Split Infinitives
Niall Anglin
splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions
unnecessarily. I want to emphasize that I'm willing to make exceptions.
Now get a load of this bad example taken from a daily tip from Winmag:
(To just search the Registry's Values or Data sections, run regedit.exe.
Select Edit/Find, and then make sure either "Values" or "Data" is the
only box checked off.)
"To just search" seems grossly careless to me. I would have written, "To
search just for...". I know there will be plenty of you out there ready
to fight about it. Come on, I dare anyone to try to defend "To just
search".
Niall
--
Toronto, Canada
j. lyle
There is no defense for it--but the problem is not the fact that the "to"
is split from the infinitive; it's simply poorly worded. It would have
been much better to write something like "To do a simple search of the
Registry's values. . . . " And there is no such "rule" against "splitting
an infinitive"; that was a made-up rule, brought in from Latin, that has
never had any pertinence to English. The same goes for ending a sentence
with a preposition. The adverb and the preposition should go where they
belong most naturally; sometimes that is not between the "to" and the
infinitive or at the end of a sentence, and sometimes it is.
Now, here is an infinitive that *should* be split from its "to"; this
example is from a current book:
"This record of deception . . . will alert future generations to question
seriously special pleas about national security. . . ." Here the unnatural
attempt to avoid "splitting an infinitive" (which is impossible in
English; "to" is not part of the infinitive) has created ambiguity. Many
readers will initially assume that "seriously" is meant to modify the
adjective that follows it, as in "to question pleas that are seriously
special." That misreading, even though it will be momentary, will force
those readers to back up to pick up the correct direction of the
sentence--something that would not have been necessary if the adverb had
been correctly and naturally placed: "will alert future generations to
seriously question special pleas about national security."
Niall Anglin
j. lyle wrote:
> ... the problem is not the fact that the "to" is split from the infinitive;
Splitting the "to" from its second half is my problem.
> it's simply poorly worded. It would have
> been much better to write something like "To do a simple search of the
> Registry's values. . . .
I agree - anything to make the message more lucid and to convey the thought in
the simplest way.
> " And there is no such "rule" against "splitting an infinitive"; that was a
> made-up rule, brought in from Latin, that has never had any pertinence to
> English. The same goes for ending a sentence
> with a preposition. The adverb and the preposition should go where they
> belong most naturally; sometimes that is not between the "to" and the
> infinitive or at the end of a sentence, and sometimes it is.
My use of the word "rule" is misleading. Let's call it a guideline. No doubt
exceptions are appropriate as in your following example where the placement of
the modifier leads to ambiguity. There must be discipline in English grammar.
The infinitive is a unit and the two words of the infinitive belong together,
except when there is a good, thoughtful reason to split them. It is only
logical to keep them together, and to separate them carelessly without
premeditation is undisciplined.Latin had a great influence in the evolution of
English. Is it right to discount a prescribed order of words, which were
taught emphatically by my English teachers and by the teachers of most of the
people I know, because its origins are found in an ancient language? Latin is
not an obscure language to English but rather they are closely related by the
fact that Latin was authoritative among the educated aristocracy in former
times. If the rule came from Latin, so be it. Does that permit us in 1998 to
decide that it is not legitimate?
> Now, here is an infinitive that *should* be split from its "to"; this
> example is from a current book:
>
> "This record of deception . . . will alert future generations to question
> seriously special pleas about national security. . . ." Here the unnatural
> attempt to avoid "splitting an infinitive" (which is impossible in
> English; "to" is not part of the infinitive) has created ambiguity. Many
> readers will initially assume that "seriously" is meant to modify the
> adjective that follows it, as in "to question pleas that are seriously
> special." That misreading, even though it will be momentary, will force
> those readers to back up to pick up the correct direction of the
> sentence--something that would not have been necessary if the adverb had
> been correctly and naturally placed: "will alert future generations to
> seriously question special pleas about national security."
If that were a speech it would be alright as originally written because the
speaker could inflect the wrod 'seriously' and be clearly. If written to be
read, I agree the reader may have to go back to read it again, in which case a
change may be required, though I might be obstinate enough still to avoid
writing "to seriously question".Niall
--
Toronto, Canada
JR Pelland
>
.Latin had a great influence in the evolution of
> English. Is it right to discount a prescribed order of words, which were
> taught emphatically by my English teachers and by the teachers of most of the
> people I know, because its origins are found in an ancient language? Latin is
> not an obscure language to English but rather they are closely related by the
> fact that Latin was authoritative among the educated aristocracy in former
> times. If the rule came from Latin, so be it. Does that permit us in 1998 to
> decide that it is not legitimate?
Since English is a Germanic language, it seems rather foolhardy to try
to impose the grammatical rules of a language to which it is not even
related. I think clarity and fluidity are the important factors to
consider. It is simply pedantic and silly to adhere to a rule which can
render a sentence ambiguous or unwieldy.
Jean-Richard Pelland
>
P&DSchultz
> ...
> The infinitive is a unit and the two words of the infinitive belong together, <...>
English infinitives, like Latin ones, consist of single words, so
they can't be split. In the sentence "Joe can juggle," the word
"juggle" is the infinitive. The "to" which sometimes marks the
infinitive is not part of it. Buy a grammar book.
> <...> Latin had a great influence in the evolution of
> English. Is it right to discount a prescribed order of words, which were
> taught emphatically by my English teachers and by the teachers of most of the
> people I know, because its origins are found in an ancient language? Latin is
> not an obscure language to English but rather they are closely related by the
> fact that Latin was authoritative among the educated aristocracy in former
> times. If the rule came from Latin, so be it. Does that permit us in 1998 to
> decide that it is not legitimate? <...>
Ok, then. Use Latin as a model. There is no rule in Latin against
splitting infinitives, so there is none in English either. Thank you.
//P. Schultz
Alex R. Cohen
JR Pelland wrote in message <35C671...@cyberbeach.net>...
>Since English is a Germanic language, it seems rather foolhardy to try
>to impose the grammatical rules of a language to which it is not even
>related. I think clarity and fluidity are the important factors to
>consider. It is simply pedantic and silly to adhere to a rule which can
>render a sentence ambiguous or unwieldy.
I tested Mr. Pelland's theory using his own paragraph. I count 35 words of
Germanic origin, 21 words of Romantic origin and one word that combines the
two. That's 61% German, 37% Latin--approximately what my third-grade teacher
taught us. One-third is pretty good for a language to which English is not
related. Note that as the paragraph proceeds, it becomes more and more
Latinate.
Latin is even more common in the paragraph than those numbers show: Many of
the Germanic words are repeated and therefore counted more than once.
By the way, Mr. Pelland himself avoids dangling a preposition: "to which it
is not even related."
Roots (L=Latin; G=Germanic):
Since G
English G
is G
a G
Germanic L (ironic, isn't it)
language, L
it G
seems G
rather G
foolhardy L (fool) + G (hardy)
to G
try L
to G
impose L
the G
grammatical L
rules L
of G
a G
language L
to G
which G
it G
is G
not G
even G
related. L
I G
think G
clarity L
and G
fluidity L
are G
the G
important L
factors L
to G
consider. L
It G
is G
simply L
pedantic L, (probably)
and G
silly G
to G
adhere L
to G
a G
rule L
which G
can G
render L
a G
sentence L
ambiguous L
or L
unwieldy. G
Source: AHD3 (individual entries).
R.C. O'Finn
<ac3...@american.edu> wrote:
> JR Pelland wrote in message <35C671...@cyberbeach.net>...
> >Since English is a Germanic language, it seems rather foolhardy to try
> >to impose the grammatical rules of a language to which it is not even
> >related. I think clarity and fluidity are the important factors to
> >consider. It is simply pedantic and silly to adhere to a rule which can
> >render a sentence ambiguous or unwieldy.
>
>
> I tested Mr. Pelland's theory using his own paragraph. I count 35 words of
> Germanic origin, 21 words of Romantic origin and one word that combines the
> two. That's 61% German, 37% Latin--approximately what my third-grade teacher
> taught us. One-third is pretty good for a language to which English is not
> related. Note that as the paragraph proceeds, it becomes more and more
> Latinate.
>
> Latin is even more common in the paragraph than those numbers show: Many of
> the Germanic words are repeated and therefore counted more than once.
>
> By the way, Mr. Pelland himself avoids dangling a preposition: "to which it
> is not even related."
Hope you don't mind that I snipped the list...
It seems to me that Pelland's point concerned grammar, not vocabulary.
While English has been greatly influenced by Latin, this influence is (for
the most part) limited to vocabulary. The grammatical differences between
the two languages is so great, that it seems ridiculous to some that one
would desire to apply the rules of one language to the other. However, you
are clearly correct about vocabulary. Interesting list.
R.C. O'Finn
JR Pelland
>
> JR Pelland wrote in message <35C671...@cyberbeach.net>...
> >Since English is a Germanic language, it seems rather foolhardy to try
> >to impose the grammatical rules of a language to which it is not even
> >related. I think clarity and fluidity are the important factors to
> >consider. It is simply pedantic and silly to adhere to a rule which can
> >render a sentence ambiguous or unwieldy.
>
> I tested Mr. Pelland's theory using his own paragraph.
You did nothing of the sort. I was speaking of grammar and syntax not
vocabulary. Any fool knows that one of English's greatest strengths has
been its ability to borrow from other languages and incorporate these
new words as its own. From the Germanic tongues of Angles, Saxons and
Jutes, the language has progressed to the point where almost any
non-native English speaking person can recognise some elements of
vocabulary from his native tongue.
Certainly Latin has had a profound impact on modern English. This is the
result of either direct borrowing, scholarly invention or from borrowing
from Romance languages such as the French spoken by the Normans. English
vocabulary may have few authenic English words in comparison to the
wealth of loan words it has acquired. Nevertheless, English grammatical
rules apply to the new words when the are used in English.
