LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The computer term "master/slave," which was banned as racially offensive by a Los Angeles County purchasing department, was named the most politically incorrect term of the year on Thursday.

Among other terms on the top 10 list of politically charged words and phrases, issued by the word usage group Global Language Monitor, were "non-same sex marriage" to describe heterosexual unions, "waitron" for waiter or waitress and "higher being" for God, a term some people found too religious.

"We found 'master/slave' to be the most egregious example of political correctness in 2004," said Paul JJ Payack, president of The Global Language Monitor.

"This is but one more example of the insertion of politics into every facet of modern life, down to the level of the control processes of computer technology."

In computer terminology, "master/slave" refers to primary and secondary hard disk drives. But a Los Angeles county purchasing department told vendors in late 2003 that the term was offensive and violated the region's cultural diversity. The county's department of affirmative action undertook a hunt to replace it on packages.

After a public uproar, the county backed down. Payack said that while the incident took place in late 2003, debate about it grew enormously in 2004.

The phrase "non-same sex marriage," was used by a former congressman who did not want to offend gay people by using the term traditional marriage, Payack said.

Also on the list this year were "Red Sox lover," to use in place of "Yankee hater," "progressive" for classical liberal, "incurious" rather than more impolite invectives for President Bush, "insurgents" instead of terrorists in Iraq, "baristas" for waiters, and "first year student" rather than freshman.
http://www.reuters.com

i've seen quite a few master/slaves around here!

This article gets the big ol':

How is master/slave politically incorrect when it comes to hard drives? By that reasoning, we should ban all usage of the term. I personally never thought of American slavery when setting up a hard drive before, but maybe this worthless article will change that.

Wonder if the PC police will go after the S&M crowd next.....

I thought this was another "swingers" thread

I wish people would focus less on semantics and more on the practical application of terms.

Take, for instance the terms "african american" or "colored" (what, with fucking crayons?!), which are some of the most racist terms ever. There's nothing wrong with te terminology "black", "brown" or "dark". They're called ADJECTIVES. It's the racistical context in which these terms have been used that has given them a negative tone.

By the same logic we should start calling things "african american sugar", a "night colored sky". Or how about that great song that goes: "I see a native american door and I wan't it painted african-american".

George Carlin pointed out a great absurdity with the word "African-American". A white racist that prospered under apartheid in South Africa could move here and call himself "African-American."

In reality, something similar to this happened at a high school--though the kid wasn't racist:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=36764

I think the above shows very well just how ridiculous political correctness can be. And that while it seems like being politically correct, it's actually racism in disguise.

People don't seem to see a problem in the fact that there are African Americans and, for lack of an appropriate term, I'll call them, Other Amercans (some of them could be called European Americans). I think that when you start giving names to other ethnical groups following the same 'logic' that gave us African Americans and colored people, it's easier to see how stupid this is.

As long as there are divisions like this, there will always be racial problems, I believe.

Unfortunately, as long as people have different colored skin, there will always be racial problems.

--PunkDavid

I always thought the use of master/slave for computer drives was a bit odd. I suppose they could call the slave drive the subsidiary drive.

I don't know what's worse: political correctness, or bitching about political correctness.

Yeah,...

I was thinking about that yesterday after I made my post. I was just wondering how much of our racism comes from wrong education, bad examples we get from our parents or society, and how much of it is the result of our biological heritage.

'Cause if the latter plays a major role in it, we gonna have a really hard time making it go away...

And of course the classic

I vomit on this article.

My name is not policically incorrect, and if you think it is, you're wrong so fuck you.