L.A. County Bans Use Of "Master/Slave" Term

SlashChick writes "In an interesting twist on political correctness, L.A. County has banned the use of the terms 'Master/Slave' (commonly used to denote hard drive arrangements.) According to Snopes.com, 'someone within the County bureaucracy... had taken offense at "master/slave" references and complained to the board.' L.A. County now requires that vendors working with the county remove all 'master/slave' references. Incredible. Read the full story."

For the love of all that's good and holy

[tehdely (690619)]

Funny that my first instinct was to check Snopes, and what do you know but that's the provided link. Shows how patently ridiculous this story seemed at first.

Hasn't this obsession with sanitizing speech become a total farce? What's next? Will we not be able to have male and female ends on our 1/4" audio cable for fear of offending the transgendered? How the hell am I supposed to shop for wires now?

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[by Anonymous Coward]

shh, don't give them any ideas.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[Jhon (241832)]

They've got all the ideas they need. Our city government (I live in LA) has gone over the deep end. This is worse than their ban on "Lap Dances" at the local "mens clubs". The same solution used by the "Gentleman's Clubs" should work. Get enough signatures on a petition to force a ballot measure and FORCE the City Council to either spend dozens of millions of dollars to put it up for a vote or STFU about the issue.

Their job is to make sure the cops get paid and the street lights work. It is NOT to re-invent Think-Speak.

Thank God for the referendum.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[Gyan (6853)]

Hasn't this obsession with sanitizing speech become a total farce?

It's not total ...yet

When will it be okay to use the word 'slave'? It has a fairly distinct meaning. Should the possible offence, in this case, almost non-existent, cause the word to be abolished altogether because of what people connote the word with?

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[cgenman (325138)]

Will we not be able to have male and female ends on our 1/4" audio cable for fear of offending the transgendered?

There have always been male / female converters for cabling. If only humans were so lucky.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[donscarletti (569232)]

There have always been male / female converters for cabling. If only humans were so lucky.

It's called a "strap on"

I realise that I run the risk of being modded (-1, Obscene) but I just had to say it.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[TKinias (455818)]

scripsit donscarletti:

It's called a "strap on"

Nah, that's female/male. What you're thinking of is called a `cleaver'.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[by Anonymous Coward]

What's next? Will we not be able to have male and female ends on our 1/4" audio cable...

I'll never forget the day my coworker and I were talking by speakerphone with a coworker, doing tech support. He asked if the equipment had a "male or female" end. She, puzzled, responded "what's the difference?"

I had to leave the room as he explained "the female one has a hole..."

What about the sea horses?

[bleckywelcky (518520)]

What I want to know is how sea horses wire up their audio systems. I mean, if they go down to radio shack and ask for a male-male cable, which one is it? The male or the female? Huh? Which one is it? For the love of all things good, will someone please tell me which one is it?????

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[Hi_2k (567317)]

word cleaning not bad. Doubleplusgood.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[j3110 (193209)]

I thought the first amendment rights superceded such non-sense anyhow. I'll call it whatever the hell I want. Arbitrarily picking words to be offended with is a very silly practice. I'm offended by the word cheese, from now on, I want everyone to use fromage. Isn't that about the same caliber. Why do we even have the words master and slave if we can't friggen use them? It's not like anyone has ever referred in public to the jumper setting as "Massuh". Maybe they are trying to free the oppressed drives! They deserve their own channel to call home!

Next we'll have to free the symbology of having only female connectors on devices... Female connectors can leave home and lead very low impedance connections too!

This isn't new.

[kaszeta (322161)]

Shows how patently ridiculous this story seemed at first.

Strangely, I didn't thin this was a farce, since I've lived through exactly this nonsense once before.

The year was 1993, and I was working as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in their High Flux Isotope Reactor. While I was there we got visited by the Secretary of Energy (Hazel O'Leary) and her "Science Advisor" Jim Hall (who later went on to chair the NTSB). The tour was notable for two reasons:

1. Jim Hall made a comment about how he was surprised that spent nuclear fuel assemblies from the reactor looked almost exactly like the new ones (aside from the inner and outer assemblies fresh out of the reactor, which were still glowing), since he thought "they'd look all black, like burnt wood."
2. A week later we got an official memo from Jim Hall, mentioning that during the visit "Hazel was disturbed by the use of the phrase 'Master/Slave Manipulator'" and suggested that "we shouldn't use that phrase anymore." I've still got a copy of this memo somewhere (along with the "radioactive frog" memo of some notoriety), if I find it I'll post a link to a scan as a followup.