I have heard French speaking people utter such sentences as, "J'ai parké
mon truck dans le driveway". The words are mostly English, but they are
being used in a way that conforms to French grammar and syntax. The
structure of the sentence remains French despite the massive borrowing
from English. This is precisely what English has done to its new
acquisitions.
JR Pelland
Eric Walker
Niall Anglin <niall....@sympatico.ca> wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[on split infinitives and dangling participles - quotes omitted]
Bernard Shaw:
-------------
"Every good literary craftsman splits his infinitives when the sense
demands it. I call for the immediate dismissal of the pedant on your staff
[who chases split infinitives]. It is of no consequence whether he decides
to go quickly or to quickly go."
Wilson Follett:
---------------
"It is in written work that splitting is called for, and desk sets should
include small hatchets of silver or gold for the purpose."
Winston Churchill:
------------------
"This is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
[That is from memory and may not be a precise quotation--but it's close.]
Just good, clean fun . . .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Eric Walker "Language is the dress of thought."
High Boskage House --Dr. Samuel Johnson
Daniel James
> And there is no such "rule" against "splitting
> an infinitive"; that was a made-up rule, brought in from Latin, that has
> never had any pertinence to English.
>
In practice split infintives are to be avoided because they give rise to
ugly sentences, not because they are ungrammatical. Such sentences are
usually best corrected by being rewritten entirely, not simply by moving
the adverb from its offensive position between "to" and the infinitive.
> Now, here is an infinitive that *should* be split from its "to"; this
> example is from a current book:
>
> "This record of deception . . . will alert future generations to question
> seriously special pleas about national security. . . ." Here the unnatural
> attempt to avoid "splitting an infinitive" (which is impossible in
> English; "to" is not part of the infinitive) has created ambiguity. Many
> readers will initially assume that "seriously" is meant to modify the
> adjective that follows it, as in "to question pleas that are seriously
> special."
>
It's a good example, but there's nothing wrong with "seriously to question",
which avoids splitting an infinitive and also avoids the ambiguity you
suggest exists in the sentence as you presented it. In this case I believe
your fear of ambiguity is groundless, as it would not occur to most people
that anyone writing in that style would use a phrase like "seriously
special", which sounds more like the vocaulary of "Wayne's world".
I would, on the whole, agree that in this case "to seriously question" is
acceptable, but my justification would be that serious questioning is a
sufficiently common phenomenon that this is halfway to being a notional
compound verb whose (unsplit) infinitive is "to seriouslyquestion" (hyphenate
that if you wish).
I would probably restructure the sentence to say something like "Because of
this record of deception ... future generations will seriously question ..."
which avoids splitting the infinitive, avoids any possibility of ambiguity,
and leads the reader more logically through the steps of the argument than
did the original sentence.
Cheers,
Daniel James
Daniel James
> Since English is a Germanic language ...
>
That's a rather sweeping and only partially accurate statement.
Yes, English has some Germanic roots but it has also been influenced
heavily by Latin, and also to greater or lesser degrees by most of the
other languages in the world.
> ... it seems rather foolhardy to try
> to impose the grammatical rules of a language to which it is not even
> related.
>
English /is/ related to Latin.
In any case, the 'rules' of English Grammar were set down long ago and
it is too late to argue now about whether what has been done was
foolhardy.
Of course, you can change (or break) the rules, but not without
changing the language.
Cheers,
Daniel James
R.C. O'Finn
inte...@nospam.demon.co.uk wrote:
> In article <35C671...@cyberbeach.net>, JR Pelland wrote:
> > Since English is a Germanic language ...
> >
>
> That's a rather sweeping and only partially accurate statement.
English _is_ a Germanic language, more specifically, a West Germanic
language. Historically and grammatically, English is far more closely
related to German, Yiddish, Dutch/Flemish, Afrikaans, and especially
Frisian than to any other languages. While it has a vast number of
borrowings from Greek and Latin, these must be recognised as such. The
Germanic vocabulary has been in English as long as English can be traced
through history. The Italic, Romance, and Greek vocabulary were all later
introductions.
***snip***
> > ... it seems rather foolhardy to try
> > to impose the grammatical rules of a language to which it is not even
> > related.
> >
>
> English /is/ related to Latin.
True, but English is also related to Gaelic, Kurdish, Persian, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Russian, Pashto, Assamese, and many other languages. Do we try
to impose those grammars on English? Yes, Latin has had a greater
influence on English than any of the other languges listed above, but that
doesn't seem a justification for some sort of transative grammar.
> In any case, the 'rules' of English Grammar were set down long ago and
> it is too late to argue now about whether what has been done was
> foolhardy.
The rules of English grammar have never been set down. To my knowledge,
there has never been any institution in Britain or America comparable to
those of France, Spain, Italy, Thailand, or China given authority over the
English language. That's why these arguments still exist, and that's why
English is such a volatile language.
> Of course, you can change (or break) the rules, but not without
> changing the language.
The language is in constant flux. It changes every year, and the 'rules'
of grammar are changing with it.
> Cheers,
> Daniel James
R.C. O'Finn
owfa...@mail.idt.net
Alex R. Cohen
>The rules of English grammar have never been set down. To my knowledge,
>there has never been any institution in Britain or America comparable to
>those of France, Spain, Italy, Thailand, or China given authority over the
>English language. That's why these arguments still exist, and that's why
>English is such a volatile language.
The rules of English grammar have indeed been set down--in many versions.
One version can be found in The Chicago Manual of Style and Usage, another
in Strunk & White, and so forth.
Naturally, each editor disagrees with every other about something and
prepares a stylebook according to his own beliefs. Some journalistic
stylebooks, for example, omit the comma before "and" in a simple series.
Chicago Style includes it. Nonetheless, in each case, the editor is setting
down a rule of grammar.
I, myself, am in the process of drafting a stylebook, which process will
involve making similar decisions. I still have not decided whether I will
permit split infinitives. I'm having much more fundamental problems, such as
figuring out how to place commas rationally. My goal is to create a series
of logical rules, the results of the application of which will not deviate
too much from what is generally accepted.
-Alex R. Cohen
P&DSchultz
> R.C. O'Finn wrote (in pertinent part):
>
> >The rules of English grammar have never been set down. To my knowledge,
> >there has never been any institution in Britain or America comparable to
> >those of France, Spain, Italy, Thailand, or China given authority over the
> >English language. That's why these arguments still exist, and that's why
> >English is such a volatile language.
>
That's just the point. Anybody can sit down and write "the rules
of English." That doesn't mean the actual rules have been set down;
in fact, since each "rule book" is different, it's pretty good
evidence that they haven't been.
Hey, I think I'll sit down and write ME one of them rule books.
Why not? Everybody else is doin' it!
//P. Schultz
howard
>
> "To just search" seems grossly careless to me.
Of course it is - you must evaluate the results of your search or what
is the point?
I would have written, "To
> search just for...". I know there will be plenty of you out there ready
> to fight about it. Come on, I dare anyone to try to defend "To just
> search".
> Niall
Okay - what is a sentence? Philosophically, like? I was under the
impression it is a "unit of thought".
OK, OK, I'm not claiming this is or isn't true! Merely a convenient
label that seems to me to satisfy funtion and etymology (although it
probably comes from the norse for 'dispatched' or something!).
Older texts, particularly those which are written from a grammar of
signposting for oration, often contain longer "sentences" in terms of
our current understanding of the form (sorry, MY current understanding).
However, whilst this may be the case, it is also arguable that the
gerund form "searching" is an implicit, ongoing - and in this instance
overriding - verbform implicit in the chapter/section.
Also, I'm not convinced that it is an inifinitive you are aplitting at
all! To go is a verb. To go softly is a post modified verb.
To do is a verb. To do just seems to make no sense.
Therefore I would advance that "just doing" is a pre-limited "sub-verb"
in it's own right - functionally.
I was just doing the laundry
"was" is the verb, "just doing" is an adverbial? compound adverbial?
If there is a technical phrase for this I would be very glad to be
pointed so it.
I think we are talking tense-referentiality within context...
...I hate being ignorant on stuff like this!
That's the way I see it as defensible - nay preferable.
Take as required...30 days supply!
Please do get a second opinion...
Ta,
howard
--
*theabovemessagedoesnotnecessaril
managAr parChonmorliez? SilateezntelizSane
readRlips - deliriupS
"Olninezapa! telimuapan..."
stufftie gong-hall (y8a9m)
Bill McCray
>Niall Anglin wrote:
>>
>> "To just search" seems grossly careless to me.
>
>Of course it is - you must evaluate the results of your search or what
>is the point?
>
It seems to me that "just" and "only" are often misplaced. As you note,
"to just search for ..." means that you aren't going to do anything else
with what you found. You're just going to search for it. That's why I
much prefer "to search just for ...", meaning you're going to search for
nothing else.
Bill McCray
Lexington, KY
Robert Cort
<ac3...@american.edu> writes
>R.C. O'Finn wrote (in pertinent part):
>
>>The rules of English grammar have never been set down. To my knowledge,
>>there has never been any institution in Britain or America comparable to
>>those of France, Spain, Italy, Thailand, or China given authority over the
>>English language. That's why these arguments still exist, and that's why
>>English is such a volatile language.
>
>
>The rules of English grammar have indeed been set down--in many versions.
>in Strunk & White, and so forth.
>
>Naturally, each editor disagrees with every other about something and
>prepares a stylebook according to his own beliefs. Some journalistic
>stylebooks, for example, omit the comma before "and" in a simple series.
>Chicago Style includes it. Nonetheless, in each case, the editor is setting
>down a rule of grammar.
