FC: Neil Schwartzman on political correctness: blacklists vs. blocklists

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue May 27 2003 - 23:23:35 PDT

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    See this entry on "blacklist":
    http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=blacklist
    Date: circa 1619
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 11:48:35 -0400
    To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    From: Neil Schwartzman <neilat_private>
    Subject: Politically Correct Speech Has Now Oozed Into Spam Fighting
    Cc: bradat_private
    
    At 10:41 AM -0400 5/27/03,  it was written by Declan McCullagh:
    >one person reminding me that "blacklist" has some bad connotations, so 
    >I've switched to "blocklist", which makes sense.  So here's the lowdown:
    
    I have a strong notion that this started at a company that publishes 
    blacklists during a time when they were being sued into complacency ... and 
    in an attempt to softsell what they were doing to a judge, they coined this 
    horrid new term. However, this perversion of the English language is just 
    sad, under any circumstances.
    
    black*list
    n.
    A list of persons or organizations that have incurred disapproval or 
    suspicion or are to be boycotted or otherwise penalized.
    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=blacklist
    
    Are we now saying "We approve of spammers, but have arbitrarily decided to 
    stop their traffic"?
    
    The aversion to the use of the term is predicated upon the synonymical 
    association of the term to Joseph Macarthy's infamous list of communists, 
    real and imagined, and while I am no etymologist (perhaps I'll drop William 
    Safire a note), I believe the term most certainly was used before and since 
    with a measurable degree of acceptance, and not-too-overwhelming negative 
    connotations, apart from those intrinsic to the term.
    -- 
    Neil Schwartzman - Editor & Publisher
    peteMOSS Publications, Industry & Trade Journals
    <http://spamFLAMES.com><http://peteMOSS.com>
    spamNEWS is now a daily BLOG & RSS Feed: <http://spamnews.com/blog/>
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    connecting people to the Internet for profit ... assume the role of
    Internet censors, arbitrarily closing accounts of those of whom they
    disapprove." - Martha (C&S) Siegel
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