and Cornish speak ancient Briton :-)
The saxons came in from the North Sea taking over the south. I think the Vikings came down from Scandinavia to take over the north-east. And I can't remember who came down the western coast to take over the north-west. Plus the original Britons hung on to the Highlands and Wales.
So in what is roughly modern-day England we had three different nations, with similar grammars, which have now merged into modern English Grammar. (And to some extent had a layer of Norman French imposed on top.) What has NOT merged, even today, is accent and vocabulary, which is why Scouse and Geordie are almost incomprehensible to the untrained Queens English ear. Even Brummie can be hard to understand. And the Americans try to lump it together as one language?!?!
Cheers,
Posted Jun 18, 2020 23:31 UTC (Thu)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link] (5 responses)
(Incidentally, the 2011 census showed over half of the Scottish population had no communication skills in Scots.)
Posted Jun 19, 2020 1:27 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (2 responses)
Or do you actually mean the majority of the Scottish population cannot speak Gaelic? Which would be no surprise because neither the Highlands nor the Lowlands have had a native Scots population for well over a millennia - if ever - although I believe the Picts did/do speak Gaelic. (The Scots have the same relationship to Scotland as the Normans have to England - they conquered it unexpectedly some time about 900AD - I was taught English history not Scottish.)
Scots the language is not the native language of the Scots the people :-)
"The Saxons speak English, the Angles speak Scots, the Scots speak Gaelic".
Cheers,
Posted Jun 19, 2020 9:31 UTC (Fri)
by amacater (subscriber, #790)
[Link] (1 responses)
Philologists tell us that "English" is closest to West Frisian. The Danes (in the East and Norwegians in York and chunks of Ireland) left us a very few Norse words but left masses to Orkney and Shetland. The Norman-French influence merged with later reintroduction of Latin derived words - Latin being the language of the Church, education and science until at least 1700. A standardisation in English is only true post Chaucer and Caxton.
British English / Commonwealth English is marked primarily by spelling and some pronunciation differences and is largely down to printing standardisation post 1650 or so. American English is down to, at least partly, Noah Webster wanting to distinguish American from English for national pride. It does depend very much where your teacher learned your English as to what you prefer: large parts of Europe speak British English except, perhaps, the former American sector in Germany whoa had access to US Forces radio :)
Posted Jun 23, 2020 7:15 UTC (Tue)
by xoddam (subscriber, #2322)
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Posted Jun 19, 2020 8:47 UTC (Fri)
by eru (subscriber, #2753)
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Posted Jun 20, 2020 21:54 UTC (Sat)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
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I think you mean "the norm of the southern half of Great Britain". Why should the literary norm take precedence over the spoken norm? Why should the vocabulary of one half of the country take precedence over the other half?
A lot of the troubles we have here is that - outside of London - a LARGE portion of the country feels marginalised and ignored. Having a separate folk history, the other three nations find it easier to express that dissatisfaction, but northern England feels marginalised too. That's NOT helped by outside forces assuming that "England == Britain". It's as bad as lumping Mexico and Canada in with the US and tarring them with the same brush.
That's why I don't feel English - I don't feel part of the "little Englander" mentality that seems to pervade the attitude of those who buy ink by the barrel ...
Cheers,
Posted Jun 24, 2020 8:26 UTC (Wed)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
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BTW I wonder how many languages have "workarounds" like: the F-word. I don't remember British or Irish people doing that.
> The "let's change technical language" camp seems to be mostly American.
It's even more specific: it's mostly the American Left. One of the too many and worryingly growing gaps between the US Left and Right is the language. While some people on the left believe "dark ages" or "age of enlightenment" are modern and racist expressions, many on the right support the current president because he "speaks like us, not like them". In other words he has no filter and says whatever words cross his mind at any point in time. While the Left obviously consider this as a "bug", it's literally a _feature_ for the Right. Then the propaganda on each side keeps deriding the other. Two parallel universes separated by a common language.
While the whole world seems to turn more and more tribal every day, the US seem to really lead the pack
https://www.google.com/search?q=everything+is+fine&tb...
> (not as bad as the US thankfully but still unacceptable).
Right, these are also uniquely American: poorly trained and educated cops (cause: taxes!) shooting suspects on sight who can keep their job until they're unlucky and a video of them makes the news. Barely any safety net (cause: taxes) that keeps inequality between the (mostly black) poor and (mostly white) rich growing and growing, even before racism and redlining. Little social services that gives poor people no other choice than follow their community leaders and very large freedom of speech that allows some of the latter to market any crazy and/or racist idea they want.