>
>I, myself, am in the process of drafting a stylebook, which process will
>involve making similar decisions. I still have not decided whether I will
>permit split infinitives. I'm having much more fundamental problems, such as
>figuring out how to place commas rationally. My goal is to create a series
>of logical rules, the results of the application of which will not deviate
>too much from what is generally accepted.
>
>-Alex R. Cohen
>
Churchill summed up the split infinitive argument:
Correct: This is something up with which I shall not put
Colloquial: This is something I shan't put up with
Horror of horrors I have introduced an abbreviation here too!
Most people, except the most pedantic would agree that the colloquial
form is the more understandable and thus can be used.
>
--
Robert Cort
JUST AN H
imperceptibly than others, but even those languages, too, manage to change.)
The beauty of English is that it is spoken by so many people of so many
cultural backgrounds that it is a language that manages to evolve on an almost
daily basis ... unchecked by any governmental watchdog agency ... and seemingly
unbridled by even its own rules.
Charles Riggs
satisfactory way than the English language? I'm referring to
statements such as:
Before I criticize a man, I walk a mile in his shoes.
When a person sleeps, he often dreams,
and so forth. To make these statements in a genderless way is often
stilted and awkward, or am I missing seeing a better way of saying,
for example, "When a person sleeps, that person often dreams"?
Charles
Jim Lawton
>Have other languages solved the him or her problem in a more
the Finnish language has no gender and no words for he/she, instead it
has the genderless 'ha"n' (a" signifying a-umlaut)
>satisfactory way than the English language? I'm referring to
>statements such as:
>Before I criticize a man, I walk a mile in his shoes.
Before I criticize someone, I walk a mile in their shoes.
>When a person sleeps, he often dreams,
When people (someone) sleeps, they often dream.
>and so forth. To make these statements in a genderless way is often
>stilted and awkward, or am I missing seeing a better way of saying,
>for example, "When a person sleeps, that person often dreams"?
>
'They' is of course genderless, so adding plurality always
neutralises.
cheers Jim
as from tabb...@netcomuk.co.uk
>Charles
Patronius
>neutralises.
But unfortunately, it also pluralizes. So you end up with disagreement in
number, which is every bit as inelegant as defaulting to a masculine pronoun.
(The latter also has the benefit of being traditional--and of being in sync
with at least the Romance languages.)
There is no perfectly elegant solution in English. One could make a case for
introducing neutral pronouns (like "Ms.") into the language. But no such
solution is likely to ever make English into a perfectly clean, elegant
language anyway. It has many other "problems."
The real problem in this case is society's preoccupation with being politically
correct when it comes to gender. If we'd simply lighten up on that issue, a
sentence like "When a person sleeps, he often dreams" would sound perfectly OK
and would offend no one.
--Patrick
Opinicus
<3601df89...@194.169.119.101>...
>the Finnish language has no gender and no words for he/she,
instead it
>has the genderless 'ha"n' (a" signifying a-umlaut)
Turkish is the same. One pronoun: "o" for he, she, and it.
One good way to achieve genderlessness in English is to use
"one":
eg "When one sleeps one often dreams."
We don't often do this I admit, but it's possible. The passive
voice (in some languages, the "middle" voice") is another way of
circumventing gender.
Bob
---
To reply by email, dot the dash in doruk-net.
Alex R. Cohen
>Before I criticize someone, I walk a mile in their shoes.
"They" is a plural pronoun. "Someone" is singular. The difference between
one person and many people is important and ought to be maintained.
-Alex R. Cohen
janelaw
I would write:
When people sleep, they often dream.
A sleeping person often dreams.
While sleeping, a person often dreams.
I remember thinking that "on" was a handy little word in
french.
It's the implication that "a person" is male that offends me.
JUST AN H
>french.
The English counterpart of "on" is one solution to the problem of "he" used
generally. I.E., "When one sleeps, one often dreams."
Petibacsi
>has the genderless 'ha"n' (a" signifying a-umlaut)
Somebody else mentioned Turkish.
Now of course we have the Hungarian language too, with tha same genderless
"o" like Turkish has..
Well, an interesting thing is that Finnish and Hungarian are language
relatives and Hungarian was influenced by Turkish during the medieval times. So
maybe that explains it.
BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is absolutelly
unneccessary.
Peti
Patronius
>unneccessary.
>
> Peti
That's true; it is unnecessary. But language is not logical; to a large extent
it's arbitrary and conventional.
Language does not merely serve as a means of exchanging data-bytes; it reflects
the culture in which it developed. I think that on a rather subtle--perhaps
subconscious--level, there's a real difference in outlook & attitude between
people whose native language divides everything into genders and those whose
native language does not. Languages like Swahili also divide things into
animate & inanimate; and it's interesting that a people would consider that
distinction so important. Old languages like Latin and Russian tend to grow
very complex, until they collapse under their own weight; but before they
collapse, they're capable of expressing many shades of meaning.
Why Hungarian needs some 15 case endings, I don't know. But that's fascinating
too. I read that Hungarian is probably the most complicated language in the
world.
English is evolving into an ever simpler Germanic language (taking on aspects
of Chinese, oddly enough). It has done away with the "familiar vs formal"
distinction, and it has largely done away with gender distinctions (the vast
majority of nouns are neuter). It will probably continue to become simpler.
But it will never be 100 percent logical. Logic is unnatural to human
language.
--Patrick
Patronius
>>french.
But in German, of course, the counterpart is "man"--which must irritate those
who want to do away with every last vestige of gender distinction.
>The English counterpart of "on" is one solution to the problem of "he" used
>generally. I.E., "When one sleeps, one often dreams."
But when one resorts to such a device, one comes across as snooty or stuffy.
--Patrick
the jungle kitty
>
> >>I remember thinking that "on" was a handy little word in
> >>french.
>
> But in German, of course, the counterpart is "man"--which must irritate those
> who want to do away with every last vestige of gender distinction.
>
I bitched out my Sociology professor over this. From the first day, I
could tell this guy was PC. He twisted the Declaration of Independence
by quoting "We hold these truths to be self-evident that *all* are
created equally." When a student asked "Shouldn't that be 'all men are
created equally?'" Dr. Moore quipped "We live in more enlightened
times."
Later that semester, he flubbed another quote to agree with his agenda.
I can't remember the exact quote but it was from a German sociologist.
Again, someone corrected him. Dr. Moore said rather smugly "Well, in
German 'man' means 'man' and we try to avoid sexist language here."
This made me rather hot. I spoke up and explained that "man" is similar
to saying "he" or "one" in general context. "Der Mann" means "man" as
in the male of the species. Several other students who knew German
agreed. Nonetheless, the professor would have none of it and insisted
on using his modern (and expedient) translation. Tenure must be nice.
http://members.home.net/jkitty/inkhorn
(and still working on the eponyms page...)
janelaw
>
>
> BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is absolutelly
> unneccessary.
>
> Peti
You know, I have never understood this, either. I understand
that there are three general groups of nouns in Latin, and that
they are called masculine, feminine, and neuter. I believe all
the romance languages still have gender distinction. But why?
How did this start? Why is a table feminine and a box
masculine? That Swahili animate/inanimate distinction at least
seems to have some rational basis. Is there any rhyme or reason
to gender distinctions?
Jim Schaerer
to the following group(s) - alt.english.usage:
> BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is absolutelly
>unneccessary.
>
> Peti
PLEASE feel free to explain that to my German teacher.
- Jim Schaerer
------------------------------------
To respond via e-mail, remove the
obvious "NOSPAM" from my address
(NOSPA...@swbell.net).
Jim Lawton
had a quick scan of deja.news, and can't find it, but the basic
premise seemed to be that in the early languages, masculinity was
ascribed to things which acted, and femininity to those which were
acted upon. As to neuter I don't recall. (This logic does *not* apply
to the usages of modern languages of course)
Jim
On 8 Sep 1998 04:08:32 GMT, janelaw <jan...@excite.com> wrote:
>Petibacsi wrote:
>>
>>
>> BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is absolutelly
>> unneccessary.
>>
>> Peti
>
Jim Lawton
>
>Why Hungarian needs some 15 case endings, I don't know.
Well if it's like Finnish (which they say has 17), amongst other
things the cases take the place of many prepositions. Finnish renders
'on' 'in' 'off' 'out of' 'off of' etc as cases. Also because there are
no definite and indefinite articles there are cases to indicate these,
plus there are all the more usual case endings, genitive etc.
>I read that Hungarian is probably the most complicated language in the
>world.
Well I doubt it. Because it, like Finnish, isn't an indo-european
language, it will require a change in mind-set to learn it. Your brain
has to learn to pick up on those case endings, instead of just
substituting one set of prepositions for another. However, having seen
people struggle with Japanese I believe that's much more complicated
than Finnish to learn. How do we judge? Maybe like dendro-chronology.
I have learned (or tried to) Dutch, French, German, and Finnish, and
rate them in that order of difficulty. Now if we can find someone who
has German Finnish and Swahili, we can discover the relative
difficulty of Dutch and Swahili :-) etc.
Cheers Jim
Daniel James
> "They" is a plural pronoun. "Someone" is singular.
No, "they" can be either singular or plural.
The OED notes of "they" that it is "Often used in reference to a singular
noun made universal by /every/, /any/, /no/, etc., or applicable to one of
either sex (= 'he or she')".
> The difference between
> one person and many people is important and ought to be maintained.
>
I agree that it's important, but I can't think offhand of any context in
which there is likely to be ambiguity. If such a context does exist then
the answer, as always, is to change the construction of the sentence in
order to remove the ambiguity.
Using "they" where one might otherwise use "he" (in its gender-neutral
sense) is certainly not incorrect, though it does not always result in the
most attractive of sentences.
