Language of appeasement (was: It did happen on a Friday...

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>Goldstein, Dan [mailto:DGoldstein -at- DeusTech -dot- com] suggested:

> The question isn't whether the doc will be read by a slave. 
> It's whether it
> will be read by a lot of people (not just one) who would be 
> offended by the
> term.
> 
> If they're offended, then I don't care whether their reaction 
> is justified.
> Their reaction is a barrier to clear communication. I should 
> avoid that
> reaction by using another word that clearly communicates my intent.
> 
> My job is not to teach people how to react emotionally to 
> various words. My
> job is to communicate clearly about technical matters.

The other night I landed on the last five minutes of the 
animated TV series "King of the Hill", in which the main 
protagonist dealing with just this sort of thing.  
The office is falling apart because a blithering 
idiot can't hear words like "meat", "rack", "unit", etc., 
without bursting into sniggers.  So, each such word was 
banned from use in the office. Naturally, the idiot kept 
finding new words to set off his prurient stupidity. Soon 
the employees couldn't say anything, including most of 
the words they needed to talk about their product, with 
each other and with customers.

I hope the point is made.

/kevin