Now a fun fact people outside the US seem to often forget: the language of computers is _American English_ and yes it comes "loaded" with some of that. Hence these attempts to "unload" it a bit.
Posted Jun 18, 2020 13:01 UTC (Thu)
by gb (subscriber, #58328)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jun 18, 2020 23:22 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Jun 18, 2020 8:24 UTC (Thu)
by Karellen (subscriber, #67644)
[Link] (10 responses)
Say another piece of software got popular, and someone from halfway around the world of the original developer filed a bug report saying "Hey, you're probably not aware of this because almost no-one who wasn't born here is, but the term "foo" which you've used throughout your software has a really bad history in my culture. Its meaning is tied up with systems that caused massive amounts of harm to a large fraction of our population, the effects of which are still being felt today. The way that "foo" is used in a prominent fashion throughout your software is going to make half the people in my culture really uncomfortable about using it. Would you consider using the word "bar" instead, which has a similar meaning in the context of your software, but doesn't have the same connotations for us as "foo"? I can create a patch for the change if you'd be willing to take a look at it. I think your software (which is awesome, btw) would be a lot more usable to a few million potential new users with this change."
Do you really think that the original dev closing that bug report as "WORKSFORME", saying "Lol, no. "foo" doesn't make *me* uncomfortable. Sucks to be anyone from your culture, I guess." would not be a dick move?
(With bonus dick move points for impling the request is an attempt to bring about Orwell's Ministry of Truth, using newspeak to erase history by "banning" the word "foo".)
Just because a problem doesn't affect one person (or group), that's not a very good reason to totally dismiss the problems of others. Imagine if Linus had never accepted Linux patches for hardware that he didn't own.
Posted Jun 19, 2020 10:11 UTC (Fri)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jun 19, 2020 16:31 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the term "mute" is the accepted term for those who cannot speak (whether do to a physical limitation or trauma). Other terms used historically such as "dumb" are probably not as acceptable today due to the other meanings it has. See also "midget" not generally being acceptable for those with dwarfism due to the connotations the word gained via PT Barnam's way of publicizing his shows.
We do still need words for things, but the historical baggage that words pick up doesn't leave the words unaffected and they can phased out as cultural shifts happen around them.
Posted Jun 24, 2020 8:01 UTC (Wed)
by mvdwege (guest, #113583)
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Posted Jun 19, 2020 18:55 UTC (Fri)
by gray_-_wolf (subscriber, #131074)
[Link] (6 responses)
Because I'm fairly sure lots of words can be *something* bad in *some*
Hey, that's an idea for bot right here. Cross reference open-source projects
Posted Jun 19, 2020 19:02 UTC (Fri)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
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Posted Jun 20, 2020 7:15 UTC (Sat)
by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
[Link] (4 responses)
It's a different matter with slaves, though. I found the term odd in the beginning but I was not a native speaker so I thought that if the native speakers are fine with it then so be it. It seems that it has finally changed :)
Posted Jun 20, 2020 7:40 UTC (Sat)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jun 20, 2020 12:06 UTC (Sat)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Jun 20, 2020 13:38 UTC (Sat)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Cheers,
Posted Jun 24, 2020 8:55 UTC (Wed)
by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
[Link]
Lucky the ones who think they understand how language works...
Loaded terms in free software
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Wol
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Wol
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Wol
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Wol
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Wol
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Slavery only exists on non-caucasian countries now.Loaded terms in free software
Bruh, tens of thousands of sex slaves are trafficked through the U.S. annually. But yes, the narrative from our legislature, media, and education system suggest this is not a problem worth mentioning.
Loaded terms in free software
and saying "changing words in a technical domain for non technical reasons may not be worth it".
And we also have current issues with police treatment of some racial groups (not as bad as the US thankfully but still unacceptable).
Many people protest about that and try to fix it, which is, of course, good.
At my work we talk about whitelists and blacklists (and even green, grey, and brown ones too) and master/slave architectures not just as internal names within the code but as features of the system exposed to customers. And no one bats an eye. It's a non issue here.
Loaded terms in free software
Wol
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Wol
Loaded terms in free software - what's English
Germanic-speaking Keltoi
Loaded terms in free software
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Wol
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/01/how-ameri...
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Wol
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`shit` in my language). And they keep selling it in other countries. So maybe
it's time to have a fork-per-culture? So linux-us, linux-swahili, .... so you
can really tailor the terminology used to the culture?
language.
versus multi-language list of profanities and automatically create pull request
renaming them. Let the update churn never end.
Loaded terms in free software
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Wol
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Wol
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