He or she or she or he?
Robert Cunningham
In an attempt to be politically correct, some people use the
cumbersome and artificial looking "he or she". Is it male chauvinistic
to put the "he" first? Should a writer be extremely careful to balance
each use of "he or she" with a "she or he"?
If a composition contains an odd number of occurrences, should a
writer contrive to introduce an additional occurrence of "she or he" in
order to achieve balance and avoid offending either side?
Does anyone not know I'm being sarcastic?
- - - - - - -
Bob Cunningham, Northridge, California, USA
E-mail: bob.cun...@mogur.com
Benjamin D Lukoff
> In an attempt to be politically correct, some people use the
>cumbersome and artificial looking "he or she". Is it male chauvinistic
>to put the "he" first? Should a writer be extremely careful to balance
>each use of "he or she" with a "she or he"?
> If a composition contains an odd number of occurrences, should a
>writer contrive to introduce an additional occurrence of "she or he" in
>order to achieve balance and avoid offending either side?
> Does anyone not know I'm being sarcastic?
Still, you raise an interesting point. Why *is* it that "he" almost
always comes first in the construction, which is supposed to be perfectly PC?
Ben
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
: ad...@lafn.org (Robert Cunningham) writes:
: > In an attempt to be politically correct, some people use the
: Still, you raise an interesting point. Why *is* it that "he" almost
Why is it that people can't seem to avoid MISusing the term "politically
correct" OVER AND OVER AND OVER to mean anything with which they might
not personally agree, but which has perfect validity to others?
I *never* thought of "he and she" (or "she and he") as "PC" - I've always
thought of it as INCLUSIVE. Period. It acknowledges that there's more
than one gender in the world. What's "PC" about that? I mean, this is
REALLY stupid. Can't we just use another term, or stop labelling things
like this? It's like the red-baiting of the '90s. I mean, come on, why
not just call people interested in inclusiveness, multiculturalism, etc.
etc. "pinkos" instead of "PC?" It means about as much (or as little)...
Personally, I've opted in verbal (and often written) usage to agree in
gender and disagree in number, and simply use the word "they." Seems to
me number-disagreement is far less aggravating than gender disagreement;
the listener or reader can usually tell from my context whether I'm
referring to a singular or plural subject, and I like being
gender-neutral in my thinking, speaking and writing whenever possible...
- Elayne
Ray Girvan
fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) writes:
> Why is it that people can't seem to avoid MISusing the
> term "politically correct" OVER AND OVER AND OVER to
> mean anything with which they might not personally
> agree, but which has perfect validity to others?
caricature called PeeCee than find rational arguments to
justify an opposition to more inclusive, non-sexist
language? The concocted examples people quote of the
horrors of PC writing bear little relation to real
gender-neutral writing practice: I rarely use "he or
she", as there are plenty of tidier devices.
Ray
======================================================
Ray Girvan
rgi...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Computer Journalist
Pascal MacProgrammer
>I *never* thought of "he and she" (or "she and he") as "PC" - I've always
>thought of it as INCLUSIVE. Period. It acknowledges that there's more
>than one gender in the world.
Well, of =course= there's more than one sex in the world. That goes
without saying, so I don't point it out at every opportunity.
So when I'm speaking or writing, and need a pronoun to refer back to a
word such as "someone", "everyone", "person", etc., I use the traditional
gender-neutral pronoun, "he", rather than the sexist gender-neutral
version, "he or she".
>What's "PC" about that? I mean, this is REALLY stupid. Can't we just use
>another term, or stop labelling things like this?
What's "PC" about that is that there are people who attempt to change
the meanings of words used in the traditional way, object to their own new
meanings, and then attempt to coerce others to change their use of the
language unnecessarily.
It sounds as though you're objecting to the =misuse= of the term "PC".
To do that, you must obviously have in mind some =valid= use of the term.
If so, please tell us what that use is, in your opinion.
>Personally, I've opted in verbal (and often written) usage to agree in
>gender and disagree in number, and simply use the word "they." Seems to
>me number-disagreement is far less aggravating than gender disagreement;
>the listener or reader can usually tell from my context whether I'm
>referring to a singular or plural subject, and I like being
>gender-neutral in my thinking, speaking and writing whenever possible.
And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
it's his own problem -- not mine.
--
==----= Steve MacGregor
([.] [.]) Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo--------------------------------
Quick! Buy postage stamps before the price goes up!
00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
: It sounds as though you're objecting to the =misuse= of the term "PC".
: If so, please tell us what that use is, in your opinion.
Well, as any ol' lefty could probably tell you, "politically correct"
BEGAN as a self-mocking kind of thing used by lefties to describe those
folks among us who "took things too far" - I wish I could think of
specific examples, but none come to mind right now. Fortunately, most
lefties I know (including, I hope, myself) like to take things just right!
: And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
: and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
: it's his own problem -- not mine.
Well, if I have a problem with this, it's MY own problem, and *I'm*
female. Therefore, you HAVEN'T agreed in gender. Which is what this
whole discussion is about. The way it's set up now, you EITHER agree in
gender OR number - unless you want to use the pronoun "its" (which not
only seems to insult many people, but appears, amazingly, to be one of
the hardest words in the English language to spell correctly!:)
- Elayne
K. Edgcombe
<00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu> wrote:
>
>Could be its alphabetical.--
Ah, but then you'd have to say "her or his"!