There is also a difference in semantics, consider:
"Fred says he can walk on water, but nobody believes he can do that"
and
"Fred says he can walk on water, but nobody believes they can do that"
The former passage states that Fred's audience do not believe his claim but
says nothing to tell us whether Fred believes it himself while the latter
passage suggests that Fred himself does not believe the claim and tells us
nothing about the response of his audience. In other words, the pronoun
"he" is a reference to Fred, while the pronoun "they" is a reference to the
subject of the verb to believe.
Cheers,
Daniel James
Daniel James
> I would write:
>
> When people sleep, they often dream.
> A sleeping person often dreams.
> While sleeping, a person often dreams.
>
Indeed, or "When one sleeps, one often dreams", or perhaps "When
someone sleeps, they often dream", or "sleeping people often dream".
However, there's nothing wrong with "When a man sleeps, he often
dreams", and in English it should not be taken to refer to a male
person because "man" and "he" are accepted gender-neutral terms in the
English language.
> It's the implication that "a person" is male that offends me.
>
It shouldn't offend you because there is no such implication. It's just
that the masculine and gender-neutral terms use the same word.
By all means use "person" and "one" and "they" if you prefer - it's a
matter of personal taste and style - but please be assured that there
is nothing sexist, offensive, or improper in using "man", "he", "him",
"his", etc., as gender-neutral words.
Cheers,
Daniel James
Petibacsi
>>
>> Peti
>PLEASE feel free to explain that to my German teacher.
Well, when I had to learn German I was simply so funny lazy that I didn't
learn the genders. :)
Peti
Patronius
>to saying "he" or "one" in general context. "Der Mann" means "man" as
>in the male of the species.
True enough. But if there's no etymological connection, I'll eat my hat.
I agree that your teacher was being silly, however. :-)
--Patrick
Sergei Lissianoi
> by quoting "We hold these truths to be self-evident that *all* are
> created equally." When a student asked "Shouldn't that be 'all men
> are created equally?'" Dr. Moore quipped "We live in more enlightened
> times."
The next step would be to have a government institution devoted to
re-writing historical documents ( as in Orwell's '1984').
Opinicus
<199809072355...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
> BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is
absolutelly
>unneccessary.
reason why the Romans thought that farmers "agricola", sailors
"nauta", and beards "barba" should be "feminine gender" but at
some point they forgot the reason and must have had a devil of a
time convincing their kids in school. "Nauta" for example
conforms to the "feminine" grammatical pattern but takes
"masculine" adjectives. Gardens "hortus" on the other hand are
masculine but tree-names, regardless of ending (eg "cupressus")
are feminine.
Go figure.
No wonder the Roman Empire fell.
;-)
To return to alt.english.usage, is there any advantage today in
maintaining the distinctions between "duck" and "drake" or
"goose" and "gander"?
And what about the "ship" business? Are vessels still commonly
referred to as "she"? I tend to preserve this ancient custom but
the other day I was translating something into English in which
a ship named "Halit Temel" was constantly referred to. The
namesake is (was?) male and a personal acquaintance. Referring
to the ship as "she" and "her" annoyed me so that I changed all
the references to "it".
As an aside I might add that many years ago I was involved in
the translation, from Turkish to English, of a contract between
the US embassy and somebody or other. The United States was
(?were) repeatedly referred to as "she" in the text. Is that
still standard?
Bob
Istanbul
P&DSchultz
>
> Petibacsi wrote in message
> <199809072355...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
> > BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is
> absolutelly
> >unneccessary.
> Well... At one time I guess there must have been a linguistic
> reason why the Romans thought that farmers "agricola", sailors
> "nauta", and beards "barba" should be "feminine gender" but at
> some point they forgot the reason and must have had a devil of a
They never thought "agricola," "nauta," and "barba" were feminine
gender, because they never were. They were always masculine. And I
don't think they or their kids even noticed it, just as modern Germans
are not generally amazed from day to day that knife, fork, and spoon
are all different genders.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
>
> >They never thought "agricola," "nauta," and "barba" were feminine
> >gender, because they never were. They were always masculine. And I
> >don't think they or their kids even noticed it, just as modern Germans
> >are not generally amazed from day to day that knife, fork, and spoon
> >are all different genders.
>
> a matter of rote. But if you go back far enough, there *was* a reason that
> nouns were assigned different genders. And I believe subconscious connections
> may still be there.
>
> For instance, "agricola" immediately calls to mind "mother Earth"--and the
> memory (picked up in a mid-70s anthropology class) that many agrarian cultures
> are matriarchal.
>
> Likewise, "nauta" calls up an image of the sea, whose tides are driven by the
> moon (astrologically a feminine "planet"), which is associated with the female
> menstrual cycle.
>
> "Barba" doesn't as readily call up feminine imagery. But a beard droops down
> toward mother Earth, and it tends to be rounded and of a relatively soft
> texture. So there are some pretty clear feminine associations available.
>
> The gender distinctions are too ancient to trace back scientifically; and if
> they have any validity today, it's subtle, subconscious, or esoteric. But that
> doesn't mean it's not real.
>
> It's superficial that farmers and sailors were usually male and that beards
> grow on male faces. Obviously these superficial connections were not what the
> original "gender namers" had in mind. I suspect they had something in mind
> such as I sketched out above.
It is interesting speculation, but I think it can easily be overdone.
You could produce a psychological analysis of why knife, fork, and
spoon are different genders in German -- although why the spoon with
its smooth concave surface is masculine, while the fork with its
intrusive and protruding tines is feminine, is beyond me.
If gender really had some connection to reality, then nouns with the
same meaning should generally have the same gender in all languages
that use gender. But they don't. It's all over the place. I think it is
all remnants of a lexical classification system that had nothing
whatsoever to do with sex.
//P. Schultz
JUST AN H
>by quoting "We hold these truths to be self-evident that *all* are
>created equally."
That applause you hear in the background is from all those who are thoroughly
sickened by those who take PC to such extremes. I recently quit a singing
group in disgust for the same reason. We were rehearsing for a Christmas
concert last year and decided to include a certain religious song in our
repertoire. Before practicing however, we had to go through and pencil out all
masculine references to Jesus and God ("He," Him" and "the Father"). "He" and
"Him" became "the Light" and "the Father" became "the Caregiver." It was
bullshit, and I never sang with that group again.
Patronius
--Patrick
the jungle kitty
> Well... At one time I guess there must have been a linguistic
> reason why the Romans thought that farmers "agricola", sailors
> "nauta", and beards "barba" should be "feminine gender" but at
> some point they forgot the reason and must have had a devil of a
> conforms to the "feminine" grammatical pattern but takes
> "masculine" adjectives. Gardens "hortus" on the other hand are
> masculine but tree-names, regardless of ending (eg "cupressus")
> are feminine.
>
> Go figure.
>
> No wonder the Roman Empire fell.
>
> ;-)
Please refer to Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" on this one. The
classic centurion correcting the usurper's grammar.
> To return to alt.english.usage, is there any advantage today in
> maintaining the distinctions between "duck" and "drake" or
> "goose" and "gander"?
Is a guy from Michigan a "Michigander" or a "Michigoose?" ;)
Alex R. Cohen
>However, there's nothing wrong with "When a man sleeps, he often
>dreams", and in English it should not be taken to refer to a male
>person because "man" and "he" are accepted gender-neutral terms in the
>English language.
"Man" or "mankind," meaning the entire species, is valid. "A man" is a
mature (in the opinion of the speaker/writer) male human being.
That, at least, is how I understand the words.
The other thing to remember is that, since "he" is never used for a specific
female person (and I use the phrase deliberately), it has a connotation of
masculinity when used for an unspecified person of unspecified gender.
"One" works. Avoiding a pronoun often works. Making the sentence plural
often works. "He or she" works, but it can get annoying.
One strategy I often apply is to use both "he" and "she" as universal:
"When a person sleeps, he often dreams..."
"When a person awakens, she often..."
This, however, can suggest that certain characteristics are being associated
with males and others with females, so be careful.
The key here, I think, is to avoid sending unintended sexist messages while
maintaining the distinction between singular and plural. The result will, I
believe, be usage that is more rational than the universal "he," not less
rational, as is the singular "they."
-Alex R. Cohen
Charles Riggs
<inte...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <35F42276...@excite.com>, Janelaw wrote:
>> I would write:
>>
>> When people sleep, they often dream.
>> A sleeping person often dreams.
>> While sleeping, a person often dreams.
>>
>
>Indeed, or "When one sleeps, one often dreams", or perhaps "When
>someone sleeps, they often dream", or "sleeping people often dream".
>
>However, there's nothing wrong with "When a man sleeps, he often
>dreams", and in English it should not be taken to refer to a male
>person because "man" and "he" are accepted gender-neutral terms in the
>English language.
Of course. That was my original point. Many times in the writings of
today, I see "she" or "her" used as the genderless pronoun. This jars
my mind. (But, why should it?) There's a defect in our language and I
still maintain that.
Charles
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>Patronius wrote:
>>
>> >>I remember thinking that "on" was a handy little word in
>> >>french.
>>
>> But in German, of course, the counterpart is "man"--which must irritate those
>> who want to do away with every last vestige of gender distinction.
>>
>> --Patrick
>
>
>I bitched out my Sociology professor over this. From the first day, I
>could tell this guy was PC. He twisted the Declaration of Independence
>by quoting "We hold these truths to be self-evident that *all* are
>created equally." When a student asked "Shouldn't that be 'all men are
>created equally?'" Dr. Moore quipped "We live in more enlightened
>times."
>
>Later that semester, he flubbed another quote to agree with his agenda.
>I can't remember the exact quote but it was from a German sociologist.
