3 ms·
Posting because of the potential interest of the debate on the Erlang mailing list concerning the propriety of the project's name.
by pulisse 9y ago
Posting because of the potential interest of the debate on the Erlang mailing list concerning the propriety of the project's name.
- DrScump 9y agoAn example of how rampant "political correctness" in media has become: closed-captioning sanitation. For example, any word in which any segment of characters could be interpreted as a slur in any context has that segment obliterated by X's. Take an example from the film "True Grit" where Cogburn refers to a "coon (racoon) hunt", it gets converted to "XXXX hunt". Or when "suspicion" is spoken in NYPD Blue, it becomes "suXXXXion". "Nippy" (cold) becomes "XXXpy". Even the obviously benign "Cocktail" becomes "XXXXtail". Such substitution seems to occur across the board: MeTV, Movies!, H&I, Decades, Cozi. I suspect they all subscribe to transcription services following similar rules. That said, given that "coon" in isolation has an ugly history as a slur (I personally had never heard it in that vein before its use as such in the film "M.A.S.H."), it's best avoided.
- p3llin0r3 9y agoHonestly that just sounds like lazy closed captioning software xD
- wernsey 9y agoWow, what an unfortunate name. I'm not even American and I recognized the problem immediately. I'm sure I've heard the slur used in movies (Forrest Gump, maybe?) After reading parts of the thread, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't know the connotations of the name. Yet, they will save themselves a lot of trouble if they just rename the project. Trying to defend the name on the grounds that they didn't know and that it is a slur that fell out of fashion in the 70's will not help them. Even if it is the best tool of its kind, I still wouldn't want to use it with a name like that, if just to avoid embarrassment when talking to my colleagues.