I worked for a company which produced a piece of software which transferred files by modem.
If you attempted to close the program during a transfer, you got a certain dialog box - a client complained the message was potentially offensive to the software users. The dialog box read: *Abort File Transfer? (Yes) (No) *
Sheesh, I expected this for years. In the 1970’s, the US Coast Guard had to redesignate their LORAN Slave Stations to Secondary Stations. I was surprised they didn’t rename the Masters to Primary.
I found this file on my secondary drive that I never knew was there. It’s a txt file named “dontreadme.txt”. It says “When the revolution comes, you master drives will be the first against the wall.”
While the terms “master and slave” are surely tools used by the white man to keep everyone else down, I must also take issue with the replacements “primary and secondary”, “dominant and passive”, and so on. They all suggest that one drive is superior to the other, which is blatantly unfair.
All drives are created equal, endowed with the same God-given rights as any other drive, and our terminology must reflect that. I suggest “brother and sister”.
Friends, I have a dream… that one day drives will be judged not by their position in the IDE chain, but by the content of their magnetic platters!
Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all week…
How about “mother” and “daughter”/“father” and “son”?
Ooops! I guess either one of those would be sexist, huh?
Maybe “parent” and “child”?
But then we’d be repressing children’s need to experience themselves as independent individuals, special individuals, or some such, no doubt.
Okay, then, how about: “Boss” and “E Street Band member”?
How about “their’s” and “where’s”
You people are all missing the point. The memo from LA County said we need to avoid discriminatory language. This whole concept of one computer component being “above” another is at issue. No “master/slave”, no “top/bottom”, no “Crassus/Spartacus”. Everybody is equal. It’s hurtful to say one computer component is better than another.
Can’t the master and slave drives both be equal together? It’s wrong to say one is more important. They’re both necessary and beautiful.
So, do you think this was PCism inspired by a Democrat or a Republican?
“The S&M crowd has put in a vote for either “Dominatrix and submissive” or “Dominatrix and beg mutherfucker beg you little peice of shit” as alternatives.”
I laughed my fucking ass off when I read that.
You need to laugh when people propose dumb ass shit like renaming the components in a PC just to be viewed as PC.
“Comrade/comrade”, then?
I call them master and slave drives, but I picture them as being in a consensual relationship.
Their safeword is “BIOS.”
There you go. Watch that capitalization, though.
btw: Mr2001, you made exactly the point I was trying to make, more eloquently. If I had seen your post I wouldn’t have posted. Sorry about that.
In all seriousness, I do think that’s the issue. This isn’t just about a possibly inappropriate metaphor, “slavery” as a buzzword for the offenderati. This is conceptual.
[hijack] while we’re on the topic of messing up computer terms: we all know what micro-soft means, yes? 
[/hijack]
Already done. You can buy gender-benders in any Radio Shack. 
BTW, that idiot must have flunked history, or he would know that slavery in most of the world has nothing to do with race.
You should all be greatful that the new, egalitarian Serial ATA interface has arrived. One drive per channel, so no master/slave/ID/terminator claptrap. The cables are all small and sexy, too. SATA owns. [sub]Owns what? OH SHIT…[/sub]
[sub]I object to the sub tag. It makes it sound like small text isn’t as good as large text![/sub]
“Suffering from erectile dysfunction”? No PC bullshit there.
The only way I can relate to this thread is to report that once a co-worker, who was a specialist in nuclear equipment, reported that one of his e-mails had set off the office dirty-word filter with the phrase “Master-slave manipulators.” Heh, heh.
Altho, to be fair, in that context it really does sound dirty.
