but I think you may have missed an important event regarding the iet and it’s attitude towards its online community, it has for the last 10 years or so been literally bulldozing through previously active sectors of its online community, and seems to have done all it can to stem the free sharing of opinions and information openly,  hence the reason your topic views number will be embarrasingly low, now at a whopping 57 views, perhaps lobbying the iet twitter or Facebook account might be more productive in your quest?

Philip Oakley:

Philip, how does avoiding use of the word help those who have suffered or do suffer from slavery?

Ahh, the 'facemask' conundrum.  You are pushing the wrong end of the piece of string. It's the deliberate and potentially malicious use of the word to pretend that those who have 'slave' ancestry are to be considered as simply inanimate objects by association that is the issue. At some point it's simply a level of indifference to the effect on others.


In essence it's no different to having children clean under the working looms in the mills of the past. Children were cheap, easily produced and disposable..  Not.


We have better alternatives, lets use them. E2, E1, D1-3, etc.

Philip, you have a very odd perspective, at least from my point of view. My use of the term "slave" to describe the behaviour of an inanimate object in no way encourages or supports slavery. I don't believe that eradicating the word does anything to eradicate the phenomenon, it simply sweeps it under the carpet.

Gordon Beauchamp:

Sorry Philip I agree with OMS, I have never seen the terms as derogatory and having worked with folk of colour on site they have also used these terms showing no sign of issue in doing so. We use master and slave when installing voice outlets, not so much now to be honest as systems have changed but they are still available. What I am seeing is, this is in no way aimed at you personally, a lot of white folk finding issue with words and terms that can be seen as derogatory to folk of colour but not all folk of colour will have that same issue as they can easily see it is simply a term and not someone pointing a finger and calling them names. Our society seems to be losing focus on the real issues and seems desperate to be seen to be doing "something" to stop the offended claiming society isn't doing anything, trouble is the "something" isn't ever going to solve the real problem.

If a company feels that the terms are inappropriate then fine, stop using them in its systems, does it need to announce it publically that this is what they intend to do? Does that help anyone or anything other than the PR image of that company?

 

Alex Barrett:

Philip, you have a very odd perspective, at least from my point of view. My use of the term "slave" to describe the behaviour of an inanimate object in no way encourages or supports slavery. I don't believe that eradicating the word does anything to eradicate the phenomenon, it simply sweeps it under the carpet.

Who said anything about eradicating the word used to describe a person who is "the legal property of another and who is bound to absolute obedience".


We outlawed that nearly two hundred years ago, though promoted and profited from it for even longer before that. Now we engineers have been saying a slave is just another bit of secondary kit. Let's stop that false association.

Philip Oakley:

Who said anything about eradicating the word used to describe a person who is "the legal property of another and who is bound to absolute obedience".


We outlawed that nearly two hundred years ago, though promoted and profited from it for even longer before that. Now we engineers have been saying a slave is just another bit of secondary kit. Let's stop that false association.

You are suggesting that we avoid this word, aren't you?

I do agree that this is a false association. Referring to the behaviour of an inanimate object has no connection to the exploitation of people.

Evanna Gale:

... It seems there is room for discussion, even here at the IET. 

Thanks Evanna, It may be a long journey, but we need to start with some first steps.

Alex Barrett:

Now we engineers have been saying a slave is just another bit of secondary kit. Let's stop that false association.

You are suggesting that we avoid this word, aren't you?

I do agree that this is a false association. Referring to the behaviour of an inanimate object has no connection to the exploitation of people.

True, the use of a false association allows inaccuracies and misunderstandings to creep in, sometimes with undesired consequences. We remove wrong words in many scenarios. E.g. in aviation they don't say "climb to 4,000ft" because "to" could be "2".


At the time that the first Engineering uses of Master-Slave began we were a much more racist society, and it's showing down through history.


Hopefully a reasonable set of guidelines can be framed.