Re: SV: Diversity and offensive terminology in RFCs

[Anton Ivanov <[e-mail]>]

On 20/09/18 18:52, Michael StJohns wrote:
> On 9/20/2018 1:09 PM, Evan Hunt wrote:
>> I think the issue with "man-in-the-middle" isn't that it's offensive,
>> per se, but that the unnecessary use of gendered terminology tends to
>> reinforce mental biases.  In my lifetime in the US, we've largely
>> shifted
>> from "fireman" and "mailman" and "stewardess" to "firefighter" and "mail
>> carrier" and "flight attendant" for similar reasons. 
>> "Man-in-the-middle"
>> carries with it a subtle, unnecessary suggestion that the clever
>> indivdual
>> between Alice and Bob is probably named Carl not Carol.
>
> Generically, there are some differences between the swap to
> non-gendered nouns and terms like man-in-the-middle.  


They are also language dependent.

In a language where nearly anything inanimate is supposed to have no
gender, assigning a gender to something is a big deal. An excellent
example is the issue some people have with a ship being "she" in English.

In a language where nearly anything inanimate has ended up with either
female or male grammatic gender - not so much.

If I put one of my several "native level speaker of a language in the
second category" hats on, some parts of the discussion as well as
various changes and practices mentioned so far (f.e. avoiding the word
manned spaceflight and calling it crewed) look distinctly like a storm
in a teacup and much ado about nothing.

IMHO, it does not matter what we do, someone somewhere will be offended.
We might as well live with it and not waste efforts on exceptional
political correctness. Sure, trying to be reasonably politically correct
in new work is fine.

Going back, rewriting all of the terminology, editing existing
documents, etc? Especially for something which is an major issue in just
one of the several hundred languages on the planet? Excuse me, but did
we run out of things where we can be really useful so that we have to
find ourselves time fillers like this?

A.

> The former reflects the reasonable desire to allow people to choose
> what they'll be called or how they're referred to - there are other
> examples that are obvious.   But "man-in-the-middle" is just a term of
> art - one that's succinct and in our context unmistakable.
>
> I'm concerned we're again off in the weeds here.  English has a lot of
> words with overloaded meanings and multiple definitions and others
> that do not. For example - whitelist and blacklist have pretty much
> singular meanings related to acceptance or rejection, while master has
> a bunch.    OED says blacklist goes back to at least 1619.  See a
> discussion on this about 10 years ago at
> http://garysaid.com/are-the-terms-whitelist-and-blacklist-racist/
>
> Lastly, words can have cultural overlays that are not obvious.
> Continuing from Adrian's bundle of sticks, a similar word is a synonym
> for a cigarette and another similar word expression is a synonym for
> being tired.  The latter definition appearing around 1450 according to
> dictionary.com.
>
> For better or for worse, we have our jargon (and invent it at dizzying
> rates with every RFC), we borrow jargon from related fields, and we
> base the remainder of text on established English (please don't use
> twerk in your RFC's!).    Let's not see shadows that have not yet
> overtaken us.   And please - let's not require Heather and the RFC
> folks to become our word conscience.
>
> If you feel strongly about this AND you're authoring a draft or RFC -
> by all means, wordsmith to your hearts content.  Please use words that
> lead to only one meaning in context where those words are necessary
> and try not to invent new ones.
>
> Later, Mike
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