Re[2]: Speaking of Improper Terminology

[Melissa Hunter-Kilmer <mhunterk -at- BNA -dot- COM>]

Summary for those who don't want to go through this rather long
post:

If the dominant meaning of a word has negative connotations,
seems to me one should avoid that word unless one wants to evoke
those connotations.

Okay, now the long part:

Scott Miller <scott_miller -at- CCMAIL -dot- COM> wrote:

> Dictionary definitions are not the point.  "Master/slave" has
> obvious negative connotations, and I wouldn't use it no
> matter how correct it is.  Same for "abort."

Hillary M. Russak <hrussak -at- slac -dot- stanford -dot- edu> wrote:

> hmmm... we're moving into that dangerous "political" arena.  I
> wouldn't use "abort" because it doesn't sound like language
> that would naturally fit in my documents, not because it has
> "obvious negative connotations".  I don't think the word
> "abort" has "obvious negative connotations".

There are those who consider "abort" to have negative
connotations.  I find it is helpful not to use such loaded words
in the workplace at least.

I have written documentation that needed to talk about ending a
process before it was completed, thus causing all changes to
vanish.  In XyWrite, the command was "ab," often referred to as
"abort" but not (I think) officially.  When I wrote procedures on
this, I called the command "abandon," as in "Abandon your changes
and start a new document."  PageMaker uses the "revert" command
to do the same thing.

"Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM> wrote:

> When an analogy is likely to distract the reader from the topic
> at hand, it is a good idea to investigate other possible
> analogies.

> The terms "slave" and "master" carry significant emotional
> baggage for some readers. I consider them "expensive." Each
> word I use costs me reader attention, some words cost more
> than others. Usualy, I think of the cost of a word in terms of
> length and familiarity. But emotional content is also a
> factor.

Couldn't agree with you more.

I find "abort" to be an "expensive" word, also.

David Dvorkin <dvorkin -at- BOLIX -dot- COM> wrote:

>> "Abort" is to be avoided as well?
>
>> Oh, saints preserve us.

David Knopf <david -at- KNOPF -dot- COM> wrote:

> "Abort" has been on the no-no list since I started in technical
> writing, and let me tell you that was QUITE a while ago. We do
> not impoverish the language by writing "cancel" instead of
> "abort."

David Dvorkin wrote back:

> We impoverish the language whenever we toss out useful and
> evocative phrases or words.

In this case, I think we're just recognizing that English is
changing.

Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM> wrote:

> This thread is providing some good comic relief. ;-)

I guess I can see how people would see it that way.  I don't find
abortion or slavery amusing.

> At one company, we developed custom code for customers.
> One customer made us replace the word "abort" throughout
> the code because they found it to be offensive. (Phew, I'm
> glad we didn't use it in the docs.)

> In the interest of the "customer is always right," I avoid
> words that can be misconstrued unless they are common technical
> terms for my particular audience. I can think of several
> instances in which "master" and "slave" are commonly used.

> As always, a little common sense goes a long way with this
> stuff.

The challenge is always to figure out what's sensible and what's
going too far!

Jim Chevallier <JIMCHEVAL -at- AOL -dot- COM> wrote:

> 'Gay' and 'abort' both have political overtones, but both are
> also neutral terms in and of themselves, no?

I don't think either word is.

I've already mentioned the expense of using "abort."  As for
"gay" -- around 1973 my mother saw our dentist wearing a lovely
bright-colored tie.  Mother said "What a gay tie!"  The dentist
blanched in horror -- I don't know if he was gay or not, but he
had six kids and was well established in the community, and this
was a long time ago.  My mother felt she then had to explain
herself.

Any time a word carries that much freight, I avoid it in its older
usage.

> Pregnancies are also 'terminated'.  Is that taboo yet?

Jim, I'm sorry, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
Is what taboo yet?  That pregnancies are ended?  Depends on who
you talk to.  Or is "terminate" taboo?  It seems to me that the
dominant meaning of "terminate" is still just plain "end."

> Anyway, now that we've started, when do we get to 'male/female'
> connectors?

Has anybody come up with a satisfactory alternative?  I don't
document electrical stuff, so I don't know.  "Male" and "female"
make sense to me.  (Okay, they're amusing, but not distracting.)

"Wittel, Teresa J." <WITTTJ -at- NCSLINK -dot- COM> wrote:

> I abhor changes in the language - don't you?  I mean - let's keep
> everything the same and no one will ever be confused or offended
> again!  Fairies will always be tiny mythical winged creatures,
> gay will always mean happy, abort will simply mean stop and the
> termination would always mean the end.  Master/slave would be
> an order-giver/order-taker and there would never be negative
> associations.  Blah-Blah-Blah!  As-if!

<snort, giggle>  You go, girl!

Chuck Martin <cmartin -at- SEEKERSOFT -dot- COM> wrote:

> Much of the jargon in the computer and electronics field was
> created by engineers who perhaps didn't understand the power that
> words have.

Ain't it the truth???

> We writers who do understand this seek ways to find words that
> do not have negative connotations in other areas and words that
> don't generally have multiple meanings.

Yeah, that seems like part of my job description, too.

> In the 1990s U.S., "abort" probably has a higher emotional
> content than "master/slave."

I really think this depends on who you're talking to.

> Howver, as we evolve as a society, and as our language evolves
> with us, we can work to find terminology that is both accurate
> and emotionless.

You got it!

> I found this discussion rather timely, understanding multiple
> contexts, with just a week and a half to go until the Folsom
> Street Fair in San Francisco. <snip> This particular
> subculture embraces those terms willingly, similar to the way
> the gay community has "taken back" the term "queer" for
> internal, self-referencing use. (On a brief serious note, it's
> a good example of using the correct term for the correct
> audience.)

And you don't have to go very far back to remember when "black"
was considered pejorative.  I was taught to say "Negro" or
"colored."  Now those terms are considered old-fashioned at best
and negative at worst, and the term "black" has been taken back
as an acceptable term.

TRMOAS -- years ago, when our family was so small that we had
trouble filling a washing machine with dirty clothes, my husband
said to me, "I'm doing a colored wash.  Do you have anything?"

I feigned shock.  "Jonathan!!!  We don't say 'colored' any more!!!
We say 'black'!!!!!"

So if you really need to use an "expensive" word, and there is no
logical alternative, do what you have to.  Recognize that there
may be a cost.  In Alexia's case, it was a literal cost; in
others, it's unquantifiable, because who can measure the value of
lost time?

Melissa Hunter-Kilmer
mhunterk -at- bna -dot- com
(standard disclaimer)

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