Katy
Jim Thorpe
>Subject: He or she or she or he?
>From: ad...@lafn.org (Robert Cunningham)
>Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 14:54:25 GMT
> In an attempt to be politically correct, some people use the
>cumbersome and artificial looking "he or she". Is it male chauvinistic
>to put the "he" first? Should a writer be extremely careful to balance
>each use of "he or she" with a "she or he"?
> If a composition contains an odd number of occurrences, should a
>writer contrive to introduce an additional occurrence of "she or he" in
>order to achieve balance and avoid offending either side?
> Does anyone not know I'm being sarcastic?
It will all come clear when we do in the singular what we do in the plural
where one series of words fit all - they, them, their
Settle on 'it' and the confusion - and this sexist nonsense - will be over.
Jim T.
Dan Harper
>
>Pascal MacProgrammer (stev...@bud.indirect.com) wrote:
<snip snip>
>: And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
>: and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
>: it's his own problem -- not mine.
>
>Well, if I have a problem with this, it's MY own problem, and *I'm*
>female. Therefore, you HAVEN'T agreed in gender. Which is what this
>whole discussion is about. The way it's set up now, you EITHER agree in
>gender OR number - unless you want to use the pronoun "its" (which not
>only seems to insult many people, but appears, amazingly, to be one of
>the hardest words in the English language to spell correctly!:)
If I may be so bold as to interject a comment, I think that
Mr. MacGregor is talking about grammatical gender, not
natural gender. Some people would argue that English has
no grammatical gender, but I believe that it does--although it
is not as pronounced as say, Latin. However, I think it is
pretty obvious that some people would prefer that English
had only natural gender.
Dan Harper
corm...@nbnet.nb.ca
> Still, you raise an interesting point. Why *is* it that "he" almost
> always comes first in the construction, which is supposed to be perfectly PC?
>
> Ben
Alphabetical order????
Pascal MacProgrammer
>: And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
>: and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
>: it's his own problem -- not mine.
Not so very long ago, fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) said...
>Well, if I have a problem with this, it's MY own problem, and *I'm*
>female.
This means that there =is= someone who has a problem with this, but I
don't care, because it's her own problem.
>Therefore, you HAVEN'T agreed in gender.
Wrong. The "someone" in the original statement was about a hypothetical
person with a certain problem. The "someone" is a person, and therefore
the gender of the word is not neuter. There was no reason to believe that
such a person must of necessity be female, therefore, the gender of the
word "someone" is not feminine. What's left is the untagged gender,
masculine, so the pronoun is masculine in concordance.
But when I admitted that there =is= someone..., I was speaking of a
=particular= someone whose sex I strongly suspect of being female, and
therefore the gender of "someone" in that sentence is female, and the
pronoun is feminine in concordance.
Traditional English grammar has three genders:
Neuter -- denotes a non-person
Masculine -- denotes a person, does not specify female
Feminine -- denotes a person, specifically a female one
PC English grammar appears to have three genders...
Neuter -- denotes a non-person
Masculine -- denotes a specifically male person
Feminine -- denotes a specifically female person
...but lacks a convenient means of specifying personhood without
specifying sex at the same time.
A fellow goes in to the doctor's office and complains, "Doc, it hurts
when I go like this."
The doctor replies, "Don't go like that."
I framed the problematic sentence in traditional grammar, but if you
insist on understanding it as though I had used PC grammar, you will be
offended by the meaning which you yourself add. If you don't want to be
offended, don't do that.
Some time recently, someone pointed out that the motto of a particular
educational institution was "Mens agitat molem", and there were two bars
on campus: The "Mens Bar" and the "Agitat Bar". (Why not a third, the
"Agitat Bar"? Oh, well.) A certain segment of society was offended by
the name of the first one, even though there's no such word as "Mens" in
English, and the bar changed its name for no good reason at all.
The "Management" department of a certain business recently changed its
name, for no good reason, to "Personagement". No doubt it will change
its name again in the near future, when someone notices the sexist
character-string "MEN" in the new name, so it will have to become
"Personagepeoplet".
[Note to the sarcasm-impared: that last paragraph was humorous.]
--
==----= Steve MacGregor
([.] [.]) Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo--------------------------------
Life is uncertain, so eat dessert first.
Mark Israel
> In an attempt to be politically correct, some people use the
> cumbersome and artificial looking "he or she". Is it male
> chauvinistic to put the "he" first? Should a writer be extremely
> careful to balance each use of "he or she" with a "she or he"?
According to the _The Bias-Free Word Finder_ by Rosalie Maggio
(Beacon Press, 1991; the standard reference work for those who
believe in such things), YES, ONE SHOULD attempt such a balance!
# Half the time use "girls and boys," half the time use "boys and
# girls". Because of a grammatical "convention" based on the belief
# that the masculine was the more worthy gender, the male word has
# always had the right to be placed first. Thus we have Mr. and
# Mrs., husband and wife, male and female, etc. Vary this half the
# time (although be prepared for odd looks if you try Mrs. and Mr.).
# [...]
# Use _he and she_ or _her and his_, but only if there are not a
# great many of them.
(No flames about the comma splice in the first sentence, please.
I'm just quoting.)