Much lunchtime discussion over the next week resulted in a variety of alternative terminologies, including "master/bitch", "pimp/hoe", and "indentured servant." The last of these actually made it into some drawings, and the Powers That Be were not amused.

So no, I'm not surprised. Not one bit.

No Master/Slave?

[Ridgelift (228977)]

To verify that this wasn't a hoax or an internal joke which mistakenly escaped to the wider world of the Internet, we called the Purchasing and Contract Services division for the County of Los Angeles, and they informed us that yes, they did issue this message, and yes, it was meant seriously. The representative we spoke with said that someone within the County bureaucracy -- a person who probably didn't understand computer terminology -- had taken offense at 'master/slave' references and complained to the board, whereupon the Internal Services Department was obligated to issue notification requesting that vendors refrain from using that terminology.

Okay, how about "Pimp/Bitch"? The guy who recommended this needs to be fired before his ideas continue to procreate.

How about Government/Taxpayer?

[Chuck Chunder (21021)]

Seems like an appropriate alternative.

Re:No Master/Slave?

[Cordath (581672)]

Pimp/Bitch is actually a bit of an improvement, since it implies that the controlling device is actually providing an interface to the services of the controlled device. (This is not implied by Master/Slave unfortunately)

I'm not in L.A. (thank the powers that be), but I strongly recommend we move to this new terminology nationally for the sake of clarity and political correctness.

Re:No Master/Slave?

[FryGuy1013 (664126)]

Except that the primary/secondary notation is already used for the cable arrangment. Currently it's the:

Primary Master
Primary Slave
Seconndary Master
Secondary Slave
Tertiary Master ...

So we should be calling them the Primary Primary drive?

Re:No Master/Slave?

[RatBastard (949)]

You get over it. There is nothing you can label something that will not eventually offend somebody. Period. There are so many thin-skinned people out there that would rather get offended and raise a ruckus rather than spend ten seconds educating themselves as to the real meaning of something that it is rediculous.

Here's a test for you. Try using the word "niggardly" [reference.com] in a sentence and see how many thin-skinned feebs decide to tar and feather you for being a racist.

People need to get over their accute desire to be offended at every stupid little thing and just get on with life. And governements, of all sizes, need to stop wasting time and taxpayer money on useless, pointless bullshit and work on real problems.

My response to the county

[daveschroeder (516195)]

From: Dave Schroeder <[e-mail]>
Subject: Computer terminology
Date: November 24, 2003 12:27:14 PM CST
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

Regarding the recent memo sent to a county vendor regarding "master/slave", it may interest you to know that this is, and has been for years, the accepted and only terminology that refers to the hierarchy of the most commonly used computer hard drive interface in the world, known as "IDE" or "ATA". It may also interest you to know one of the definitions of "master" and "slave" according to Merriam-Webster:

master - 3 a master mechanism or device
slave - 5 a device that is directly responsive to another

And from the definitive reference on the English language, Oxford University's Oxford English Dictionary:

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry /00303043
master - e. A component of a system which controls or regulates the operation of one or more of the system's other components. Cf. SLAVE n. 5b. See also master-slave, sense C. 6.

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00227171
slave - c. techn. Used to denote a subsidiary device, esp. one which is controlled by, or which follows accurately the movements of, another device.

master-slave a. (attrib.) (b) chiefly Electronics and Computing, designating or relating to a system in which one component controls the behaviour of one or more other components.

The names "master" and "slave" are codified in the official ANSI ATA-1 interface standard, X3.221-1994, titled "AT Attachment Interface for Disk Drives". You may be aware that ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, is the largest standards body in the United States. It would seem odd that a county purchasing agency would want to throw out well established standard names created over years of cooperation and deliberation by scientists, engineers, and standards experts. Further, almost every hard disk currently in the possession of the county has the words "MASTER" and "SLAVE" printed directly on them. Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to destroy this labeling on each drive, spending thousands of manhours and voiding manufacturers' warranties in the process. Your next computing equipment bid will likely be an interesting one, since all hard drive manufacturers refer to their drives using the same terminology.

Insisting that vendors comply with the requirements in the memo makes the county look extremely, extremely foolish, and directly flies in the face of accepted, descriptive technical names for device interaction. You may also wish to caution your vendors about using the words "male" and "female" in the description of plumbing and electrical fixtures.

