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Comment by ogogmad | Hacker News Reader

Can we not say cool-sounding words anymore like "colony", "supremacy" and "master"?

I'll admit that "master vs slave" might perhaps be in bad taste (but not "master" on its own). But cancelling "blacklist", "colony" and "supremacy" is pretty incredible.

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I'm very favourable to getting rid of blacklist. It's random whether it's an allow list or a deny list, and there are domain specific words you can use instead to make it really clear what the list does

Please explain to me what you find wrong with blacklist. I'm dying to know.

it's less clear to non-native English speakers what the hell a blacklist is than what a deny-list is.

EDIT: the replies I received to this comment are pretty shocking to me. I'm not arguing for the removal of anything, I am only listing one issue with blacklist that deny-list doesn't have. Anything you're reading into my comment beyond that is your tribal identity projecting its insecurity.

1. By this logic, we should abandon most words in the English language, because non-native speakers might otherwise need to learn them. Somehow though, you've applied this logic only to the word "blacklist". And why should a language with its own literature and history abandon its own vocabulary?

2. The usual reason given for not saying "blacklist" is because of supposed racism. Your argument is a new one, and seems to have been produced post-facto. Your comment is sophistry.

[edit] Removed some scathing remarks.

Even if the readability argument was created after the fact, it still stands. It’s immediately clear what an “allow-list” means.

By that logic, we'll have to give up most words in English. This is entitled to the extreme. You have been arguing with me for the sake of arguing.

Not really. English remains the most spoken language in our circles and it's immensely helpful because of that. What we can all do is to look for better names. Master/slave can be replaced by primary/replica, publisher/subscriber and a lot of others that offer narrower meanings and, therefore, are better names.

do you seriously not understand what you're doing?

The comment asked for things wrong with the word blacklist. I replied with a reason.

I'm not arguing for the removal of the word, I don't know why you think I am.

> [edit] Removed some scathing remarks.

you mean you white-washed some remarks?

aha!

;)

I'm a non-native English speaker, and I must say that you are wrong.

Even forgetting that many languages have exactly the same construction ("black list") with the same meaning, the thing you do as a non-native speaker with an unfamiliar word is to look it up in a dictionary, or guess its meaning from the context, not try and run some inverse etimology on it.

I mean, for years I understood what "paste" meant (as in "copy and paste") and used that word without having any idea about "paste" being some sort of glue. I still have no idea where the word "parkway" comes from, but understand the word and use it. (If I were to guess from its parts I would arrive to something like a "garden path":))

I didn't claim we should remove the world blacklist. The comment I was responding asked for things I find wrong with blacklist, I replied with one.

Not sure I buy that argument. In German they have the "Schwarze Liste" which essentially means.

German is pretty close to English though, so I guess your argument could still hold for other non-related languages.

whitelist = good allowed things

blacklist = bad, forbidden things

white = good

black = bad

Associating something being black with it being bad/lesser/evil is problematic if you're trying to get rid of racism toward black people.

White is good because it's the colour of natural light. Black is bad because it's the colour of darkness, which is dangerous because you can't see. Children are afraid of the dark.

The fact that people's skin colour is sometimes described as white or black is a coincidence that doesn't relate to the origin of the word blacklist.

If people are offended by coincidences like this, it means that we won't be able to speak Spanish, Russian or Chinese. The Russian word for black (as in a black person) is negr; but note that this is not considered offensive in Russian.

> White is good because it's the colour of natural light.

In a post about a world flag someone mentioned that, for the Chinese, white is associated with death.

You've fixated on a minor detail. The origin of the word "blacklist" is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_te...

It has never had anything to do with race.

If we can't say certain words because of linguistic coincidences, then we won't be able to speak Spanish.

In all your responses to me, you have been arguing for the sake of arguing.

The origin is irrelevant if it's found offensive. If you tell me what I'm doing offends you, I'll try to change my behavior.

Not OP.

How about we look at the word mansplaining? I think it's unfairly promoting sexism and gender stereotypes about my gender.

I also find mention of "cis" very offensive. Likewise the term cis white male too.

Please stop talking entirely because it offends me.

You game?

white lies

whitewashing

white collar crime (why not “black suit crime”?)

You’re hallucinating an issue that doesn’t actually exist.

Blacksmith

Black and Tan

Plenty of “black” compound words that are neutral to positive.

It’s not about the words, it’s about power. They want to force you to do what they say.. Even for something trivial like this, if they can force you to do use their language, they make a small win.

A few hundred wins later and they dictate what is acceptable language.

Your examples are actually supporting the argument. White lies are innocent, not so bad lies, much better than black lies. White washing is making something look better than it actually is, that is: make it look white = make it look better. And the only one that doesn't automatically use "white" as good is "white collar", but that is because here the distinction is between "white collar" and "blue collar".

Haha you’re right. I never thought about it this way, I just took words as whole, and these words are all negative (in my mind). Although technically you could say the same about “blacklist”, people want the same concept (blocking, which isn’t necessarily negative) but don’t want to associate it with race.

In what context does blacklist indicate an allow list? I've never heard of that. And is your issue with the word on the basis of race or on ambiguity?

As in "Master of science"?

I said "master", when it's not in opposition to "slave", should not be deemed offensive. Your example helps make my point.

To clarify my view on master/slave terminology, I do understand how an overt analogy to slavery could be offensive. But the word "master" doesn't usually imply that there's a slave.

What does it mean to ‘master’ a subject?

I was specifically referring to the academic Master's degree. What you're talking about is a more philosophical question :)

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