On Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 4:30 PM Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
> All the other examples are also forced and contrived.  This is perhaps worst.  I own several chains for purposes having nothing to do with bondage or oppression.

Chains are an almost universal symbol of bondage and slavery: "Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains", according to Rosseau (please forgive the sexism, his sense was mankind as a whole regardless of sex or gender). How is this contrived? Not just contrived, but the "worst" example of it.

I think you actually understand this and are feigning for rhetorical effect.

ChainMap is suggestive of "sequential interlocked pieces." Obviously, what it does isn't identical to the actual metal construct, but it's reminiscent though.

I could imagine that that some other name of a software object could be named after chains as used in human bondage. But this one simply isn't. I genuinely cannot think of any way metaphorically to connect ChainMap to that.

In contrast, the "master" used in version control directly borrows from so-called "master/slave network architecture." I saw in this thread one implausible argument that it was intended in the sense of "magister." I don't believe it, but even if we stipulate that whoever first used the word in relation to version control meant that, nearly everyone else who discusses it means "master/slave."

I can also imagine some very different software object that used a different sense. If something else really did invoke "master key" (a key that fits all the locks), that might be innocuous. But again, that sense makes no sense in relation to version control, and no one believes that is the meaning.