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Master is used in dozen of other contexts to mean "primary", "source", "original". I found the name to be perfectly apt for the purpose. Are people changing th

Master is used in dozen of other contexts to mean "primary", "source", "original". I found the name to be perfectly apt for the purpose. Are people changing the name for master records too? Should we change the term mastering? Context is everything in language. I find this case (and many others, to be honest) borderline stupid.

eternalban 6y ago
It's one thing to own a printing press, but it is an entirely different league when you control the very language and its usage. This is a minor event in the larger context of control over the language of discourse. 1984 features control over language, and subsequent distortion of the meaning of words, as one of the main methods of societal control in the depicted dystopian society. ~ But playing this game can be fun! For example, my Apple Inc. supplied dictionary defines "main" using terms such as "dominance", "supreme", "paramount", "preeminent". So, it remains about "power", "position", and "authority". As some suggested, "default" would have served the stated functional purpose of the word switch, without substituting one power word for another: "a preselected option adopted by a computer program or other mechanism when no alternative is specified by the user or programmer: the default is fifty lines"
stronglikedan 6y ago
> Are people changing the name for master records too? Should we change the term mastering? I'm sure all that is already in the works, unfortunately.
- sebazzz 6y ago
  Waiting for the first pull request to rewrite all "Merged from 'master" commits because we can't have this in our repository history.
skunkworker 6y ago
I’ve had this conversation with some people. If someone asked Jay-Z if he owns his masters. Do you think he would get offended by the word? I see it almost as a failing of the English language, to have one word represent so many different meanings.
- jhanschoo 6y ago
  Every language has homonyms, and has homonyms that are offensive in one context and not another.

eternalban 6y ago

It's one thing to own a printing press, but it is an entirely different league when you control the very language and its usage. This is a minor event in the larger context of control over the language of discourse. 1984 features control over language, and subsequent distortion of the meaning of words, as one of the main methods of societal control in the depicted dystopian society. ~ But playing this game can be fun! For example, my Apple Inc. supplied dictionary defines "main" using terms such as "dominance", "supreme", "paramount", "preeminent". So, it remains about "power", "position", and "authority". As some suggested, "default" would have served the stated functional purpose of the word switch, without substituting one power word for another: "a preselected option adopted by a computer program or other mechanism when no alternative is specified by the user or programmer: the default is fifty lines"

stronglikedan 6y ago

> Are people changing the name for master records too? Should we change the term mastering? I'm sure all that is already in the works, unfortunately.

sebazzz 6y ago
Waiting for the first pull request to rewrite all "Merged from 'master" commits because we can't have this in our repository history.

skunkworker 6y ago

I’ve had this conversation with some people. If someone asked Jay-Z if he owns his masters. Do you think he would get offended by the word? I see it almost as a failing of the English language, to have one word represent so many different meanings.

jhanschoo 6y ago
Every language has homonyms, and has homonyms that are offensive in one context and not another.