I'm a non-native English speaker, and I must say that you are wrong.

Even forgetting that many languages have exactly the same construction ("black list") with the same meaning, the thing you do as a non-native speaker with an unfamiliar word is to look it up in a dictionary, or guess its meaning from the context, not try and run some inverse etimology on it.

I mean, for years I understood what "paste" meant (as in "copy and paste") and used that word without having any idea about "paste" being some sort of glue. I still have no idea where the word "parkway" comes from, but understand the word and use it. (If I were to guess from its parts I would arrive to something like a "garden path":))

I didn't claim we should remove the world blacklist. The comment I was responding asked for things I find wrong with blacklist, I replied with one.

1. By this logic, we should abandon most words in the English language, because non-native speakers might otherwise need to learn them. Somehow though, you've applied this logic only to the word "blacklist". And why should a language with its own literature and history abandon its own vocabulary?

2. The usual reason given for not saying "blacklist" is because of supposed racism. Your argument is a new one, and seems to have been produced post-facto. Your comment is sophistry.

[edit] Removed some scathing remarks.

Even if the readability argument was created after the fact, it still stands. It’s immediately clear what an “allow-list” means.

By that logic, we'll have to give up most words in English. This is entitled to the extreme. You have been arguing with me for the sake of arguing.

Not really. English remains the most spoken language in our circles and it's immensely helpful because of that. What we can all do is to look for better names. Master/slave can be replaced by primary/replica, publisher/subscriber and a lot of others that offer narrower meanings and, therefore, are better names.

do you seriously not understand what you're doing?

The comment asked for things wrong with the word blacklist. I replied with a reason.

I'm not arguing for the removal of the word, I don't know why you think I am.

> [edit] Removed some scathing remarks.

you mean you white-washed some remarks?

aha!

;)

Not sure I buy that argument. In German they have the "Schwarze Liste" which essentially means.

German is pretty close to English though, so I guess your argument could still hold for other non-related languages.