In article <3dvcn3$t...@panix.com>, fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) writes:
> Why is it that people can't seem to avoid MISusing the term "politically
> correct" OVER AND OVER AND OVER to mean anything with which they might
> not personally agree, but which has perfect validity to others?
"MISusing" implies that there is a *correct* use. What do you
think the correct use of "politically correct" is?
According to _The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and
Handbook_ by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf (Villard, 1993),
the politically correct substitutes for "politically correct" are
"culturally sensitive; multiculturally unexceptionable;
appropriately inclusive".
> I *never* thought of "he and she" (or "she and he") as "PC" - I've
> always thought of it as INCLUSIVE.
"Inclusive" is the term chosen by supporters of the practice, and
it has positive connotations. You don't really expect opponents of
the practice to use the same term, do you?
--
mis...@scripps.edu Mark Israel
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
: Wrong. The "someone" in the original statement was about a hypothetical
: person with a certain problem. The "someone" is a person, and therefore
: the gender of the word is not neuter.
But I believe it should be. That's the crux of the problem.
: There was no reason to believe that
: such a person must of necessity be female, therefore, the gender of the
: word "someone" is not feminine. What's left is the untagged gender,
: masculine, so the pronoun is masculine in concordance.
There is ALSO no reason to believe that such a person must of necessity
be MALE. I mean, don't you see this? Why is this so hard to understand?
: Traditional English grammar has three genders:
It's so SILLY to give me that "traditional English grammar" crap! I
mean, come ON, fella, English, like EVERY language, evolves! That's the
NATURE of language - AND of grammar. There are TONS of words in usage
now that are deemed correctly spelled, used, etc. which weren't even
around a hundred years ago! Isn't it time simple pronoun usage evolve to
reflect the fact that women are no longer adjuncts of men?
And by the way, the opposite of "traditional" is "MODERN," not "PC."
- Elayne
Robert Cunningham
In a previous article, 00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu () says:
...
>>
>> Still, you raise an interesting point. Why *is* it that "he" almost
>> always comes first in the construction, which is supposed to be perfectly PC?
>>
>> Ben
>
>Could be its alphabetical.--
>
But this suggests a subtle but sinister plot to humiliate the
female sex. Is it any accident that the following pairs have the
alphabetical order they do?
boy, girl
he, she
man, woman
gentlemen, lady
waiter, waitress
king, queen
lad, lass
The pair "her, him" may be in that alphabetical order only because
they are in the objective case and women are viewed primarily as
sex _objects_.
Sexist insinuations arise in the most unexpected places.
- - - - -
E-mail: bob.cun...@mogur.com
Please don't send E-mail to ad...@lafn.org
Dan Harper
>
>Pascal MacProgrammer (stev...@bud.indirect.com) wrote:
>: Wrong. The "someone" in the original statement was about a hypothetical
>: person with a certain problem. The "someone" is a person, and therefore
>: the gender of the word is not neuter.
>
>But I believe it should be. That's the crux of the problem.
If you truly believe that the word "someone" should have a "neuter"
gender, then I guess we will be seeing from you sentences like,
"I would like someone to loan me *its* brain."
"Someone" does *not* take the neuter gender. The true crux of
the problem is you do not like the fact that words of undetermined
natural gender (sex as in male and female) require the masculine
grammatical gender (gender as in not sex).
>: There was no reason to believe that
>: such a person must of necessity be female, therefore, the gender of the
>: word "someone" is not feminine. What's left is the untagged gender,
>: masculine, so the pronoun is masculine in concordance.
>
>There is ALSO no reason to believe that such a person must of necessity
>be MALE. I mean, don't you see this? Why is this so hard to understand?
Yes, it is clear that *you* think that English has or should have only
natural gender. Other people do not see our current method of
handling words of undetermined sex as a problem.
>: Traditional English grammar has three genders:
>
>It's so SILLY to give me that "traditional English grammar" crap! I
>mean, come ON, fella, English, like EVERY language, evolves! That's the
>NATURE of language - AND of grammar. There are TONS of words in usage
>now that are deemed correctly spelled, used, etc. which weren't even
>around a hundred years ago! Isn't it time simple pronoun usage evolve to
>reflect the fact that women are no longer adjuncts of men?
Silly are we? Why then are you the one SHOUTING.
Yes, language evolves. English is evolving right now with regards
to some of its usages that certain people find sexist. However, in
your impatience, you are not advocating evolution, but rather
revolution.
I disagree with your statement that ". . . women are no longer
adjuncts of men." This may be mostly true in the United States,
but it certainly is not true throughout much of the world. However,
whether I agree with the statement or not, I don't think the statement
necessitates the sort of immediate solution to the supposed
problem. Perhaps I have misinterpreted what I see as your
expectations for the timeframe of this "evolving." If I have, I am
sorry. However, you leave me with the impression that you
want this perceived problem with our language fixed and fixed now.
I also perceive that you think any resistance to this change is due
to a desire of certain people to hang on to the days when women
were adjuncts to men. Is this indeed your position or have I just
constructed a straw person?
>And by the way, the opposite of "traditional" is "MODERN," not "PC."
Not all that is traditional is bad, nor all that is modern good.
Dan Harper
Pascal MacProgrammer
>Pascal MacProgrammer (that's me) wrote:
>: Wrong. The "someone" in the original statement was about a hypothetical
>: person with a certain problem. The "someone" is a person, and therefore
>: the gender of the word is not neuter.