>Again, someone corrected him. Dr. Moore said rather smugly "Well, in
>German 'man' means 'man' and we try to avoid sexist language here."
>
>This made me rather hot. I spoke up and explained that "man" is similar
>to saying "he" or "one" in general context. "Der Mann" means "man" as
>in the male of the species. Several other students who knew German
>agreed. Nonetheless, the professor would have none of it and insisted
>on using his modern (and expedient) translation. Tenure must be nice.
Your professor sounds the right pompous ass all right. But tell me, is
"bitched out" proper English - even as slang? I've never heard the
expression so I was curious.
Charles
Charles Riggs
>> BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is absolutelly
>>unneccessary.
>>
>> Peti
>
>That's true; it is unnecessary. But language is not logical; to a large extent
>it's arbitrary and conventional.
>
>Language does not merely serve as a means of exchanging data-bytes; it reflects
>the culture in which it developed. I think that on a rather subtle--perhaps
>subconscious--level, there's a real difference in outlook & attitude between
>people whose native language divides everything into genders and those whose
>native language does not. Languages like Swahili also divide things into
>animate & inanimate; and it's interesting that a people would consider that
>distinction so important. Old languages like Latin and Russian tend to grow
>very complex, until they collapse under their own weight; but before they
>collapse, they're capable of expressing many shades of meaning.
>
>Why Hungarian needs some 15 case endings, I don't know. But that's fascinating
>too. I read that Hungarian is probably the most complicated language in the
>world.
>
>English is evolving into an ever simpler Germanic language (taking on aspects
>of Chinese, oddly enough). It has done away with the "familiar vs formal"
>distinction, and it has largely done away with gender distinctions (the vast
>majority of nouns are neuter). It will probably continue to become simpler.
>But it will never be 100 percent logical. Logic is unnatural to human
>language.
>
>
>
>--Patrick
I learned from and immensely enjoyed your post. It should be required
reading so I didn't dare snip a word of it. Thank you.
Charles
Charles Riggs
Lawton) wrote:
>On 8 Sep 1998 01:30:52 GMT, patr...@aol.com (Patronius) wrote:
>>
>>Why Hungarian needs some 15 case endings, I don't know.
>
>
>Well if it's like Finnish (which they say has 17), amongst other
>things the cases take the place of many prepositions. Finnish renders
>'on' 'in' 'off' 'out of' 'off of' etc as cases. Also because there are
>no definite and indefinite articles there are cases to indicate these,
>plus there are all the more usual case endings, genitive etc.
>
>>I read that Hungarian is probably the most complicated language in the
>>world.
>
>Well I doubt it. Because it, like Finnish, isn't an indo-european
>language, it will require a change in mind-set to learn it. Your brain
>has to learn to pick up on those case endings, instead of just
>substituting one set of prepositions for another. However, having seen
>people struggle with Japanese I believe that's much more complicated
>than Finnish to learn. How do we judge? Maybe like dendro-chronology.
>I have learned (or tried to) Dutch, French, German, and Finnish, and
>rate them in that order of difficulty. Now if we can find someone who
>has German Finnish and Swahili, we can discover the relative
>difficulty of Dutch and Swahili :-) etc.
>
> Cheers Jim
Interesting comments, Jim. I found German, French and Irish the most
difficult, in that order. Irish I find so difficult that I am still
struggling with it and getting virtually nowhere. Which language group
it falls under I don't even know.
Any Irish speakers out there?
Charles
Charles Riggs
Lawton) wrote:
>This has been discussed recently, probably in alt.usage.english. I've
>had a quick scan of deja.news, and can't find it, but the basic
>premise seemed to be that in the early languages, masculinity was
>ascribed to things which acted, and femininity to those which were
>acted upon. As to neuter I don't recall. (This logic does *not* apply
>to the usages of modern languages of course)
>
> Jim
Sexy. I like it.
Charles
Patronius
>still maintain that.
>
>Charles
Well, nothing personal, but--duh! If that's the only defect you ever find in
English, I for one will be very surprised.
--Patrick
Patronius
I agree. (But to me, it's a fun thing to overdo, so I don't mind.)
>You could produce a psychological analysis of why knife, fork, and
>spoon are different genders in German -- although why the spoon with
>its smooth concave surface is masculine, while the fork with its
>intrusive and protruding tines is feminine, is beyond me.
Funny; a plausible reason immediately jumps into my mind: the fork is
"forked"; like the "horns of the crescent moon," dual, or forked things have
long been esoterically associated with the feminine. The spoon, in contrast is
nearly circular (at the working end); the circle or sphere is a symbol of the
Sun, which is traditionally masculine. (Also the circle symbolizes unity--and
the number 1 is traditionally associated with "male," while 2 is associated
with "female"--and all odd & even numbers correspond.)
>If gender really had some connection to reality, then nouns with the
>same meaning should generally have the same gender in all languages
>that use gender. But they don't. It's all over the place.
To me, that's not a convincing argument. Gender doesn't necessarily have any
*current* connection with reality. As I said, most people learn gender by
rote. What I'm saying is that once upon a time, nouns took on gender based on
someone's perception of reality--and it became a convention. That convention
is still with us today, in many languages, and it didn't arise by accident.
It's no more surprising that gender would vary in different languages than it
is that each language has a unique vocabulary. If ever there was a
proto-Indo-European root that most Western languages developed from, that root
has obviously branched out in many directions. That doesn't mean the root
language was completely arbitrary, however. For all we know, the root language
may have been Sanskrit and may have been given to man by God as a whole perfect
system--and we've been bastardizing it ever since.
>I think it is
>all remnants of a lexical classification system that had nothing
>whatsoever to do with sex.
>//P. Schultz
Maybe. But that begs the question: Why would the ancients choose to classify
words into "masculine" and "feminine" categories?
I don't think it has specifically to do with sex either. I think sex is a
manifestation of the same essential distinction that noun gender and other
dichotomies arise from. In other words, I think it's a mistake to picture our
distant ancestors as ignorant cavemen who knew nothing beyond sensory
experience. I think that at the time our "root language" came into being, man
had the availability of mathematics and such. And the gender distinction
arises from something like the distinction between 1 (unity/action) and 2
(duality/reaction).
(Well, I said it was fun for me to overdo this sort of thing, didn't I?) :-)
--Patrick
JR Pelland
>
> Petibacsi wrote:
> >
> >
> > BTW I never get the logic of gender in grammar. I think it is absolutelly
> > unneccessary.
> >
> > Peti
>
> that there are three general groups of nouns in Latin, and that
> they are called masculine, feminine, and neuter. I believe all
> the romance languages still have gender distinction. But why?
> How did this start? Why is a table feminine and a box
> masculine? That Swahili animate/inanimate distinction at least
> seems to have some rational basis. Is there any rhyme or reason
> to gender distinctions?
While some objects may be assigned gender because of perceived
attributes or qualities, I tend to look at language as being arbitrary
and generally devoid of consistent logic.
JUST AN H
>>language.
>>
Pure logic has always been unnatural to a great percentage of humans and has
yet to be attained on a broad scale ... even in these "enlightened" times.
Proof of that is still everywhere: Letters to the Editor in the daily
newspapers, advertisements (which are designed to appeal to our illogical
natures in order to sell everything from diamonds to teddy bears that sing the
"Macarena" when squeezed by an unwitting visitor), rantings at the bar (which
grow more illogical as the evening progresses) and the rhetoric of politicians
during campaign time.
In short, we humans are emotional creatures, and emotions have a way of
clouding logic. Is it therefore surprising that our many languages lack pure
logic in their structure?
J.
JUST AN H
>>to saying "he" or "one" in general context. "Der Mann" means "man" as
>>in the male of the species. Several other students who knew German
>>agreed.
I wouldn't get into such a heat over it. "Der Mann" in German means "the man."
But "Mann" also has a more neutral meaning in German within certain contexts.
For example, "Wie sagt mann 'truck' auf Deutsch?" doesn't mean, "How does a man
say 'truck' in German?" It means, "How do they say 'truck' in German?" (The
answer is "LKW," an abbreviation of "Landkraftwagen.")
While we're on the subject, the German language might not be the most gender
neutral language in the world (i.e., the whole language depends so much on
knowing whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter that a German
automatically learns "der," "die" or "das" when learning a new noun), but the
people struggle with gender as best they can within the confines of their
language. For example, "Fraulein" went out of style years ago, and for the
same reasons that "Miss" disappeared here in the States.
janelaw
>
>
> Maybe. But that begs the question: Why would the ancients choose to classify
> words into "masculine" and "feminine" categories?
This is exactly what I don't understand. Even if the original
dichotomy was passive/active or receiver/donor, how did this end
up being called masculine and feminine? We have active and
passive voices. We have subjunctive and indicative moods. How
the hell did gender get involved with nouns?
>
> I don't think it has specifically to do with sex either. I think sex is a
> manifestation of the same essential distinction that noun gender and other
> dichotomies arise from. In other words, I think it's a mistake to picture our
> distant ancestors as ignorant cavemen who knew nothing beyond sensory
> experience. I think that at the time our "root language" came into being, man
> had the availability of mathematics and such. And the gender distinction
> arises from something like the distinction between 1 (unity/action) and 2
> (duality/reaction).
>
But where did neuter come from? And what kind of society would
consider these concepts of such fundamental import that all
nouns were categorized along these lines?
Is there any chance that gender in language arose during a time
where men's and women's lives were largely separate? Maybe
anything related to stability, agriculture, and family was
feminine while objects connected with hunting, fishing, and
travel were male?
Writer S
>Your professor sounds the right pompous ass all right. But tell me, is
>"bitched out" proper English - even as slang? I've never heard the
>expression so I was curious.
>
>Charles
I've never heard that expression. I've heard "bitched about," as in,
"He bitched about the price," meaning "He complained about the price."