Regards,

Dave Schroeder
Los Angeles County native

cc: County Board

Ref:

ATA (ATA-1)
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/std _ATA.htm

Single, Master and Slave Drives and Jumpering
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/c onf_Jumpering.htm

INCITS Technical Committee 13 (T13), responsible for X3.221-1994
http://www.t13.org/

They think that's bad

[helix400 (558178)]

Wow, I wonder what they'll say when they realize why some computer cables ends are called male and female.

Re:They think that's bad

[niko9 (315647)]

"Wow, I wonder what they'll say when they realize why some computer cables ends are called male and female."

Wait 'till you tell them said cables are being used on a computer running a "stoned beaver" OS kernel!

Name Change

[mvpll (542255)]

So now we have to have dominant and submissive hard drives???

Re:Name Change

[helix400 (558178)]

I personally am hoping for oppressor/oppressee. It's much for fun to use, and it's even less politically correct. =)

sex shops too?

[searleb (168974)]

what about all the sex shops in LA County?

eh?

[Graspee_Leemoor (302316)]

It's not an "interesting twist" on political correctness, it's just another example of it.

graspee

Politically Correct Unix

[by Anonymous Coward]

(abusing your highly modded post)

1. "man" pages are now called "person" pages.

2. Similarly, "hangman" is now the "person_executed_by_an_oppressive_regime."

3. To avoid casting aspersions on our feline friends, the "cat" command is now merely "domestic_quadruped."

4. To date, there has only been a UNIX command for "yes" - reflecting the male belief that women always mean yes, even when they say no. To address this imbalance, System VI adds a "no" command, along with a "-f[orce]" option which will crash the entire system if the "no" is ignored.

5. The bias of the "mail" command is obvious, and it has been replaced by the more neutral "gendre" command.

6. The "touch" command has been removed from the standard distribution due to its inappropriate use by high-level managers.

7. "compress" has been replaced by the lightweight "feather" command. Thus, old information (such as that from Dead White European Males) should be archived via "tar" and "feather".

8. The "more" command reflects the materialistic philosophy of the Reagan era. System VI uses the environmentally preferable "less" command.

9. The biodegradable "KleeNeX" displaces the environmentally unfriendly "LaTeX".

1. SHELL COMMANDS To avoid unpleasant, medieval connotations, the "kill" command has been renamed "euthanise."

2. The "nice" command was historically used by privileged users to give themselves priority over unprivileged ones, by telling them to be "nice". In System VI, the "sue" command is used by unprivileged users to get for themselves the rights enjoyed by privileged ones.

3. "history" has been completely rewritten, and is now called "herstory."

4. "quota" can now specify minimum as well as maximum usage, and will be strictly enforced.

5. The "abort()" function is now called "choice()."

1. TERMINOLOGY From now on, "rich text" will be more accurately referred to as "exploitive capitalist text".

2. The term "daemons" is a Judeo-Christian pejorative. Such processes will now be known as "spiritual guides."

3. There will no longer be a invidious distinction between "dumb" and "smart" terminals. All terminals are equally valuable.

4. Traditionally, "normal video" (as opposed to "reverse video") was white on black. This implicitly condoned European colonialism, particularly with respect to people of African descent. UNIX System VI now uses "regressive video" to refer to white on black, while "progressive video" can be any color at all over a white background.

5. For far too long, power has been concentrated in the hands of "root" and his "wheel" oligarchy. We have instituted a dictatorship of the users. All system administration functions will be handled by the People's Committee for Democratically Organizing the System (PC-DOS).

6. No longer will it be permissible for files and processes to be "owned" by users. All files and processes will own themselves, and decided how (or whether) to respond to requests from users.

7. The X Window System will henceforth be known as the NC-17 Window System.

8. And finally, UNIX itself will be renamed "PC" - for Procreatively Challenged.

One example is one too many

[Hogwash McFly (678207)]

Being a resident of England (or should I say 'United Kingdom' in order not to alienate my Irish/Welsh/Scottish compatriates?) I have seen more than a lions share of political correctness. It seems like every week that I open up the newspaper to find a half amusing/half irritating article written about a particular group of people who seem to have a beef with the way they are 'labelled'.

Example Old Age Pensiors (OAPs) - 'We are offended by the name given us and see it as ageist. Therefore we would like to be known as Senior Citizens' (um, cause that doesn't refer to your age?)

