Must be time for an anti PC movement to start-up, it's now becoming excessive - what's next, stop using cock and hen, dog and bitch, male and female pipe fittings / threads, ladies and men's toilets - - - it's all well over the top.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

It's Fox... wouldn't expect anything less...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

hokie66,

They are proposing to replace the terms "freshmen" and "sophomore" with "1^st year" and "2^nd year". The idiots at Fox News don't know were the superscript button is. I am offended.

The word "freshman" clearly identifies the sex of a college student, which made sense back in the nineteenth century when women were not admitted. The terms "1^st year" and "2^nd year", accurately and clearly describe what the student is. Some of this non‑sexist language is ugly and stupid, but not this stuff.

I await the movie Batperson.

--
JHG

Besides, when talking to people, even in other English-speaking parts of the world, and you mention freshmen or sophomores, they have no idea what you're talking about.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

JohnRBaker,

"Freshmen" and "sophomore" are American terms. I have never heard them used here in Canada.

--
JHG

Case in point...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

Quote (I have never heard them used here in Canada.
--)

not common...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Well, I object to the term "senior" since I are one now...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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I've been told, off and on, throughout my life, "Grow up." I consider my self as a senior engineer... not an old grey guy with a calculator.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

At least they didn't follow the trend, which would have been to use "freshperson". Nothing to do with gender, it is just an assault on the American language.

Here in the UK, you might hear "Fresher" for those new to the university, probably only the first week or two of 1st year. But then it just goes by the year number. We don't use the American terms.

Steve

Perhaps I should have posted this in the American Language/Grammar Skills forum. Just because the terms are not used elsewhere doesn't make them wrong or discriminatory.

as good a place as any...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Those terms always seemed childish to me but OTOH I started college at 24 and lived off campus. I also might be a bit biased against them as my alma mater, like many, gives course scheduling priority to "upper classmen" which makes it difficult for others to get into upper level courses. In my case, that pushed completing my bachelor's from two to three years and cost thousands. Another pet-peeve of mine that is semi-related is the time-limit or lack thereof that some schools place on completing a bachelor's. At some schools "super seniors" are normal in engineering programs with BS_E degrees averaging well beyond four or even five years and course-failure redos being common, which has led to degrees being granted to many lousy students.

As to the news source, I'm not particularly a fan of any single source or group however I do give Fox credit for being about the only news group that wasn't trying to get our military killed overseas. Like a healthy portion of the US veteran's community I won't watch CNN.

Oh my gosh, I am going back to reading about repositioning a septic tank.

Hehehehe...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

We can't blame Fox for reporting that:

Quote (Penn State)

Penn State faculty vote to end terms 'freshman,' 'sophomore' & others

This one is on the Penn State faculty. (And PC in general.)

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

And reading down on the gender article, I came across this:

Quote (Cornell)

Cornell’s ‘BIPOC-only’ rock-climbing course opened to White students after racism claims

Link
To me this is a particularly nasty form of racism, when racists play the racist card to sabotage a program designed and intended for the under-represented minorities. "Black, Indigenous, and People Of Colour".
<s>What's next for this ploy?
Admitting abusive husbands to support groups for abused wives on the basis of discrimination and equality?</s>

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

Great comment, Bill. If we normalise weather, we could do away with weather and since no weather, no climate and therefore no climate change... It's amazing how far you can go...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Back in the late 80's, my college started using the term 'first year students" instead of freshmen. Of course, the rest of the student body promptly abbreviated it FYS, which was pronounced "fish."

My glass has a v/c ratio of 0.5

Maybe the tyranny of Murphy is the penalty for hubris. - http://xkcd.com/319/

fish... just like new inmates...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

waross, dik,

Scratching my head to figure out how rock climbing, or the weather for that matter, relate to racism. But then, there are a lot of strange things that I don't understand.

Quote:

To me this is a particularly nasty form of racism, when racists play the racist card to sabotage a program designed and intended for the under-represented minorities. "Black, Indigenous, and People Of Colour".
What's next for this ploy? Admitting abusive husbands to support groups for abused wives on the basis of discrimination and equality?

Support groups for abused spouses have commonly been open to both genders for a few decades stateside as its not uncommon for men to also be in abusive relationships. Discriminating against anyone based on their gender, race, religion, or otherwise is wrong including what Cornell did, as is defending it.

Quote (there are a lot of strange things that I don't understand.)

Welome to the club... including your comment about racism... unless my reference to 'old grey guy'... I have no idea of Cornell's practices and was unaware of them, until this thread... I haven't done any rockclimbing for 40 years, and when I did, unless you had a person you were climbing with (and often didn't) you could go for days and not meet anyone.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Dik, I think this is a different type of rock climbing. Should probably be called wall climbing.

Yup... I've designed a few of them... including one that my granddaughter climbed...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Like "Voting Security Act", when they take all the drop boxes away and only leave one in the center of town next to the police station that will be open from 10 to 10:59 am on the 2nd Thursday before voting day, if not after. Or the many famous "gun safety acts" with loopholes so big that they are anything but..

And yet, an AR-15 has greater free speech rights than individual citizens.
Seems to me you should be slightly more concerned about that speech issue.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

I’m still trying to find all of these famous loopholes bc purchasing a firearm stateside is a downright PITA compared to drugs and other dangers causing real harm. OTOH the same folks believing that nonsense regularly claim that an AR is useless in the back-country. As to voting boxes, I’d love to hear an explanation of why it’s ok to change the voting laws last minute at the whim of a couple politicians (since ruled illegal btw), send out ballots en-masse to those who didn’t request them, or why voting isn’t open? I’d love to confirm that my vote was counted as submitted and that dead relative didn’t actually vote, yet can’t.