Patronius
>Even if the original
>dichotomy was passive/active or receiver/donor, how did this end
>the hell did gender get involved with nouns? . . .
>But where did neuter come from? And what kind of society would
>consider these concepts of such fundamental import that all
>nouns were categorized along these lines?
>
>Is there any chance that gender in language arose during a time
I believe gender is merely a human symbol for something subtler that goes
beyond gender. Consider creation myths, for instance. In virtually all of
them, there is a deity (usually described as masculine) who somehow brings all
things into manifestation. Quite often, the deity accomplishes this by
copulating with a female deity. But in the interest of preserving the notion
of there being just one supreme deity, the ancient Egyptians said God created
the universe via masturbation. All such creation myths, however, are pretty
obviously symbolic. God is anthropomorphized so that human beings stand a
chance of understanding the story. The truth behind the story is that some
active primordial energy (or deity) acted upon an inactive substance (inert
matter) and brought it to life. IIRC, Christian tradition has it that God
created man from a lump of clay--again, an active force enlivening inert
matter.
I would suppose gender came into language because it's more easily comprehended
than abstract concepts like active/passive or spirit/substance. Thus it makes
a convenient handle for such concepts. Even today, plumbers speak of male and
female pipe fittings. There's a male and female end to your garden hose. It's
just simpler to grasp "female" than "the sort of convex part that's threaded so
that the other part will fit into it." People relate to human things much more
readily than abstractions.
What kind of society would consider these things so fundamentally important?
Any society with a creation myth that involves a creator/creation dichotomy.
Such societies would see that the dichotomy is reflected, microcosmically, in
the creation itself--hence in all the things that nouns name.
Where did neuter come from? Two possible answers: (1) from frustration with
having to tell whether a given object is essentially masculine or feminine in
nature--some things must have baffled the namers, or their successors; so maybe
they just gave up and declared the tough cases to be neuter; (2) from the same
concept that the Egyptian creation myth tries to convey--that God is really
neither masculine nor feminine, but beyond duality--i.e., neuter.
When a language like English (or the Scandinavian languages, etc.) discards
gender for most nouns, it's most likely answer (1) above at work: people just
get tired of remembering the gender of so many nouns, and they can't remember
why it was ever done in the first place, so they drop it and introduce a
"neuter" or "common" gender.
When an ancient language includes a neuter gender, it's most likely answer (2)
at work: the recognition that God--who created good & evil, male & female,
light & dark, and all pairs of opposites--is Itself above any such dichotomy.
God cannot be either male or female, since God cannot be limited.
--Patrick
Charles Riggs
Well, nothing personal either, but I wasn't saying it was the only
one! (Actually, there are two.) :-)
Charles
Ben
janelaw wrote in message <35F42276...@excite.com>...
>>Personally, I'm pretty sick of a) pluralizing all my sentences,
>>and b) people telling me that using "he" to refer to women is
>>not offensive.
>It's the implication that "a person" is male that offends me.
When I read a novel and find "she" used ("when someone sleeps, she often
dreams") the first occurence intrudes on the story. I wake up to the fact
that I am actually reading a book and lose my immersion. Thereafter, I don't
notice it.
Certainly, the implication that "a person" is female does not offend me; why
should it?
Ben.
Ben
Where did it go?
Daniel James
> But tell me, is
> "bitched out" proper English - even as slang? I've never heard the
> expression so I was curious.
>
Is slang proper English? Not really.
I think the intended meaning of "bitched out" is fairly clear to anyone
who has had some exposure to contemporary vernacular English -
especially North American vernacular English - but I wouldn't like to
suggest that it was "Proper English" by any standard.
However, while we're on the subject of so-called "political
correctness": "bitched out" is clearly derived from the word "bitch"
which means a female dog, and I really do think the writer should have
avoided the sexist and specesist overtones and written "creatured out"
or perhaps "organismed out" ;-)
.. but then, of course, none of us would have had any idea at all what
was meant.
Cheers,
Daniel James
Daniel James
> I see "she" or "her" used as the genderless pronoun. This jars
> still maintain that.
>
Agreed. The sensible way to 'fix' the defect is perhaps to use the
existing gender-neutral terms ("he", "him", etc.) in all cases - even
where the reference is to an undisputedly female person - and allow the
feminine forms ("she", "her", etc.) to disappear from the language.
This seems to me to be in keeping with the way that gender has vanished
from other words as English has grown out of German, Latin, etc..
I think this may be what will happen in time, though I can't say I
/like/ the idea.
Cheers,
Daniel James
Daniel James
> Well... At one time I guess there must have been a linguistic
> reason why the Romans thought that farmers "agricola", sailors
> "Nauta" for example conforms to the "feminine" grammatical pattern
> but takes "masculine" adjectives.
>
You appear to be confusing gender with declension. "Nauta",
"agricola", "scriba", etc., are masculine nouns (which is why they
take masculine adjectives) but are exceptions to the general rule that
nouns of the first declension (which you refer to as the "feminine"
grammatical pattern) are all feminine.
Note that there are a good many feminine nouns in other declensions (I
always found it odd that "res" ("thing") was feminine and not neuter)
so calling the first declension 'the "feminine" grammatical pattern' is
somewhat misleading.
> No wonder the Roman Empire fell.
>
> ;-)
>
Wasn't that something to do with barbarian incursions from the North?
the Romans were doing OK until they had to learn German!
Cheers,
Daniel James
JUST AN H
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>
>Wasn't that something to do with barbarian incursions from the North?
>the Romans were doing OK until they had to learn German!
The Romans must have died of heart attacks when they learned that the German
work "Kaiser" (king) is feminine.
J.
P&DSchultz
> The Romans must have died of heart attacks when they learned that the German
> work "Kaiser" (king) is feminine.
First, why would they be surprised? Gender is syntactic, not semantic.
Second, since "Kaiser" is masculine, how would they have learned it
was feminine? Were they lied to?
Third, it doesn't mean king, it mean emperor.
Fourth, German didn't have that word when the Latin-speaking Romans
were around.
There seem to be a Fifth and Sixth in there too, maybe also a Seventh.
Gimme a minute.
//P. Schultz
JUST AN H
>>"bitched out" proper English - even as slang? I've never heard the
>>expression so I was curious.
>>
>
>I've never heard that expres
"To bitch" is slang for "to complain" or "to nag" or "to harangue" and is
usually applied to women engaging in any of the above. (Men don't bitch.)
"To bitch out" is equally vulgar slang and is generally used in business
settings. It conjures up images of a tacky office administrator (again,
usually a woman) berating a group of contrite employees over some wrong, or a
woman berating a customer service clerk at the local K-Mart over a defective
pair of shoes.
JUST AN H
>Where did it go?
I meant "Miss" as a form of address. Here in the States, Gloria Steinem
convinced a huge percentage of women that their marital status was no
stranger's business. Also, a lot of women (especially married women) just grew
plain tired of being addressed as "Ah, excuse me, Miss?" and so that form of
address went the way of shag carpeting, fake panelling and avocado green
clothing back in the 1970s.
Charles
Kaiser is masculine; Kaiserin is feminine
The following was posted 10 Sep 1998 23:32:28 GMT by jus...@aol.com
(JUST AN H):
>> No wonder the Roman Empire fell.
>>>
>>> ;-)
>>>
>>
>>Wasn't that something to do with barbarian incursions from the North?
>>the Romans were doing OK until they had to learn German!
>
>
>The Romans must have died of heart attacks when they learned that the German
>work "Kaiser" (king) is feminine.
>
>J.
janelaw
>
> In article <360849e9...@news.anu.ie>, Charles Riggs wrote:
> > I see "she" or "her" used as the genderless pronoun. This jars
> > my mind. (But, why should it?) There's a defect in our language and I
> > still maintain that.
> >
>
> Agreed. The sensible way to 'fix' the defect is perhaps to use the
> existing gender-neutral terms ("he", "him", etc.) in all cases - even
> where the reference is to an undisputedly female person - and allow the
> feminine forms ("she", "her", etc.) to disappear from the language.
>
>
janelaw
The difference is that in your novel, the "she" is referring to
a female person. What I object to is having "he" applied to
me. I am not a male person. "He" is not gender-neutral.
Charles Riggs
I'm not certain you love women. I have heard men bitch many times. I
have also heard one being called a "bitch" a number of times and I
think the word has come to be one that may be applied to either sex
(referring to people not dogs!).
Charles
janelaw
> from other words as English has grown out of German, Latin, etc..
>
> I think this may be what will happen in time, though I can't say I
> /like/ the idea.
>
> Cheers,
> Daniel James
Actually, I see a different progression. I think the 2nd and
3rd persons are collapsing. I believe the gender neutral
pronoun "you" is gradually replacing both "he" and "she." I see
and hear it far more often than either "one" or he/she.
When you sleep, you often dream.
Pk2222
I think that Justan *does* like women very much, although I do disagree with
his contention that "men don't bitch." I know quite a few who do on a regular
basis!
My brother, who practices (as we euphamistically call it), an alternative
lifestyle, calls his male friends "bitches" on a regular basis and means by it
"a person with a catty, nasty, funny sense of humor." When he thinks women are
mean and funny (therefore worthy of his attention), he applies the same label.
I will admit, however, that I find it vulgar and derogatory in whatever sense
it is used.
pk
janelaw
>
> janelaw writes:
> >Even if the original
> >dichotomy was passive/active or receiver/donor, how did this end
> >up being called masculine and feminine? . . .How
> >the hell did gender get involved with nouns? . . .
> >But where did neuter come from? And what kind of society would
> >consider these concepts of such fundamental import that all
> >nouns were categorized along these lines?
> >
> >Is there any chance that gender in language arose during a time
> >where men's and women's lives were largely separate? . . .