I'm sure everyone out there in /.dom has has experienced the mailman/mailperson debacle.(milkman, garbage man etc. are all also valid)
Hey while we're at it, why not plurally refer to ourselves as Personkind! One small step for a person, one person-of-irregular-height leap for Personkind!

And it doesn't stop at there! A school in this banned sportsday because it is deemed as unfair to those who don't win. Aww boohoo so your little snotty kid lost the egg and spoon race, we better give 'em all a medal, cause 'EVERYONE'S A WINNER!'

Mothercare [mothercare.co.uk] have, or were going to, release an updated version of Humpty Dumpty in which the poor egg shaped fellow was put back together and lived happily ever after in order to protect children from a perilous dilemma. I know I'm taking this political correctness thread off on a bit of a mollycoddle tangent, but they're all related to one thing - The Bubble Wrapped Society.

What does the county prefer?

[Gyan (6853)]

Daddy/Bitch

Political Correctness is pure egotistical B.S.

[eaglebtc (303754)]

I think this whole practice of political correctness should be done away with. It is twisting our language too rapidly and preventing the free exercise of speech. Politicians have to grow and pair and get some thicker skin. They must realize that a language develops because people make new terms and apply new definitions to existing words based on events with which they are familiar. You cannot force us to speak differently just so a puny minority will not be offended.

Politicians, I think it is YOU who are offended, not the minority which you claim to represent!

Well...

[daveschroeder (516195)]

...they could always go all SCSI.

Re:Well...

[mariox19 (632969)]

...they could always go all SCSI.

And risk offending the homeless?!

Re:Well...

[dopaz (148229)]

Then maybe the Governator's Office will make sure everything is properly terminated.

First things first

[orthogonal (588627)]

LA County has banned the use of the terms 'Master/Slave'

Is this the same LA County that has rampant police corruption and brutality problems?

The one in the state, California, that is facing a massive deficit?

Glad to know they have their priorities right.

It's just a request

[Our Man In Redmond (63094)]

Even so, it's a pointless request, and if enforced would probably mean that LA County couldn't buy hard drives at all, since most drives have clear labels on how to set the "master" and "slave" jumpers.

Uh oh, this post is probably officially data non grata in Los Angeles COunty now.

Female/Male next?

[FunWithHeadlines (644929)]

"I need a mouse adaptor, please. Female to male."

"I'm sorry, sir, but that is politically incorrect language."

"Uh, ok, um, lemme see. Can I please have a mouse adaptor where one end has pins sticking out and one end has holes to fill."

"You trying to be funny with me, boy?"

"Ugh, ok, never mind. Just give me a master/slave controller."

"That's it, I'm calling the police, pervert!"

Alternative?

[Dimwit (36756)]

AsksPolitelyDrive / HappyWorkerDrive?

PresidentDrive / VicePresidentDrive?

KingDrive/ViceroyDrive?

(My favorite...)
WillyWonkaDrive / OompaLoompaDrive?

There's the obvious "Parent/Child" possibility, but since the actual standard uses the terms "Master/Slave", I really think this is overreaction on the county's part...

Request or require?

[noname3 (580108)]

"L.A. County Bans use of Master/Slave Term. ...
LA County now requires that vendors working with the county remove all 'master/slave' references."

Contrast this to the snopes article, which says: The County of Los Angeles has requested that equipment vendors avoid using the industry term "Master/Slave" in product descriptions and labelling.

There's a big difference between request and require. And banned? Hardly. I doubt anyone's going to get fined or sued over this.

Help Help I am being repressed!

[Herkum01 (592704)]

All I can say is thank god! Now we will have liberated hardware able to do its own thing. Write when it wants to write, read when it wants to read and just in general do whatever it likes, regardless of what it was supposed to do.

Much like Windows.

But is their money where their mouth is?

[Phredd (15463)]

Will L.A. County officials put their money where their mouths are and buy all new equipment to replace any that uses this offensive terminology? Or are they too niggardly?

Oh yeah?

[achurch (201270)]

Well, I ban the word "County" because "Count" is a title in an archaic nobility system that has no place in modern American culture. Take that, L.A. *****y!

Other funny tech words

[ryanhos (125502)]

At my first programming job, we shared an open office with the sales people. We started designing this large system with small group meetings in the common area of the office. We kept talking about "forking children" and "killing children" and our master process was called the "mother." Finally one of the more ditzy sale women came back and asked us to explain our disturbing terminology. She didn't think that "forking babies" was proper office talk. She was okay with it once we explained the terminology.