Let me get this straight CWB1, you seem to be asking for a system where you can go on-line (or something) and verify that your "vote was counted as submitted". Does that mean that you want to verify that they recorded your vote for the actual candidates that you voted for? If that's the case, how do you expect them to do that? Your vote is secret. The best that you can hope to do is verify that they received your ballot and that it was counted, which we can already do here in California.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

Yes, why not? I can do practically everything else govt or business related online securely today including almost everything DMV, IRS, and court related. Why not a simple viewer? Make it secure/password protected if others are concerned about privacy, but I honestly could care less about that. Both in-person and absentee votes have been electronically tabulated for years, so it should be an easy data connection to make. Receipt of absentee votes has been viewable online for many years, no reason not to show proof that they weren’t altered, and the same proof should be applied to in-person voting too. There’s no reason why a voter’s decisions should be secret from themselves, nor any reason a list of people that voted in an election shouldn’t be public info to prevent deceased voting. Our election security stateside would be comedic if not scary, as is the amount of election fraud we have.

I suspect that will be the way of the future... there's no reason it cannot be. Wi-Fi for all... they can have government issued photoID with RFID chips...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Once a mail-in/absentee ballot has been removed from the signed envelope, there is NO way to connect it back to the envelope it was mailed in. That's what make's it a SECRET ballot. If there was a way to tie the envelope to the ballot, people would be screaming to high heaven because then the people running the elections would know who voted for whom. And if that data was saved in a database, no matter how secure, it would be available for other people to misuse. Do you really want your state legislature to have access to the names of voters and who they voted for?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

I can see the potential for at least three types of voting.
Internet Voting using a secured eMail address. I can see this as the method of the future.
Mail in Voting. Using the blind envelope as you note with no traces back.
In Person Voting where you have a government supplied photo ID with RFID chip and you vote in person.
None of these record who you voted for. If a person does not want a personalised ID card, they have the two previous options.
All can be secure, and directed to the specific individual.

Records taken are only that you voted, and the method of voting and where. No other information is retained. It's fairly easy to keep track of who voted, where and how. It is also easy to track if you voted twice. The mail in ballot can have tracking information on the outer envelope if necessary with the inner one having no identifying features.

No rocket science... if they really want free and fair elections.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

If that's how California runs their elections then its no wonder the politics are one-sided, that side prob prints thousands of ballots annually. Everywhere I have lived/been a poll worker, ballots were tied back to your identity via bar coding and ID numbers on the ballot itself. Absentee envelopes have a clear window in them so the ballot can be scanned/checked-in to update the website prior to election day. In-person ballots are the same, there's various methods of doing so but typically today you or the poll worker scans the ballot and either an ID or the registration logbook to link your identity to the ballot. Back in the day, the big 1M lever machine had an attendant ensuring that the number for your turn on the machine matched what was in their log for your identity. I suppose you could call our election process a "secret" in that your name isn't on the ballot, but that's a bit misleading IMHO.

My impression is that there are two kinds of American: those trying to vote and those trying to prevent voting.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

p.s., there are two kinds of forum members: those who stay on topic and those who stray off it

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

This whole thread is off-topic. None of this has to do with Engineering Language/Grammar Skills.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
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CWB1, there's NO way that a ballot can be linked to a specific individual. If that was possible, our elections would NOT be secret. If the data exists, it will be compromised. It's just a matter of time.

Here's an item from a Michigan news-site (your profile indicates that you're located in Michigan) where they specifically state:

Take a look at a sample ballot available at the Michigan Voter Information Center — there is no space for a voter's name, address, signature or any other information that could tie that ballot to a specific voter.

Here's the link to the actual article:

https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/202...

BTW, according to the item below, there's already a website where voters can go to confirm that their mail-in/absentee ballots were received, just like we have in California"

https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-5647_125...

Off Topic: Note that I was born and raised in Michigan, left there in 1980 to take a job in California. I was transferred back in 1986 but returned to California 17 months later. Have been here ever since. So, a question, where in Michigan are you located and if you're from Michigan, where would that have been?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

CWB1,
The clear window allows verificaion that the secrecy envelope containing the ballot is there. The ballot can not be seen.
There is evidence of deceased people requesting a mailin ballot because they died after making the request. They did not vote, mail in the requested ballot.
Here in Colorado mailin voting has been going on successfully for years. All registered voters receive a ballot. They have the option of mailing the ballot or voting in person.

Ted

Quote (This whole thread is off-topic. None of this has to do with Engineering Language/Grammar Skills.)

but interesting, and all part of the PC culture.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

"If the data exists, it will can be compromised." Reason for no direct personal information. I wasn't aware that the 'tracking' information was available so a person could confirm the ballot was received... even better.

Quote (where voters can go to confirm that their mail-in/absentee ballots were received,)

or even sent out. I suspect that secure voting is an easy thing to accomplish if those in power really want this to occur.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

Quote (xnuke)

This whole thread is off-topic. None of this has to do with Engineering Language/Grammar Skills.

I don't have any strong opinion on it, but I'm repeating your comment because it seems to have been ignored

=====================================
(2B)+(2B)' ?

...and continues to be.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik