That isn't why they're removing grandfathered. The word "grandfathered" exists because of laws in the south that kept black people from voting by saying that you were only allowed to vote if your grandfather could vote.
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Ok, I'll admit I didn't know that. This still seems like going an awfully long way out of your way to find something to be offended about.
This would be like British people removing French-derived words from their language, because they were the result of Norman conquest and subjugation. At some point, history is just in the past and language moves on.
What is actually in the repository? Is the code correct? Is it efficient? Is there sufficient test coverage? Well, who knows. We spent all our person-hours fiddling with terminology. This will last for a few years until someone finds something to be offended about with the new terms.
You are assuming that the hearer would be offended or hurt. This doesn't need to be true in order for initiatives like this to make sense or have a purpose.
Words have a history and carry their original intentions with them alongside their current meaning. When you're using a term someone might find offensive, that person might also know that you mean no ill. In cases like those, they can ignore the possible subtle connotations your words could've implied.
In other situations, the hearer is unaware of your possible ignorance or motivations, in which cases they might be unsure if you're directly or indirectly trying to imply something offensive or dismissive on purpose.
Removing that doubt is simply streamlining the efficiency of communication, making sure that both parties understand each other and what they're saying and meaning.
> Words have a history and carry their original intentions with them alongside their current meaning.
Respectfully, I disagree. Words are fluid and shift meanings constantly throughout time. Words are not sentient and do not carry anything in and of themselves. Meanings are assigned by people based on context. It is quite clear from the context where these words are used what meaning is intended. To discern another meaning based on an obsolete and irrelevant context requires deliberate misinterpretation.
Other way around: they introduced various new barriers to voting, but said that if your grandfather was allowed to vote then you were allowed to vote (thus allowing white southerners to bypass the barriers).
Raising this much hell over a long-forgotten etymology is childish.
It’s not long forgotten. The consequences of those laws are very much alive today. It might be forgotten by you, but it is surely known by a lot of people in the south.
His point was obviously not that the consequences were forgotten but the original meaning of the phrase was forgotten, and I'm pretty sure you know it. What are you trying to accomplish with this? How did you get from "I never knew what grandfathered originally meant" to "maybe you forgot about jim crow, but I haven't".
I feel like racists are far more empowered by things like this than simply allowing the etymology of the word to be forgotten, like it basically had been. And now, it's just another line in the sand for people to argue about on social media. I think if I were a racist activist, I'd be finding things like this to start arguing about under a false flag.
Forgotten by who?
I would ask the same question. Is there evidence that somehow the majority has forgotten the original meaning but the minority hasn't? Do you have any evidence of that? I'm sure if you study this type of thing as a hobby you could probably score a lot of points in arguments. But is that the best way to go about making real changes?
So multiple people have claimed that “no one“ knows what it means and the original meaning was forgotten and multiple people in this thread knew the original meaning and the the origin is listed in the dictionary etymology and Wikipedia page.
It’s not a deep dark secret. I grew up in the south, I know the history and the racial connotation for it was always there for me. That it’s not there for you or that you never thought about it before doesn’t mean that nobody did or that everyone here is making it up.
Social media blurs the lines and it makes it hard for anyone to understand reality versus fiction. It was probably the same when mass communication took off in the first place, but it's happening again. Any particular change in language like this seems like a small thing, but it's very hard for me to tell if those changes are actually being driven by an oppressed community who thinks such changes are important, or if they're coming from meaningless social media echo chambers. Latino versus Latinx is another example I struggle with. Should we modify an entire language due to some perceived sexism? Who is actually perceiving this sexism and is it the real voice of the community?
Are they "raising hell"?