trans rule (cw: slur)

Calling a transmission a tranny just makes you sound 50 years old.

that was a decade ago. its 60 now.

I suppose it's a sign of the times - how things move forward, and how we learn from them - wherever you are in the world.

I'm guilty of having used Ford Tranny in the south of England, as it was widely used as a shortened term for the Ford Transit van. There's obviously no intention to use it as a slur as it's literally just a sawn-off model name, but I can see the hurt it would cause to someone from the trans community.

Same in Scotland, "I heard it on the tranny" or "get the tranny on" is simply an expression for a radio receiver, short for the transistor radio. I absolutely understand how it could ruin someone's day when used after being challenged however.

We live and learn.

I mean it's unconfortable to hear it but it's also an entirely different term
Like if you say your tranny failed and you point at your broken down vehicle, it'll sound pretty awkward to a lot of folks these days, but unless they don't know it's used unrelatedly to refer to a transmission I can't imagine many folks are likely to think you're trying to describe them as a lesser, invalid human on the basis of how they relate to gender.
I'd find it a bit awkward or uncomfortable but I certainly wouldn't take offense by it.
I don't think anyone who's used it to refer to like a transmission or transceiver or transit van is a bad person or anything. There's a lot of room for misunderstanding but part of communication is knowing your audience. Honestly that's probably the biggest reason I think it's a good thing it's falling out of favour- there's less room for misunderstanding
- reminds me of the debate in programming about the central branch yor all changes in git being called master. people wanted the terminology changed because they thought it was about slavery, like master/slave hardware devices. but it's not; it's your known-good version, like a mastered mix of a music track. that word has a different root and was never connected to slavery.
  ...but if you have to explain that every time, then changing it may be for the better. not because the people using it are bad, but because it makes new folks less likely to join. so the new default is main.
- honestly even without it being the same as a slur it would only sound right coming from an aussie, otherwise it doesn't feel like a natural shortening
Geography matters; smoking a fag in the UK and Ireland is quite normal, but in the US that'd be a hate crime!
- Context matters, there's a big difference between pointing at my car and saying 'I fucked my trans.' and pointing at my (hypothetical) partner and saying 'I fucked my trans.'. Two completely different meanings.
I'm in the south of England. I've never heard a Transit being called a Tranny or Trans. I'm not in the business of using them though.
- Midlands person here. I can confirm that tranny was/is short for the transit van.
  And it was also short for transvestite.
  We never used it to mean a transmission, we have always called them gearboxes.
It's weird how anglophones shorten names with the suffix -ny

High five from a failed cis

What? Having issues with the water holding system?
Get a crack in your cistern?
- Slowly leaking out of the water closet.

Pour one out for all the folks who tried to transition and ended up a transmission. Tough way to go.

I remember forever ago on Reddit, someone would post in the trans sudreddit asking for help on a transmission issue and still getting helpful replies.

"failed trans" sounds like a pejorative for detransitioners

I still often say trans/tranny when referring to a transmission. It's hard to train those language patterns out of yourself. Not to mention things like master and slave cylinders, hermophradite/mophradite calipers and fittings, gender changers.

Reamers and reaming, bastard files and bastard threads, deep hole drilling, male/female fittings, shafts and lube, prongs, orifice.

Open source has tried to redefine master/slave in things like SPI to controller and peripheral, ie. MOSI/COPI but the rest of the documentation and all of the documentation that came before it still uses it.

Technical language is full of this stuff and is often the clearest way to express something. It is the standard and changing industrial standards is very hard.

It's funny, is changing this stuff performative or does it really matter?

I would say it matters. However, it is likely that new terms being created today will become offensive in the future.

I could see Big Endian and Little Endian becoming offensive if it isn't already considered offensive.

Allowlist/Blocklist vs whitelist/blacklist in software.
A lot of product changed the terms on the front end but the backend still uses it, and our internal tools mostly use it.
Big Endian/Little Endian is a reference to Gulliver's Travels, where there was a society that argued whether to break hard boiled eggs on the little end or the big end. It is pretty much non offensive and would take a stretch to become offensive in the future.
- It's also a children's song that I was taught as a child in kindergarten or maybe church. That's what i associate it with.
What's the issue with lube?
- You tell someone to go lube the shaft in complete seriousness, and they're going to giggle and pull a, "That's what she said..."
  Not a probelm, per se, but it is a good example of just how much of technical language can be perceived as a double entendre. I generally don't realize I've said anything like that until a new kid starts snickering.
  This is also part, not all, of the reason there is resistance to changing these things. A good chunk of that resistance is because those using these words have no bad intent whatsoever. It's not even on the radar.
  And of course, there are plenty of bigoted shitheads who don't want to change.
- Nothing, nor is there any issue with big / little endian, no relation to "Indian", which is a different word with a different pronunciation.
  Some of those things do matter, like "black / white" meaning "bad / good" as it affects the way we think about those colours, and "master / slave" is dependent on context.

😔

I'm a big fan of Humble Mechanic (pictured) content. He doesn't strike me as someone who is unsympathetic to LGBTQIA+ matters, though his content never touches on anything like that so I'm just guessing

I love my blue collar brother in law 🥰 he answers all my stupid questions