Not so very long ago, fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) said...
>But I believe it should be. That's the crux of the problem.
No, you do not believe that it should be neuter; you believe that it
should be gender-neutral. The neuter gender denotes non-persons; not
persons without indication of sex.
And I continued...
>: There was no reason to believe that
>: such a person must of necessity be female, therefore, the gender of the
>: word "someone" is not feminine. What's left is the untagged gender,
>: masculine, so the pronoun is masculine in concordance.
She replied...
>There is ALSO no reason to believe that such a person must of necessity
>be MALE. I mean, don't you see this? Why is this so hard to understand?
Of course I see this; it is not hard to understand. I'll explain it
another way.
To determine the gender of a noun referring to a person (which implied
that you've already determined that it is a person, so that the neuter
gender is not appropriate), simply ask yourself, "Is the person referred
to by this word female?" If you answer "yes" (or some close
approximation), the word is feminine; otherwise it is masculine. I mean,
don't you see this? Why is this so hard to understand?
I pointed out...
>: Traditional English grammar has three genders:
Elayne replied, ignoring the explanation...
>It's so SILLY to give me that "traditional English grammar" crap! I
>mean, come ON, fella, English, like EVERY language, evolves! That's the
>NATURE of language - AND of grammar.
True. However, this doesn't concern the evolution of language; it
concerns the attempted forcible re-definition of the use of words for the
purpose to attracting attention to a political cause.
Back to Elayne...
>There are TONS of words in usage
>now that are deemed correctly spelled, used, etc. which weren't even
>around a hundred years ago!
As good an example of the evolution of language as any, I suppose. But
we're talking about grammar, not vocabulary. An example of grammar
changing would be the use of constructions such as "she is singing",
where Shakespeare could only say "she singeth" or "she doth sing".
Elayne continues...
>Isn't it time simple pronoun usage evolve to
>reflect the fact that women are no longer adjuncts of men?
Wait a minute. That's something new.
Now, if you'd said, "...that women are =not= adjuncts of men", I'd
reply that no, the fact is self-evident, and need not be reflected in a
forcible change in English grammar. After all, grammar has not had to
reflect this in the past, so why should it start now?
But you appear to be claiming that, at one time at least, women =were=
adjuncts of men. Maybe you should explain this view, especially what
you mean by "adjuncts"; it may have some actual relevance.
And finally...
>And by the way, the opposite of "traditional" is "MODERN," not "PC."
Language evolves, and new terms come into use. For example, "PC",
meaning the redefinition, for political reasons, of non-discriminatory
terms so as to make them discriminatory.
You use "modern"; I'll use "PC", with its negative connotation.
You use "he" as a male-tagged gender; I'll continue to use it as the
untagged gender.
--
==----= Steve MacGregor
([.] [.]) Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo---------------------------------
This environment-friendly post is composed entirely of recycled bytes.
T. Bruce Tober
blu...@u.washington.edu "Benjamin D Lukoff" writes:
> > In an attempt to be politically correct, some people use the
> >cumbersome and artificial looking "he or she". Is it male chauvinistic
> >to put the "he" first? Should a writer be extremely careful to balance
> >each use of "he or she" with a "she or he"?
> > If a composition contains an odd number of occurrences, should a
> >writer contrive to introduce an additional occurrence of "she or he" in
> >order to achieve balance and avoid offending either side?
> > Does anyone not know I'm being sarcastic?
First a question, why is he wasting bandwidth and my phone bill being
sarcastic?
And now to your very valid point:
>
> Still, you raise an interesting point. Why *is* it that "he" almost
> always comes first in the construction, which is supposed to be perfectly PC?
It doesn't, think of the most common new alternative to that
construct, s/he in whihc the implied she comes first.
tbt
T. Bruce Tober
fire...@panix.com "Elayne Wechsler-Chaput" writes:
>
> Why is it that people can't seem to avoid MISusing the term "politically
> correct" OVER AND OVER AND OVER to mean anything with which they might
> not personally agree, but which has perfect validity to others?
Because that is the shorthand (and pc is even shorter han) label
given it and we all tend to prefer shorthand labels to having to find
a different way (and perhaps clumsier) to express the idea.
>
> I *never* thought of "he and she" (or "she and he") as "PC" - I've always
> thought of it as INCLUSIVE. Period. It acknowledges that there's more
But it is pc becaue it is acquiescing to the political agenda of the
feminists and others that somehow man (as a gender neutral pronoun)
is sexist.
tbt
Bonita Kale
In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>
>Yes, it is clear that *you* think that English has or should have only
>natural gender. Other people do not see our current method of
>handling words of undetermined sex as a problem.
He isn't talking to me, but I'm going to add my two cents.
The problem with using "he" for a person of undetermined sex, is -not- that
it is offensive to female readers. Or at least, that's not the main
problem.
The main problem is that it doesn't -work-!
The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
"they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
was common, you may notice two problems with it.
One is, that it conveys a false picture to the reader. Quite
unconsciously, the reader of a nonfiction work on, say "Primitive Man" will
come out with the impression that Primitive Woman did -nothing- but give
birth and suckle babies, while her male counterpots busily invented
everything from pottery to poetry. The writer can claim not to have -said-
that, but the reader still remembers the facts that way.
