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The name chosen is an antiquated ethnic slur in much of the Anglosphere.
by closewith 1y ago
The name chosen is an antiquated ethnic slur in much of the Anglosphere.
- mrcwinn 1y agoI’ve never heard of this in my life. Isn’t tinker a verb meaning to fiddle or edit or modify in small increments? That seems like the perfect name given what the software they’re present. In any case I guess this is back to the debate: does it matter how a word is intended or does it matter how a word is received?
- echelon 1y agoNever heard this before either. I googled "Tinker Slur" and Gemini said this: > The term "tinker" is a racial slur when used against Irish and Scottish Travellers and Romani people. Originally derived from the name of an itinerant profession, the word evolved into a derogatory ethnic insult with connotations of being dirty, dishonest, and criminal. Further sources: https://hatebase.org/vocabulary/tinker https://hatebase.org/vocabulary/tinker https://www.threads.com/@yourlocaltj/post/DCbY6wMIJ7J?hl=en https://www.threads.com/@yourlocaltj/post/DCbY6wMIJ7J?hl=en TIL Shame that people do this. It's been a salient word all my life, and it's a useful word too. I'll keep calling myself a tinkerer.
- labrador 1y agoI'm an American of Irish and Scottish descent with some travellers in my background. Never heard this word as a slur, only as "I like to tinker with machines." Tinker as a slur hasn't travelled off the islands of Great Britain apparently. Edit: I'm not changing my usage of the word. I like to tinker.
- closewith 1y agoI suspect you're just not aware of how others consider the way you choose to speak: https://archive.is/WydpC https://archive.is/WydpC
- labrador 1y agoI'm very aware of how I speak which is why I have a good track record of not offending people. I change with the times e.g. I no longer refer to a car transmission as a tranny. So I know tinker as a slur is archaic. I've never heard anyone use it as a slur and think it would be counter productive to revive it as one.
- closewith 1y agoYou not hearing it doesn’t make it archaic. Tinker is still thrown at Travellers in Ireland, the UK, Australia, and elsewhere. Calling it “dead” just shows you your bubble, not reality.
- echelon 1y ago
- goopypoop 1y agoyour usage is fine there too. however, "the islands of Great Britain" is offensive to the Irish
- closewith 1y agoThe ethnic slur predates (and is the etymology of) the meaning you're familiar with.
- chuckadams 1y agoMeanings become obsolete. Calling someone "nice" used to mean they were stupid.
- gs17 1y agoDo you have a source for this? I can't find any etymology dictionary that says it doesn't come from either "tin" as in the metal or "tink" as an onomatopoeia (or a verb that refers to mending things). To be fair, they say it's uncertain, but you seem very confident about your alternative etymology.
- overscore 1y agoThe formation etymology (whether from tin or onomatopoeia) is uncertain. The part that is certain is the semantic chronology. The noun tinker was used from at least the 13th century for an itinerant mender of pots, the Travellers. By the 16th century it became a slur for Travellers. The verb to tinker doesn’t appear until the mid-17th century, first meaning to work as a tinker and only later coming to mean what you're familiar with. So while the root word’s sound-shape is debated, the order of senses is clear: the Traveller sense comes first, the modern “casual repair” sense comes later and was derived from it. This is the etymological order given in all sources, eg https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker
- gs17 1y ago> eg https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker Does this page show something different in your region? For me it doesn't say anything about what you're claiming it does outside of one "chiefly Ireland, sometimes offensive" definition. The etymology only says "Middle English tinkere", and the history explicitly states its first use as being the not-"chiefly Ireland, sometimes offensive" definition. The etymologies I was seeing show it going from "this is a word that describes a job" and branching to "this group of people does this job a lot, let's call them this word" and "fiddling with things to do anything is close enough". I'm genuinely interested in this, I work in what's a relatively "woke" domain (education) and I've never heard a complaint about something being called "tinkerable", even from colleagues in the UK.
- buildbot 1y agoInteresting, Robert Jordan basically directly lifts that term for the Romani-esque tinkers in Wheel of Time.
- closewith 1y ago> does it matter how a word is intended or does it matter how a word is received? If you apply that argument to an ethnic slur that's common where you live, you'll see that it wouldn't be a good product name in an international market.
- gwbas1c 1y agoAlmost anything can be a slur in some context. Back in the '90s, people would say "oh he's 'special'" as a slur. That being said, in a world like we live in today, pretty much anything you say or do will offend someone for some obscure reason that you just can't reasonably anticipate. It's in these contexts that I think the most appropriate response is "get a life."
- overscore 1y ago> Almost anything can be a slur in some context. Eh, this is a very particular and long-standing racist term, and the meaning used by the authors is derived from the slur, so it's not incidental.
- gwbas1c 1y agoThis does not look like a slur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tinker https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tinker There's also rather significant modern use of "tinker": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_(disambiguation) It appears that you're getting stuck on "tinkers", which is mentioned in the above disambiguation page: > Tinkers, an alternate (and often pejorative) name Anyway, language is malleable and changes. In this case, I will again emphasize "get a life."
- overscore 1y agoTinker was a Traveller slur long before the verb - denying that is just wilful ignorance itself. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- goopypoop 1y agolet's not sanction being niggardly when mooting intent
- jazzyjackson 1y agoHow much of the Anglosphere?
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoIt is. But honestly, fuck that. It has a colloquial meaning that carries none of that baggage. Instead of retiring the word, why not make the racist definition archaic?
- overscore 1y agoThe colloquial meaning carries all of that baggage. You just weren't aware.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> colloquial meaning carries all of that baggage. You just weren't aware The baggage—hell, all meaning in language—is carried by awareness. We don’t consider the word hostile racist because we’re not ancient Romans facing the hostis. Maybe there is a cause to censor the word tinker in British English. What there isn’t is censoring it in American or international English.
- aeon_ai 1y agoGood thing it's been forgotten enough that almost nobody knows that, or cares it's the name of this company. I think if anyone is offended by a word that is not used by anyone in that context, they're probably due for some self-reflection on what offends their sensibilities.
- overscore 1y agoIt's definitely not forgotten? What makes you think that? Commonly used in Ireland, the UK, Australia, Canada, parts of the US. > they're probably due for some self-reflection on what offends their sensibilities. Or maybe what they're willing to accept?
- sentientslug 1y agoYou are going on a very weird crusade in this thread. Literally have never heard this in my life used as any kind of slur and here you are arguing with everyone about it.