Honor the Exotic Pliers

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By Paul Spinrad
Posted 2012/04/12 @ 10:06 am
Category General, Tools

Wire strippers?

On Brookelynn Morris’ video instructions for our zippy new Supercap Racer kit, YouTube user hevyAccel makes a thoughtful comment:

You have to be more PC! They aren’t wire strippers! They are “exotic pliers!”

Thank you, hevyAccel — you are absolutely right. I am using the term “exotic pliers” from now on!

(Check out the kit– these things are fun!)

BY Paul Spinrad

I'm the executive editor of MAKE magazine, and I take great pleasure in helping makers show-and-tell their clever creations. A broad-spectrum enthusiast and conspiracy theory advocate, I'm also the father of two adorable children.

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5 Responses to Honor the Exotic Pliers

ka1axy on April 12th, 2012 at 11:50 am said:

I prefer to use a pair of dikes (“diagonal cutters” takes too long to say) to cut wire.

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- rocketguy1701 on April 12th, 2012 at 2:25 pm said:
  
  I was training an network cabling crew that comprised of two openly lesbian women, and got to the part where I explained “this is a pair of dikes” and realized what I had just said. I think that was the reddest I ever turned, while rapidly explaining the etiology of the phrase from diagonal cutters… Fortunately I think they were more amused at my coloration than offended.
  
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  ka1axy on April 13th, 2012 at 3:38 am said:
  
  It’s probably a good thing that we don’t use resistor color codes any more. The little phrase that’s stuck in my mind was never very PC, but perfectly engineered to stick in the mind of a teen boy, so I have to admire that.
  
  I work with female engineers, too, which is a very good thing — we’ve been driving half the good minds out there into other careers for way too long.
  
  Reply ↓
datamonger on April 13th, 2012 at 11:02 am said:

Sorry, sticking with wire strippers…just try going to buy a pair of exotic pliers anywhere (try doing an Internet search). People get too wound up in finding offensive meanings in things that people say. I say if you do that, you need a vacation. Dikes are diagonal cutters, wire strippers are not exotic pliers. Are we going to start calling a screwdriver a rotary fastener tool?

Reply ↓
- Paul Spinrad on April 13th, 2012 at 11:15 am said:
  
  I like “rotary fastener tool” — but first we should OK that designation with the Rotary Club to make sure they’re comfortable with it.
  
  Reply ↓