> As harmless as the word “main” seems in most Western cultures, a comment posted by Mike Schroder (original Japanese text by Takayuki Miyoshi and translation by Shinichi Nishikawa) pointed out that it was problematic in Japanese culture. “In Japan, for example, to put ‘main’ and ‘others’ as different groups has been utilized as an excuse to justify discrimination,” said Miyoshi. “Not caring about suppressing the Ainu people and their culture at all is possible because of the assumption that Yamato folk is the main and others are secondary. I now came to a point to think we should consider that to set one thing as ‘main’ creates marginals that get oppressed.”
I didnt know that, though it does not sound as bad?
I'm Japanese. I read original argument and it looks like not well plausible. Some Japanese tend to classify people and things to main「主要な」 / other「その他」 but it not mean "main" is discriminative word. It's just "main" but sometimes usage is discriminative.
https://wptavern.com/proposal-to-rename-the-master-branch-fr...
`main` is just as bad as `master` but for a part of the world which is not domestic US.
Plus... you do know there's this thing called "Masters" degree, right?