[happytoexplain]

You mean the parent is arguably false. Truth-keeping aside, you're saying that people working in contexts where blacklist/whitelist are used, after they have learned the terms, now know those terms, whereas they don't yet know the terms allowlist/blocklist, since they've never heard them. Of course this is obvious, and not what the parent is saying. The parent is saying that, given equal opportunity, one is more semantically explicit than the other. We see this argument often: Naming things, as it goes, is the hardest problem, and when somebody thinks of a better name, there is understandable friction against switching because the previous name is entrenched in practice. This is the argument being had (in this specific thread of a few comments), and you should attempt to have it.

[CydeWeys]

Good summary, 100% agree with all of this. And I'd add that the friction of switching to allowlist/denylist, at least for new projects, is very low, because the terms are obvious on their face. Once you've seen them once you know what they mean.

[modzu]

but any linguist can tell you that is not how language works. words are NOT their etymology. and words are as much about their sound as any potential explicit connotations