I never used those words anyway

[donscarletti (569232)]

That doesn't worry me in the slightest. I have never had a master and slave on any of my IDE chains. I simply have "the butch" and "the bitch".

This means that I would have no problem moving to L.A. But I think my hard drives would feel more at home in San Francisco.

In Socialist California

[notcreative (623238)]

Here in America, you label drives "Master/Slave" for correctness.

In Socialist California, the label correctness slaves master YOU!

Of course it's offensive!

[UserChrisCanter4 (464072)]

Look at the labeling. Point of Manufacture on these things are Malaysia, Thailand, Hungary, etc. They're shipped 20 and 30 to a 3'x4' packing crate, against their will. Forced to endure this trip without food or water, these poor mass-storage devices are then forced to spin at 5400 and sometimes 7200 revolutions per minute, without breaks, in dusty and hot environments.

I'm glad someone in California has at least taken the initiative to keep them from being referred to as slaves. The next step is a move to an 8-hour workday (although I think IBM already recommends that on some of their Deskstar line), and two 15-minute breaks per work period (I can do without swap for a few minutes, I guess). Of course, I hope they realize the negative connotations of the term "Server"

Re:Of course it's offensive!

[jd_esguerra (582336)]

and two 15-minute breaks per work period

Tried two 15 minute water breaks. Didn't work. In fact, the second one turned into more of a smoking break.

Broader Racial Conspiracy

[gnarled (411192)]

I was just inspecting my IDE cables and I noticed that the connector denoted master is a light gray, while the slave connector is black. It seems that the people who designed this standard were part of a conspiracy to bring black slavery in the United States. I should have seen it all along.

Let's not stop there...

[rdewald (229443)]

I have been scanning my technical documentation and I have found several similarly offensive and discriminatory terms. I propose the following modifications:

1. Server/client - please use transactor/transactee.
   
2. Ones/zeroes - please use numerically-advantaged/disadvantaged
   
3. directory/folder - please use facilitator/facilitatee
   
4. physical/virtual - please use reality-enhanced/disenhanced.
   

I, for one, welcome our new facilitators.

Free at last!

[Colonel Cholling (715787)]

I removed the slave jumper from my hard drive, then plugged it in to the connector directly adjacent to the mobo on the ribbon cable. You know, so it wasn't at the back of the bus anymore.

Life Imitates Jokes

[noddyholder (320095)]

I've joked about this a few times at work when the (military) instructors I work with discuss the latest in command directed PC nuttiness. They can't use the term cockpit, it's a flight deck. Neither can they say white board or black board. Those are now officially marker boards and chalk boards. I used to joke that we can't use master/slave anymore due to a NAACP lawsuit against the computer industry. Guess it ain't a joke anymore.

This reminds me

[geekoid (135745)]

of the time I had to fight a ban on the word 'deamon'.
Fortunatly, I won that. Some people thought I was the spawn of satan for using that term.

When one of the women confronted me and told me should would not say deamon, and that it was offensive to her belief.
I told her "If you allow a simple word like Deamon direct how you live your life, Satan has already won."

Pretty much the same thing I tell people when they get upset becase they have to give out 6.66 in change.

What I want to say is "Stop being such a twit."
Followed up by spinning my head around.

Oh, that's nothing...in San Francisco..

[The Breeze (140484)]

The San Francisco City Council recently passed Ordinance 2002-11-78b, which prohibits the sale or manufacture of pinouts and connectors that are exclusively "male" or "female".

Apparently, there were those who felt that having seperate male and female connectors was somehow discriminitory. In the words of Douglas Fillmore, spokesperson of a citizen's group that endorse that ordinance, "Technology, and our terminology that describes it does not only mirror life - it also helps guide it. By creating devices that can only be used in one method, to the exclusion of others, and to further use such value-laden terminology to describe them, sends a clear message that "there is only one accepted way to mate." This metaphor can be very injurous to groups we wish to show our support for."

So, go into a Radio Shack in San Fran and as for a male db25 pin connector. They'll sell you a connector that comes with a seperate mating collar, just incase you choose to mate it with another male. Or, if they're out of stock, they'll refer you to the Fry's Electronics in Oakland.

I'm just kidding. I hope no one believes this.