I think it's more of a comment on our surprise that anyone would
be offended by this.

For example, I myself am very proud of the Germanic heritage of
my mother's family and associate myself strongly with those roots,
but I'm not offended by people outright badmouthing Germany
for its actions, past or present.  Nor do I get upset about people
making sterotypes about young white males.

I (and I think many engineers) tend to view language as a simple
tool for communicating abstract ideas, and the usage of it to
convey a concept can be no more offensive to me than, say, the
sight of someone opening a beer bottle with pliers or prying open
a plastic electronics case with a screwdriver.  With that viewpoint,
it's difficult to understand someone objecting to the use of the
terms "master" and "slave", since they are just words which, in
many cases, succinctly and correctly explain the concept at hand.

My problem with it is that it seems to be a symptom that people
in the US these days *look* for things to be offended by, and
the legal community seems altogether too happy to profit by
attacking hapless souls who didn't consider every possible impact
of every word they use on every person who could possibly see
it.  It seems to me that people look for excuses to cause problems,
and this reduces the seriousness with which actual and legitimate
cases of offensive behavior are viewed.

Mike H.

>     I'm surprised by the piclist's response (Lawrence Lile's
>     excepted) to this.
>
>     If your spouse told you, "There's this thing you do that bothers
>     me; I'd be happier if you stopped," I don't think many of you
>     would respond with, "Your feelings are stupid; I'm going to keep
>     doing it because you really shouldn't be bothered by it."
>
>     Or, hmm... Engineers ARE stereotypically unskilled at social
>     interaction; maybe the stereotype is accurate and most of you
>     WOULD say that to your husband or wife.
>
>     In any case, telling your CUSTOMERS that you're going to ignore
>     their feelings because they're illogical/stupid/liberal/PC/etc is
>     just bad business.  If you can make a customer happier by doing
>     something as simple as changing two words, why wouldn't you?  It
>     doesn't matter AT ALL whether you think the request is logical
>     or necessary.
>
>     Besides, Master/Slave can usually be replaced without loss of
>     meaning, and in fact, the replacement can often be MORE
>     meaningful.  PC hard disk drives, for instance, are more
>     accurately described as Primary/Secondary than Master/Slave,
>     right?
>
>     -Andy
>
>=== Andrew Warren -- aiw@cypress.com
>=== Principal Design Engineer
>=== Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
>===
>=== Opinions expressed above do not
>=== necessarily represent those of
>=== Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
>
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