The other is, that it confuses the -writer-. All too often, the writer,
writing "he", will go on talking about people in general, and about male
people in particular, without making any distinction, until coming to
something that is solely female. Then, finding that "his breasts fill with
milk," doesn't sound right, Traditional Writer will resort to something
like, "His women's breasts..."
I truly believe that the thought of those who use this locution is less
clear than that of those who don't.
By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
dedication to an astrologer.
--
Bonita Kale
bf...@cleveland.freenet.edu
Paul Tholfsen
[snip]
>
>: And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
>: and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
>: it's his own problem -- not mine.
>
>Well, if I have a problem with this, it's MY own problem, and *I'm*
>female. Therefore, you HAVEN'T agreed in gender. Which is what this
>whole discussion is about. The way it's set up now, you EITHER agree in
>gender OR number - unless you want to use the pronoun "its" (which not
>only seems to insult many people, but appears, amazingly, to be one of
>the hardest words in the English language to spell correctly!:)
>
>- Elayne
Can't this problem be resoved by using the pronoun "it" in place of
either he, she, he or she, etc... There are a number of languages,
including Hungarian, Finnish, Georgian (the Caucasus variety) and
Turkish which use a single pronoun for all third persons irrespective
of sex, race, religion, animacy or previous condition of servitude.
Anyone familiar with these societies can attest to the absolute equality
of treatment of the sexes resulting from this sex-neutral feature
of the languages.
There's an added benefit. Pornography in any of these languages takes
on a surrealistic mood ... "Slowly it ran its hand across its throbbing
....." You get the idea.
Elayne Wechsler-Chaput
: If you truly believe that the word "someone" should have a "neuter"
: gender, then I guess we will be seeing from you sentences like,
: "I would like someone to loan me *its* brain."
No, actually I use the sentence "I would like someone to loan me THEIR
brain," as I've stated repeatedly. I prefer to agree in gender rather
than number, and "they/their" etc. is ALREADY IN COMMON, COLLOQUIAL USAGE.
I'm real tired of this thread. I'm not going to change your minds,
you're not going to change mine.
- Elayne
: Not all that is traditional is bad, nor all that is modern good.
P.S. Agreed, but not in this particular case!
Pascal MacProgrammer
>I'm real tired of this thread. I'm not going to change your minds,
>you're not going to change mine.
Not a problem: you don't need to change our minds; we don't need to
change yours. We merely need to understand each other's usage. We
understand your usage. That is to say, we refrain from refusing to
understand it. When you say, "I wish someone would loan me their brain,"
we do =not= understand you to imply that the someone is more than one
person, even though the pronoun is plural. When we say, "I wish someone
would loan me his brain," we ask that you do not understand us to imply
that the someone is male, simply because the pronoun is of the untagged
gender.
You need not change your usage; we understand you. We will not change
ours; we ask you to understand us.
--
==----= Steve MacGregor
([.] [.]) Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo---------------------------------
I back the metric system every 2.54cm of the way!
Dan Harper
>In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>>
>>Yes, it is clear that *you* think that English has or should have only
>>natural gender. Other people do not see our current method of
>>handling words of undetermined sex as a problem.
>
>He isn't talking to me, but I'm going to add my two cents.
Go for it. However, I am offended that you assume that I am a "he."
>The problem with using "he" for a person of undetermined sex, is -not- that
>it is offensive to female readers. Or at least, that's not the main
>problem.
>
>The main problem is that it doesn't -work-!
When did it suddenly stop working? It worked for all the years
that I have been reading and writing, that is, until this political
movement came along and declared it sexist.
I think is clear that the reason we are discussing this at all is because
some female readers find certain aspects of the English language
offensive. However, go ahead with your arguments.
>The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
>"they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
>reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
>was common, you may notice two problems with it.
If "he" as an exclusive pronoun is fairly new, how did we refer to
a noun of obviously male sex? Did you mean to say "inclusive"?
>One is, that it conveys a false picture to the reader. Quite
>unconsciously, the reader of a nonfiction work on, say "Primitive Man" will
>come out with the impression that Primitive Woman did -nothing- but give
>birth and suckle babies, while her male counterpots busily invented
>everything from pottery to poetry. The writer can claim not to have -said-
>that, but the reader still remembers the facts that way.
If you are using my "primitive man" paragraph as an example,
"Primitive man was an interesting animal. Man lived in loosely
associated groups called tribes. The main purpose of these tribes was
protection, but the tribes also provided companionship and social
interaction--this social intercourse proved to be extremely important in
the development of man. In the tribe, the men were the hunters while
the women were the gathers and the primary providers of child rearing.
For many years, Anthropologists had assumed that it was the men of these
tribes who invented agriculture. However, they now believe that it was
women who actually took those first steps toward this important skill
that freed man from a stone-age existence."
you will notice that at first I talked about all of mankind. I then talked
about each individual sex. I use the plural "men" as a signal that I was
switching the focus to a specific sex. It also helps that I mention
"women" in the same sentence thereby reinforcing my signal that
a transition from talking about both sexes to talking about the specific
sexes was occuring.
Were I to read my own paragraph with the same lack of charity you
seem to think people read with, I would come away thinking the only
thing primitive men did was hunt.
