J. Touch
July 26, 2020
The following list of terms have unfortunate connotations that
complicate their meaning in technical documents. As such, they should
be replaced with suggested text as indicated where possible.
NOTE: references to legacy and external document uses should not be
replaced but can be clarified by also including the preferred terms below.
Please contact the author with suggestions or comments.
phrase
“REGEXP pattern”
meaning
alternates
Terms appearing in RFCs, as well as possibly other technical documentation:
master – slave
“\W(master|slave)”
dominant/subordinate parties (note that “master” alone still carries this implication)
primary/original/main/source – secondary/alternate/replica/copy (e.g., for databases)
parent – child
speaker/talker – listener
leader – follower/minon
dominant – subordinate
actor – reactor (e.g., for flip-flops)
bootable – non-bootable (e.g., for disk drives, which don’t actually link to each other anyway)
grandfather(ed)
“\Wgrandfather”
exceptions granted by nature of being preexisting
legacy, legacied
whitewash
“\Wwhitewash”
mask flaws using a coat of thinnned white paint
cover-up
blackhat or whitehat
“\W(black|white)(\W|-)?hat”
bad/evil actor, good actor
ally, adversary
black and/or white
“\Wblack\W(and|or|and\/or)\Wwhite”
binary decision with preferred (white) outcome
binary, all-or-nothing, clear choice
greylist
“\Wgreylist”
intermediate between list of accepted and denied entities
partial accept or admit
dummy
“\Wdummy”
person of low intelligence, often used to represent something useless or meaningless
placeholder
sanity check, reality check
“\W(sanity|reality)\Wcheck”
simple or rapid check, often cursory
validity check / correctness check / confidence check / quick check
bitch
“\Wbitch”
euphemism for complaining (or complainer)
complain(er)
hobble(d)
“\Whobble”
to render handicapped by breaking one’s legs
undermined, made less effective by
he, she, his, her(s)
“\W(he|she|his|her(s?)\W”
gendered pronouns referring to people
they (even as singular)
dude, guy
“\W(dude|guy)”
casual reference to a person (typ. male)
(replace with a different phrase)
first, second, third world
“\W(first|second|third)\Wworld”
groups of countries ordered during the Cold War
tech-rich, tech-poor, tech-evolving
resource-rich, resource-challenged
developed, developling, underdeveloped countries
“\W(under)?develop\w+\Wcountr”
groups of countries ordered by implied maturity compared (typically) to the state of wealthy countries
tech-rich, tech-poor, tech-evolving
mafia, mafioso
“\Wmafi(a|oso)”
organized crime, often implying a closed group that circumvents laws or policies
outlaw(s)
Terms not yet appearing in RFCs that should also be considered:
greybeard
“\Wgreybeard”
male elder/senior member of a community
senior member
gyp
“\Wgyp(ped|s|ping)\W”
swindle, cheat
swindle, cheat
The following terms are NOT currently believed to be problematic:
black, red
network security levels
black and white
when referring to images created from those two colors
dark web, dark net
dark here refers to “unlit”
grey web, grey net
grey here refers to partially dark
dim web, dim net may be more accurate
white pages, yellow pages
refers to historical use of paper of those colors to publish phone directories
white paper
a brief though-piece
black hole
an area with the absence of light, notably the astronomical object from which nothing gravitationally escapes
black box
a container whose interior remains unknown (unlit)
red, green; red, yellow, green
implications for permit, caution, deny based on traffic lights
red
impication of warning based on use in lighting