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[linguistcat]

Of course, if someone does tell me that ‘master’ offends them, I’ll change it. This is something I don’t care strongly about, and if changing the terminology makes someone feel better, then that‘s good.

Exactly.

Yeah but this case sounds like no one actually said they were offended, they said that people they hadn't even talked to would probably be offended. At best it sounds like white guilt and at worst it's being paternalistic, which a lot of people in a lot of minority groups DO find offensive.

[alice]

In a previous job, one set of system designers replaced "master" and "slave" with "whisky" and "teapot".

Kettle and teapot would have made more sense, IMO.

Perhaps even "pot" and "kettle"... err, maybe not.

[Travis B.]

Of course, if someone does tell me that ‘master’ offends them, I’ll change it. This is something I don’t care strongly about, and if changing the terminology makes someone feel better, then that‘s good.

Exactly.

Yeah but this case sounds like no one actually said they were offended, they said that people they hadn't even talked to would probably be offended. At best it sounds like white guilt and at worst it's being paternalistic, which a lot of people in a lot of minority groups DO find offensive.

That is exactly my thought here.

[Ares Land]

You guys have probably heard about how some people (e.g. GitHub) have been pushing for replacing the original name of the master branch in git with a "main" branch, ostensibly because the name "master" is racist because it evokes slavery, even though in git there is no such thing as a "slave". So when people point out the existence of things such as master copies and masters' degrees and ask whether we are going to rename those too, they have often gotten the retort "well you should listen to Black people".

Several co-workers are terribly bothered by the change. They see some great and dangerous 'woke' agenda behind this. As elections results show, a woke agenda is exactly what we should be bothered about!

Personally, I really don't see the point of the change (I think we should at other things than language; for instance, how many Black people are on GitHub's board?) but it doesn't bother me either.

[Travis B.]

You guys have probably heard about how some people (e.g. GitHub) have been pushing for replacing the original name of the master branch in git with a "main" branch, ostensibly because the name "master" is racist because it evokes slavery, even though in git there is no such thing as a "slave". So when people point out the existence of things such as master copies and masters' degrees and ask whether we are going to rename those too, they have often gotten the retort "well you should listen to Black people".

Several co-workers are terribly bothered by the change. They see some great and dangerous 'woke' agenda behind this. As elections results show, a woke agenda is exactly what we should be bothered about!

Personally, I really don't see the point of the change (I think we should at other things than language; for instance, how many Black people are on GitHub's board?) but it doesn't bother me either.

I have heard of the people who are bothered by some "great and dangerous 'woke' agenda", which is very well not the reason to oppose this (as people who make a big deal about 'woke' stuff being bad are typically rightist scum). Of course, these people are ironically those who would be least bothered by insulting Black people's intelligence.

[Linguoboy]

IMHO "slave" is probably questionable, "master" rather less so.

I tend to agree with this. On its own, ‘master’ has many meanings, most of them innocuous; ‘slave’, not so much.

But there's a broader tendency to avoid "master" going around. Someone was asking me about "masters" and "slaves" in a BDSM context recently and I found it jarring because pretty much everyone I know uses "dom" and "sub" as generic terms (though they might use the more loaded ones in the context of a specific relationship and/or scene). And I've noticed "master" disappearing from property conversations to be replaced by terms like "main" or "primary".

[Ryusenshi]

("Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.")

[Raphael]

I learned recently that there's an event in Irish history called the Battle of the Yellow Ford. Does anyone else think that that should be an event from Chinese history?

[keenir]

I learned recently that there's an event in Irish history called the Battle of the Yellow Ford. Does anyone else think that that should be an event from Chinese history?

the evil part of me, wants to say "But isn't Ford an Irish name?"
(sorry)

[Raphael]

I learned recently that there's an event in Irish history called the Battle of the Yellow Ford. Does anyone else think that that should be an event from Chinese history?

To avoid misunderstandings: I asked that question because, somehow, a place name like "Yellow Ford" has a "ring" to my ears very similar to the "ring", of, say, "Red Cliffs".

[rotting bones]

You guys have probably heard about how some people (e.g. GitHub) have been pushing for replacing the original name of the master branch in git with a "main" branch, ostensibly because the name "master" is racist because it evokes slavery, even though in git there is no such thing as a "slave".

...

So what are your guys' view of this?

I immediately noticed that "main" is 2 characters shorter than "master". I wonder if it's possible to instrumentalize offense-taking to shorten it to the letter "a".

I know I will regret this later. 4 characters is just the right amount of redundancy to be convenient while remaining long enough that I'm unlikely to type it by mistake while thinking of something else. But I'm obsessed with saving those 3 characters right now.

[Travis B.]

I learned recently that there's an event in Irish history called the Battle of the Yellow Ford. Does anyone else think that that should be an event from Chinese history?

To avoid misunderstandings: I asked that question because, somehow, a place name like "Yellow Ford" has a "ring" to my ears very similar to the "ring", of, say, "Red Cliffs".

"Yellow Ford" makes me think of the Yellow River.

[Raphael]

"Yellow Ford" makes me think of the Yellow River.

Yes, and, more generally, of a lot of English translations of Chinese place names.

[rotting bones]

Yes, and, more generally, of a lot of English translations of Chinese place names.

"Yellow" does occur sometimes in Chinese legends. There's the Yellow Emperor.

But this aesthetic is not exclusive to China. I have seen directions associated with colors in Gesar and Chilam Balam. Check out the first chapter of Chilam Balam: https://sacred-texts.com/nam/maya/cbc/cbc06.htm

The yellow flint stone is the stone of the south. The ceiba tree of abundance, the yellow ceiba tree of abundance, is their arbor. The yellow bullet-tree is their tree. <Colored like> the yellow bullet-tree are their camotes. <Colored like> the yellow bullet-tree are the wild pigeons which are their turkeys. Yellow green corn is their green corn. Yellow-backed are their beans

...

The yellow wild bees are in the south. A large yellow blossom is their cup . . . is their flower.

I have seen the same thing in Tibetan Buddhism. I think it comes from Tibet's association in Central Asia and India rather than China.

[Raphael]

Is there any kind of dementia-like illness from which it is possible to recover? I ask because I wonder whether there have ever been any known cases of people who got something more or less like dementia, recovered from it, and then told the world how it had been like.

[Ares Land]

There's possibly encephalitis letargica, as told by Oliver Sacks in Awakenings

My father had Parkinson's and had some dementia-like symptoms before being diagnosed and treated with levodopa. I don't think he really remembered these episodes.

[Darren]

Is there any kind of dementia-like illness from which it is possible to recover? I ask because I wonder whether there have ever been any known cases of people who got something more or less like dementia, recovered from it, and then told the world how it had been like.

Quoth Wikipedia, "Cases of easily reversible dementia include hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 deficiency, Lyme disease, and neurosyphilis." The only accounts I can find are case studies like this one.

It does remind me of encephalitis lethargica, which puts people in a completely unresponsive state without killing them (or impairing vital functions). In the 60s Oliver Sacks found that a Parkinsons-developed drug was extremely effective in reviving patients to normal cognitive levels... until after a few months they grew desensetised to it and relapsed to catatonia. Most patients seem to have experienced it as a sleep-like state.

(edit: great minds think alike I guess)

[Raphael]

Ah, thank you both!