>
> I believe gender is merely a human symbol for something subtler that goes
> beyond gender. Consider creation myths, for instance. In virtually all of
> them, there is a deity (usually described as masculine) who somehow brings all
> things into manifestation. Quite often, the deity accomplishes this by
> copulating with a female deity. But in the interest of preserving the notion
> of there being just one supreme deity, the ancient Egyptians said God created
> the universe via masturbation. All such creation myths, however, are pretty
> obviously symbolic. God is anthropomorphized so that human beings stand a
> chance of understanding the story. The truth behind the story is that some
> active primordial energy (or deity) acted upon an inactive substance (inert
> matter) and brought it to life. IIRC, Christian tradition has it that God
> created man from a lump of clay--again, an active force enlivening inert
> matter.
I'm a little sleep-deprived, and I am no anthropologist. Is
this what you are saying?
- There is an intrinsic duality in existence beyond sexuality.
- This may be perceived as a distinction between the male and
the female, the active and the passive, the spiritual and the
substantive, etc.
- Early humans intuitively perceived this duality.
- This intuitive perception is evidenced by myths of creation
which demonstrate interaction of the male and female, active and
passive, spiritual and substantive, etc.
I do not understand 1) why the intrinsic duality would be
expressed in terms of gender and 2) why such a gender
distinction would be reflected in language. Shouldn't a
society's language reflect its perception of your intrinsic
duality?
For me, it is much easier to believe that the origin of gender
distinction in language is related to a difference between male
and female human anatomy. That distinction must have been
apparent to the earliest humans. Sexual creation myths, OTOH,
obviously can only occur much later when the culture has
discovered the connection between sex and procreation. How did
the culture's language reflect the intrinsic duality before
that. Was this such a profound discovery that it altered
earlier myths? I can believe that in some societies it did. It
seems fairly simple to add "mother" and "father" to the
earth/sky and sun/moon myths. Even if some cultures found the
discovery that sex leads to procreation so earthshaking that
they changed their creation myths, would they really change
their whole language? Or is that why the distinction seems
artificial today, because it was stuck into language development
in the middle?
Apparently, other societies maintained myths of action upon
inert matter. It seems to me that this is reflected in the
Judaeo-Christian creation myth in Genesis. In fact, the Jesus
myth directly rejects the concept of sexualized creation. You
say that the Egyptian creation myth also involved action upon
the inert. Do you know off hand if either Ancient Egyptian or
Hebrew dichotomized nouns according to gender? If sex was
rejected (or simply not accepted) as an expression of your
intrinsic duality in religion, then I would expect it to be
rejected in language as well.
Do you know if there is such a correlation between gender in
language and sexualization of creation myths? IIRC, people
mentioned Finnish and Turkish and languages which reflect no
gender distinction. I believe that the early Finnish creation
myth entails two females, the god Luonnotar who floated on the
water until a duck laid eggs on her knee. I don't really know
much about pre-Islamic Persian paganism, except that the major
gods were female. This would seem to mildly support your
position.
It also seems to me that many societies reflect no duality in
their theology. In fact, I believe some cultures have no
creation myth. This would indicate to me that even the ultimate
example of duality, existence and nonexistence, life and death,
is not given importance in that culture. If the duality you
speak of were truly intrinsic to the human experience, I would
expect it to be universal. Also, I would expect these cultures
to reflect no gender distinction in language.
>
> I would suppose gender came into language because it's more easily comprehended
> than abstract concepts like active/passive or spirit/substance. Thus it makes
> a convenient handle for such concepts. Even today, plumbers speak of male and
> female pipe fittings. There's a male and female end to your garden hose. It's
> just simpler to grasp "female" than "the sort of convex part that's threaded so
> that the other part will fit into it." People relate to human things much more
> readily than abstractions.
>
But these concepts also occur in language. I don't know too
much about very early languages, but Latin and Greek had both
the male/female and the active/passive distinction. Surely the
distinction between subjunctive and indicative moods
demonstrates a dichotomy between the tangible and intangible,
the concrete and the imagined. These are fairly subtle concepts
comprehended and expressed by young civilizations. The gender
distinction in nouns, OTOH, is so obscure that it makes no sense
to us today. If there was no concrete, practical purpose, why
would any early culture bother to complicate their language
unnecessarily?
> What kind of society would consider these things so fundamentally important?
> Any society with a creation myth that involves a creator/creation dichotomy.
> Such societies would see that the dichotomy is reflected, microcosmically, in
> the creation itself--hence in all the things that nouns name.
>
> Where did neuter come from? Two possible answers: (1) from frustration with
> having to tell whether a given object is essentially masculine or feminine in
> nature--some things must have baffled the namers, or their successors; so maybe
> they just gave up and declared the tough cases to be neuter; (2) from the same
> concept that the Egyptian creation myth tries to convey--that God is really
> neither masculine nor feminine, but beyond duality--i.e., neuter.
>
> When a language like English (or the Scandinavian languages, etc.) discards
> gender for most nouns, it's most likely answer (1) above at work: people just
> get tired of remembering the gender of so many nouns, and they can't remember
> why it was ever done in the first place, so they drop it and introduce a
> "neuter" or "common" gender.
Do you know when gender was rejected in the English language?
Did it just fizzle out when Old German was brought to the
British Isles and melded with the native languages?
>
> When an ancient language includes a neuter gender, it's most likely answer (2)
> at work: the recognition that God--who created good & evil, male & female,
> light & dark, and all pairs of opposites--is Itself above any such dichotomy.
> God cannot be either male or female, since God cannot be limited.
>
If this were the case, I would expect either male and female to
be dropped at the same time, or the neuter words to connote
unity, divinity, etc.
Opinicus
janelaw
Well, you can't say I didn't warn you.
Patronius
>I'm a little sleep-deprived, and I am no anthropologist. Is
>this what you are saying?
>- There is an intrinsic duality in existence beyond sexuality.
>- This may be perceived as a distinction between the male and
>the female, the active and the passive, the spiritual and the
>substantive, etc.
>- Early humans intuitively perceived this duality.
>- This intuitive perception is evidenced by myths of creation
>which demonstrate interaction of the male and female, active and
>passive, spiritual and substantive, etc.
Yes, I think that's what I was saying. But I'm no anthropologist either, nor
an expert on linguistic history. For someone sleep-deprived, you sure managed
to come up with a highly intelligent, detailed inquiry.
At the moment, I don't have time to respond fully--and I'm not sure I know
enough to be able to reply to everything anyway. I'll sketch out some brief
responses here, just in case I forget to come back here later:
>I do not understand 1) why the intrinsic duality would be
>expressed in terms of gender
I think it's because, as I said, gender is tangible--easier to comprehend than
abstractions. Gender is also a direct manifestation of the intrinsic duality,
so it's as natural as anything else to use as a basis for putting a mental
handle on the duality.
>and 2) why such a gender
>distinction would be reflected in language. Shouldn't a
>society's language reflect its perception of your intrinsic
>duality?
I think it does. Those societies who perceived the duality as universal, and
tended to think of it in gender terms, had gender in their language as well.
Our (English-speaking) society doesn't perceive the duality as universal, and
we tend to think of gender as pertinent only to people and animals; so our
language reflects this viewpoint.
>For me, it is much easier to believe that the origin of gender
>distinction in language is related to a difference between male
>and female human anatomy.
I think that's a modern, English-speaking bias. Our culture happens to think of
gender as only being pertinent to humans & animals. Other cultures have
thought of gender as being representative of an intrinsic universal duality.
>Sexual creation myths, OTOH,
>obviously can only occur much later when the culture has
>discovered the connection between sex and procreation.
I don't follow. I'm not at all sure language predates the understanding of
procreation.
>Do you know if there is such a correlation between gender in
>language and sexualization of creation myths?
No, I don't. I brought up the creation myths just to illustrate the idea of a
perceived universal duality--which might account for gender distinctions in
language. I'm not sure creation myths were modified as you suggest. It might
make an interesting study, though.
>If the duality you
>speak of were truly intrinsic to the human experience, I would
>expect it to be universal.
Not necessarily. Different cultures exalt different things. Duality exists:
there's night and day, up and down, inside and outside, and so forth. Male and
female too. It's universal; but not all cultures put a lot of emphasis on it.
Some (especially those which really push monotheism) tend to instead emphasize
unity rather than duality; and I think that, in essence, is an exaltation of
God over man. Different strokes for different folks.
>But these concepts also occur in language. I don't know too
>much about very early languages, but Latin and Greek had both
>the male/female and the active/passive distinction. Surely the
>distinction between subjunctive and indicative moods
>demonstrates a dichotomy between the tangible and intangible,
>the concrete and the imagined.
Sure . . . but active/passive has to do with verbs, not nouns. Same with
indicative/subjunctive. Nouns name the parts of God's creation; verbs describe
actions that transpire within creation. English recognizes the active/passive
distinction: some actions are more aggressive than others. But English
(unlike Latin, French, et al) does not acknowledge any intrinsic "maleness" or
"femaleness" in the places or things that nouns name--only in people and
animals.
In spite of this English-speaking viewpoint we're raised with, however, we
still do sometimes perceive masculinity or femininity in inanimate objects. A
professor once held up two stones she had picked up; she asked the class which
was male and which was female. The whole class agreed that the little round
stone was female, while the big angular stone was male.
> If there was no concrete, practical purpose, why
>would any early culture bother to complicate their language
>unnecessarily?
I don't think language develops along concrete, practical, or logical lines.
It begins with intuition and develops mainly along emotional and conventional
lines. Consequently, those who speak modern languages with noun gender have no
idea why their languages are the way they are; it's just convention, nothing
more. If we intuitively trace gender back to its origin, I think we find
something like an intuitive recognition of universal duality--but that's no
longer intuitive to most of us today.
