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

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

See this entry on "blacklist":
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=blacklist
Date: circa 1619

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Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 11:48:35 -0400
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Neil Schwartzman <neil () peteMOSS com>
Subject: Politically Correct Speech Has Now Oozed Into Spam Fighting
Cc: brad () crisp net

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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"Internet access providers, companies that engage in the business of
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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