What you have done is make the writer entirely responsible for the
reader's own androcentrism. Instead of addressing the true
causes of the problem, you propose that we *force* a cosmetic
change to the language. There is nothing sexist in what I wrote; and
if a reader sees sexism or unconciously misinterprets my piece, the
androcentrism is his (untagged), not mine.
>The other is, that it confuses the -writer-. All too often, the writer,
>writing "he", will go on talking about people in general, and about male
>people in particular, without making any distinction, until coming to
>something that is solely female. Then, finding that "his breasts fill with
>milk," doesn't sound right, Traditional Writer will resort to something
>like, "His women's breasts..."
I disagree; a good writer will not become confused and will be
careful to maintain the distinction. For the most part, writers
will also make use of other terms such as mankind, human, people,
persons, etc. I see nothing wrong with this, but I also see nothing
wrong with the clear, careful use of the generic term "man." I
could contrive a paragraph that uses "man" in an unclear and
sexist way--so what. I can contrive innumerable paragraphs
that use other terms unclearly or ambiguously.
>I truly believe that the thought of those who use this locution is less
>clear than that of those who don't.
And well it may be.
>By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
>copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
>is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
>dedication to an astrologer.
Is this a dig at English authors?
Dan Harper
Dan Harper
>
>Dan Harper (dwha...@ingr.com) wrote:
>: If you truly believe that the word "someone" should have a "neuter"
>: gender, then I guess we will be seeing from you sentences like,
>: "I would like someone to loan me *its* brain."
>
>No, actually I use the sentence "I would like someone to loan me THEIR
>brain," as I've stated repeatedly. I prefer to agree in gender rather
>than number, and "they/their" etc. is ALREADY IN COMMON, COLLOQUIAL USAGE.
More shouting, I must be really getting to this person. Anyway, I
would not presume to criticize your usage of "they/their" in informal
writing, but would you use it in formal writing? Would you use
the contraction "ain't" or the word "loan" as a verb in your writing?
Both are already in common, colloquial usage.
I used "it" in the example sentence because *you* refered to the
gender of the word "someone" as being "neuter." The neuter
third person singular pronouns are "it" and "its." Most people do
not call the third person plural pronouns ("they," "them," "their,"
and "theirs") neuter. If I were to call them anything, I would call
them neutral. (Although, at times, I get the distinct impression
that certain women not only want to make language sex neutral but
would like do to a bit of neutering on their opponents. Reminds me
of the Far Side cartoon where one dog is talking to another from
a window of a car that looks to be exiting a driveway. The dog
in the car brags to the other dog, "I'm going to the vets to be
*tutored*." I am sure there are some women who think I need
tutoring.)
>I'm real tired of this thread. I'm not going to change your minds,
>you're not going to change mine.
Well, I think I have an open mind. When I first started reading
alt.usage.english, I was a staunch "heist." While I am still not
a "theyist," I no longer consider "theyism" to be the horrible
solecism that I once did. Truly Donovan has me *almost* convinced
that "y'all" is not a plural pronoun.
My fear is not that we are getting tired of this thread, but that
others are.
>: Not all that is traditional is bad, nor all that is modern good.
>
>P.S. Agreed, but not in this particular case!
That is what we are debating.
Dan Harper
Jill Lundquist
T. Bruce Tober <Octob...@crecon.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <3dvcn3$t...@panix.com>
> fire...@panix.com "Elayne Wechsler-Chaput" writes:
>
>>
>> Why is it that people can't seem to avoid MISusing the term "politically
>> correct" OVER AND OVER AND OVER to mean anything with which they might
>> not personally agree, but which has perfect validity to others?
>
>Because that is the shorthand (and pc is even shorter han) label
>given it and we all tend to prefer shorthand labels to having to find
>a different way (and perhaps clumsier) to express the idea.
But what idea is that? I've heard "PC" used to mean so many different
things that I'm never sure what someone who uses it is trying to say.
Some examples:
I've heard a number of people say that objecting to the use
of "man" to mean either an individual man or the human species
is PC.
I've heard several people preface a joke that they consider
(or believe others will consider) offensively racist with something
like, "This isn't PC, but..."
I've heard very funny mockeries of egregious political double-talk
under titles like "A Politically Correct Fairy Tale." Much of
the humor here is the twisting of known fairy tales to a wishful
view of human nature, like a version of "Little Red Riding Hood"
where the woodsman, the grandmother and the title character set
up a communal living arrangement or some such. Another important
feature of these stories is the cumbersome titles used for
jobs, like "Firewood Engineer" for "woodsman" or "woodcutter."
The other day I heard a talk-radio host announce that the topic
of the day is "people you would like to see boiled alive." She
mentioned some people that she would like to see boiled alive, and
then encouraged her listeners to call in with similarly bloodthirsty
comments. She referred to the program as "not Politically Correct."
On more occasions than I can recall, I've heard someone describe
something they didn't like as "politically correct" without
ever saying what they didn't like about it. I've been taking
the phrase to mean something along the lines of "yucky" when I've
heard it used this way.
It seems to me that "Politically Correct" is used to mean whatever
the speaker wants it to mean at the moment, rather like the word
"freedom" in political speeches or "love" when courting.
--
--------------
Jill Lundquist ji...@qualcomm.com DoD #882
When hell freezes over, grab the ice skates.
Robert Cunningham
In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
...