Pardon the rambling. I shouldn't try to write so much when I'm in a hurry.
--Patrick
janelaw
> If we intuitively trace gender back to its origin, I think we find
> something like an intuitive recognition of universal duality--but that's no
> longer intuitive to most of us today.
>
>
Okay, now I get it. Thanks.
P&DSchultz
> ... If we intuitively trace gender back to its origin, I think we find
> something like an intuitive recognition of universal duality--but that's no
> longer intuitive to most of us today.
I don't understand what "duality" has to do with gender. Germanic
languages (including Old English), Latin, Greek, and Slavic languages
all have three genders, not two. Back to the New Age drawing boards.
//P. Schultz
P&DSchultz
> Interesting note, Ellen Mizzell, about Tsar (or Czar) and Kaiser being
> derivatives of "Caesar."
Not only that, but the ordinary Russian word for "king" (korol')
comes from the name Charlemagne. If you're a great enough ruler,
your name becomes generic.
//P. Schultz
JUST AN H
>Germans in the first place. Kaiser means Caesar. As does Tsar.
>
>
One learns something new every day here. Since I was a child, I thought
"Kaiser" was masculine. (That's what I was taught.) When pointed out earlier
in this string that "Kaiser" is most definitely masculine, I thought, "Perhaps
it's 'Konig' (king) that's feminine." So I checked my dictionary and find that
"Konig" is also masculine. I can't say how betrayed I'm feeling by my
upbringing!
Charles Riggs
>Daniel James wrote:
>>
>> In article <360849e9...@news.anu.ie>, Charles Riggs wrote:
>> > I see "she" or "her" used as the genderless pronoun. This jars
>> > my mind. (But, why should it?) There's a defect in our language and I
>> > still maintain that.
>> >
>>
>> Agreed. The sensible way to 'fix' the defect is perhaps to use the
>> existing gender-neutral terms ("he", "him", etc.) in all cases - even
>> where the reference is to an undisputedly female person - and allow the
>> feminine forms ("she", "her", etc.) to disappear from the language.
>>
>>
>I'll buy this as long as we keep "she" and get rid of "he."
Ouch! Now her true colours are showing! :-)
Charles
Charles Riggs
Mizzell) wrote:
>Patronius (patr...@aol.com) wrote:
>>
>> I would suppose gender came into language because it's more easily comprehended
>> than abstract concepts like active/passive or spirit/substance. Thus it makes
>> a convenient handle for such concepts. Even today, plumbers speak of male and
>> female pipe fittings. There's a male and female end to your garden hose. It's
>> just simpler to grasp "female" than "the sort of convex part that's threaded so
>> that the other part will fit into it." People relate to human things much more
>> readily than abstractions.
>>
>
>I may be convex in certain regions, but I am *not* threaded!
Me neither! (BTW, I hope you meant concave!)
Charles
P.S. How do you cause your name to disappear when a reply is made to
one of your posts and why? Just curious.
Charles Riggs
But, but, but...We, or a writer, or no one would apply "he" to you
personally. "He" is applied to generic mankind, meaning womankind as
well. I'm about ready to give up on this thread and I'm the person
(!) who started it. :-)
Charles
Charles Riggs
the one commonly available is the recent revision of The Oxford
English Dictionary or is it the old old edition, around 1926? Can
someone who has it tell me please? Anything you can add about the
computer implementation of it would also be helpful.
Charles
Serenleono
>> I may be convex in certain regions, but I am *not* threaded!
ri...@anu.ie (Charles Riggs) scripsit:
>Me neither! (BTW, I hope you meant concave!)
Uh, Charles, . . . um, think higher up.
I've never met Ellen in person, of course, but if she's like most
shes, she's got both convex and invex (concave) parts.
Seren (blushing)
janelaw
Yes, I'm a bluestocking.
Patronius
>languages (including Old English), Latin, Greek, and Slavic languages
>all have three genders, not two. Back to the New Age drawing boards.
>//P. Schultz
One of the three is invariably called "neuter"--which indicates that there's a
duality plus a third, neutral, aspect (a "non-gender gender," if you will). As
I explained in one of the long, boring posts that precede this one, it's likely
in recognition of the fact that although our world seems full of opposites
(male/female, light/dark, up/down, etc.), the Creator must be beyond any such
opposites and unlimited to one or the other. Likewise with the Holy Spirit,
etc. On a more practical level, once the gender thing got going and more and
more things had to be named, it must've gotten to where some things just defied
gender; the namers couldn't decide (based on the sound or structure of the
noun, or qualities of the thing being named) whether the thing was masculine or
feminine--so they made it "neuter."
In any case, the three genders are never (to my knowledge) a triad of equal
options. Masculine & feminine predominate, and then there's also a neuter.
(Sometimes this results in interesting phenomena--such as a German girl (das
Maedchen) being neuter until she grows up or gets married and becomes feminine
(die Frau).)
--Patrick
Patronius
>without noticing that it was inside-out, so to speak. Let us hear
>from you, P -- do you know any ladies with convex threaded parts?
Well, let's see--there's Lucy, who enjoyed twisting toothpaste caps onto her
nipples. . . .
No, actually I'm embarrassed to have typed "convex" when I meant "concave."
Glad you followed suit. Misery loves company. ;-)
--Patrick
George F. Hardy
>
>Is there any rhyme or reason to gender distinctions?
Gender relates to a grammatical difference; sex, to a physiological
difference. The use of "gender" in the place of "sex" has caused
confusion. In many languages there is little relation between
sex and gender, even in English.
GFH
Patronius
>difference. The use of "gender" in the place of "sex" has caused
>confusion. In many languages there is little relation between
>sex and gender, even in English.
>
>GFH
I beg to differ. The word "gender" originally referred to sex; its linguistic
usage is secondary and more recent--and also connected with gender = sex.
The secondary usage, according to Websters, is "partly arbitrary but also
partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner
of existence, or sex). . . ."
--Patrick
P&DSchultz
>
> >Gender relates to a grammatical difference; sex, to a physiological
> >difference. The use of "gender" in the place of "sex" has caused
> >confusion. In many languages there is little relation between
> >sex and gender, even in English.
> >
> >GFH
>
> I beg to differ. The word "gender" originally referred to sex; its linguistic
> usage is secondary and more recent--and also connected with gender = sex.
I beg to differ some more. The OED indicates that the original meaning
in English followed the Latin meaning of "kind" or "species." The
grammar and sex stuff came after that.
//P. Schultz
Dale Houstman
I agree (and it seems obvious) that the "reasons" for original
gender-assignment are no doubt lost in time, but in many instances discernible from
context, and the examples you give are good, but I believe the reason why "barba"
(beard) is feminine has nothing to do with the fact that beards point to mother
earth; lots of things do. The reason may have to do with the resemblance of the
male beard to a certain portion of the female "hirsuteness" (which is still
referred to as a "beard" and not only in the phrase "bearded clam": my this is more
like a porn site now!) But this is all conjecture.
Dale H
the jungle kitty
> Actually, I see a different progression. I think the 2nd and
> 3rd persons are collapsing. I believe the gender neutral
> pronoun "you" is gradually replacing both "he" and "she." I see
> and hear it far more often than either "one" or he/she.
>
> When you sleep, you often dream.
"You" is second person. It will never replace the third person on the
simple fact that people don't like others telling them what they are
thinking/doing. It's very Orwellian to assume just because I sleep, I
dream.
janelaw
No, that's not what I mean. "You" is frequently used as a third
person pronoun. You can equate it to "one" in English or "on"
in French. As in the sentence above, it means "anyone" or
"someone" or "a person." It doesn't mean you personally.
Charles Riggs
wrote:
True enough, but it's the concavity rather than the convexity that
makes a female a female.
Charles (also blushing)
P.S. Is invex an exact synonym for concave? I hadn't heard the word
before.
Charles Riggs
Mizzell) wrote:
>Dale Houstman (dale.h...@gte.net) wrote:
>I think the word is "merkin".
No, I believe merkin is a hair piece for the pubic area. The word
(slightly smutty) is muff, though I think bearded clam is cuter.
>It's an interesting suggestion. I don't think it can be the right
>one, though. Doesn't a man see his beard as a very intimate part
>of himself?
Not at all. I often shave mine off for the summer and, believe you me,
it is not at all like removing a very intimate part!
Charles
Charles Riggs
>No, that's not what I mean. "You" is frequently used as a third
>person pronoun. You can equate it to "one" in English or "on"
>in French. As in the sentence above, it means "anyone" or
>"someone" or "a person." It doesn't mean you personally.
True enough and I think "you" can be used in many instances. I like it
better than that prissy sounding word "one".
But how would you say "He is a fine figure of a man." without using
the word "he"? Forget that you probably wouldn't say that anyway. :-)
Charles
Frank Ecke
www.oed.com/inside/timeline.htm states that in 1992, the CD-ROM of the second
edition (1989) was released. Unfortunately, the offer for the CD-ROM just
reads ``The Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM'' whereas the offer for the
printed version reads ``The Oxford English Dictionary 20 Volume Set'' with
``20 Volume Set'' being a clear indicator for the second edition. As I do not
own the CD-ROM, I can only assume that it contains the recent revision. You
might wish to visit www.oed.com or e-mail Oxford University Press at
OEDo...@oup-usa.org for further details.
As regards the computer implementation, www.oed.com/order.htm says that the
CD-ROM is available for Windows and Macintosh. They have an online prototype
at http://proto.oed.com but deny public access. This prototype, however, uses
HTML as the front end and I conjecture that the Windows and Macintosh versions
do so as well.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Frank
--
Frank Ecke <fra...@minet.uni-jena.de>
In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?