> ... Truly Donovan has me *almost* convinced
>that "y'all" is not a plural pronoun.
>
Whoa back! I don't think she ever said that. All I remember her
saying is that she had heard "y'all" used all over the South as a
singular pronoun. At no point did she ever say that it wasn't also used
as a plural pronoun.
I would ask her to confirm that, but she may be studiously
ignoring my posts. She probably didn't even see the one where I
apologized for questioning her use of "renege".
All the best,
Bob Cunningham, Northridge, California, USA
E-mail: ad...@lafn.org
Dan Harper
>
>Not so very long ago, fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput) said...
>
>>I'm real tired of this thread. I'm not going to change your minds,
>>you're not going to change mine.
>
> Not a problem: you don't need to change our minds; we don't need to
>change yours. We merely need to understand each other's usage. We
>understand your usage. That is to say, we refrain from refusing to
>understand it. When you say, "I wish someone would loan me their brain,"
>we do =not= understand you to imply that the someone is more than one
>person, even though the pronoun is plural. When we say, "I wish someone
>would loan me his brain," we ask that you do not understand us to imply
>that the someone is male, simply because the pronoun is of the untagged
>gender.
> You need not change your usage; we understand you. We will not change
>ours; we ask you to understand us.
Very well said.
This discussion has come almost full circle. I first jumped into
this discussion when someone stated that she could not understand
the word "man" when used in a generic sense. My choice of the
personal pronoun "she" in the previous sentence is based upon
my knowledge that the sex of the person whom the word "someone"
refers to is female. Had I not known her sex, I would have used the
"untagged gender", "he." No doubt, Elayne would have used "they"
in the case where she do not know the person's sex, and I would have
understood her meaning. Elayne, what would you have written if
you *did* know the person's sex? Would you still use "they"? If you
do *not* use a sex-specific gender when you know that person's
sex, are you not insulting that person? If you *do* use a sex-specific
gender when you know that person's sex, are you not risking being
labeled an "andro-centric arrogant human *#@!"? (This insult is courtesy
of a post by J.M.EGolf. aimed at people who use "man" as a nonsex-specfic
term. )
Dan Harper
Dan Harper
>
>
>In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>> ... Truly Donovan has me *almost* convinced
>>that "y'all" is not a plural pronoun.
>>
> Whoa back! I don't think she ever said that. All I remember her
>saying is that she had heard "y'all" used all over the South as a
>singular pronoun. At no point did she ever say that it wasn't also used
>as a plural pronoun.
I was being humorous.
> I would ask her to confirm that, but she may be studiously
>ignoring my posts. She probably didn't even see the one where I
>apologized for questioning her use of "renege".
You do seem to enjoy flame baiting. Her ignoring you may not
be her being studious; it may be that she has you in a "kill file."
Dan Harper
Dan Harper
<snip snip>
>But what idea is that? I've heard "PC" used to mean so many different
>things that I'm never sure what someone who uses it is trying to say.
>
>Some examples:
>
>I've heard a number of people say that objecting to the use
>of "man" to mean either an individual man or the human species
>is PC.
I think this is a valid usage.
>I've heard several people preface a joke that they consider
>(or believe others will consider) offensively racist with something
>like, "This isn't PC, but..."
I can see where people would use the term in this situation, but
I would probably not use it myself.
>I've heard very funny mockeries of egregious political double-talk
>under titles like "A Politically Correct Fairy Tale." Much of
>the humor here is the twisting of known fairy tales to a wishful
>view of human nature, like a version of "Little Red Riding Hood"
>where the woodsman, the grandmother and the title character set
>up a communal living arrangement or some such. Another important
>feature of these stories is the cumbersome titles used for
>jobs, like "Firewood Engineer" for "woodsman" or "woodcutter."
Bingo, good usage.
>The other day I heard a talk-radio host announce that the topic
>of the day is "people you would like to see boiled alive." She
>mentioned some people that she would like to see boiled alive, and
>then encouraged her listeners to call in with similarly bloodthirsty
>comments. She referred to the program as "not Politically Correct."
I would not use it this way; but, once again, I can understand it.
>On more occasions than I can recall, I've heard someone describe
>something they didn't like as "politically correct" without
>ever saying what they didn't like about it. I've been taking
>the phrase to mean something along the lines of "yucky" when I've
>heard it used this way.
I try not to use it as a simple synomyn for "yucky." However, it does
seem to me that I would be unlikely to use the term to describe
something I agree with.
>It seems to me that "Politically Correct" is used to mean whatever
>the speaker wants it to mean at the moment, rather like the word
>"freedom" in political speeches or "love" when courting.
The phrase "politically correct" has become popular very quickly.
As such, I expect that its meaning has not completely coalesced.
I don't know if others will agree with me, but here is my definition.
I would label something as politically correct if that something
conformed to a popular solution to a perceived problem, but I
found fault with the solution or with the notion that the problem
existed at all. I usually reserve this phrase for things that only
give lip service to solving a problem or that are more symbolic than
substantial. It is often used to describe the insistence that
euphemisms be employed. For example, the term "homeless"
is a politically correct term, while "bum" is not. The reality is the
same, but calling people "bums" is insensitive. However, certain
terms are *not* politically correct just because an insulting alternative
exists. The word "Black" is not a politically correct term just because
the word "Nigger" exists. Still, some might argue that the demand
that we keep up with the ever changing euphemisms for Black people
(what is the latest preference now, African-American?) is an
example of political correctness. The line is often a fine one.
However, the fact that certain people seem to be willing to use
their own judgment in drawing that line is, for me, an example of
the mind set behind political correctness.
People who despise political correctness usually are people who
feel that getting all mushy and sensitive about a problem will not
make the problem go away. These people usually believe in the
concept of "hard love." By that I mean they don't think that you should
coddle people or sugar coat everything and that to do so is to do
people harm.
If anyone else has a different definition or would like to expound
upon mine, I shall try to refrain from using politically incorrect
terms in my replies.
Dan Harper
James Lewis
: In article <1994Dec29.1...@lafn.org>, ad...@lafn.org (Robert Cunningham) writes:
: "MISusing" implies that there is a *correct* use. What do you
: think the correct use of "politically correct" is?
: According to _The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and
: Handbook_ by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf (Villard, 1993),
: the politically correct substitutes for "politically correct" are
: "culturally sensitive; multiculturally unexceptionable;
: appropriately inclusive".
Gee . . . and I always thought the Handbook was a spoof . . . :-(
--
Jim Lewis - jk...@freenet.scri.fsu.edu
. . . Without ecology . . . there would _be_ no economy.
Mark Israel
>> According to _The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and
>> Handbook_ by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf (Villard, 1993),
>> the politically correct substitutes for "politically correct" are
>> "culturally sensitive; multiculturally unexceptionable;
>> appropriately inclusive".
>
> Gee . . . and I always thought the Handbook was a spoof . . . :-(
Depends what you mean by "spoof". The word "Official" in the
title is, of course, jocular; and the authors cited the silliest
things they could find. But they didn't *invent* any of it: each
of the entries was a serious proposal by *someone* (usually on the
fringe).
--
mis...@scripps.edu Mark Israel
Tye McQueen
) But what idea is that? I've heard "PC" used to mean so many different
) things that I'm never sure what someone who uses it is trying to say.
PC was drafted to mean not saying things that might offend
others. This is the most positive meaning. People may
apologize for not being PC if using this definition.
It grew to also mean not allowing anyone to say things
that might offend others. And it often meant not allowing
anyone to say certain specific words or phrases that some
committee decided might offend certain people but without
ever discussing it with any of the individuals that they
thought would be offended.
For example, the term "Native American" was drafted to
replace "Indian" or "American Indian" even though most
members of this group that I've seen discuss it don't mind
the term "Indian" and would rather be refered to by the
name of their tribe, not "Native American".
And this was often accomplished by substituting old,
possibly offensive terms, with new, different, often
long and silly-sounding terms.
Many of these were self-inflicted, I believe. It seems
that old people don't always like to be reminded that
they are old and people with physical or mental difficulties
don't always like to be reminded that they have such.
So being called "old" started to offend old people so we
switched to "elderly". But old people aren't dumb and
soon realized that this meant "old" and eventually got
offended by it so we had to obfuscate even more with
"senior citizen". Now the old bats are starting to catch
on to that too so we'll switch to "cronologically advanced".
As for crippleds, we had to switch to "disabled", then
"handicapped" then "challenged" then "differently abled"
then "special"... The "Developmental Center for Handicapped
Children" changes its acronym every couple of years. DCHP,
DCPWD, ... Now really severly mentally retarded people
are called "profound" (short for "profoundly retarded").
Funny, if you look at original meaning, the term "retarded"
is relatively mild and non-offensive. But after years of
only being used to describe mentally retarded people, kids
started using it to mean "incredibly stupid" and the term
became offensive. This will continue to happen with any
term chosen to replace it, no matter how well intentioned.
With stuff like this happening, PC's meaning soon broadened
to encompass other forms of new-speak (see Orwell's _1984_)
not originated from the PC movement: Military documents
refering to "Predawn vertical insertion" (paratroopers),
medical papers analyzing "negative helth care outcomes"
(dead patients) and industry reports of factories under-
going "rapid oxidation followed by rapid disassembly" (they
burned down then blew up).
) I've heard a number of people say that objecting to the use
) of "man" to mean either an individual man or the human species
) is PC.
Don't say "man".
) I've heard several people preface a joke that they consider
) (or believe others will consider) offensively racist with something
) like, "This isn't PC, but..."
This may offend people.
) I've heard very funny mockeries of egregious political double-talk
) under titles like "A Politically Correct Fairy Tale."
Can't say "woodsman" because it would offend woman that
want to be woodsmen.
) The other day I heard a talk-radio host announce that the topic
) of the day is "people you would like to see boiled alive." [...]
) She referred to the program as "not Politically Correct."
Might offend people.
) On more occasions than I can recall, I've heard someone describe
) something they didn't like as "politically correct" without
) ever saying what they didn't like about it. I've been taking
) the phrase to mean something along the lines of "yucky" when I've
) heard it used this way.
They may also slide the meaning to encompass other policies
imposed on them that have the same feel of bad PC (such as
the "passive agressive" aspect).
) It seems to me that "Politically Correct" is used to mean whatever
) the speaker wants it to mean at the moment, rather like the word
) "freedom" in political speeches or "love" when courting.
And I believe the original meaning of "Politcally Correct"
was saying things nicely so that you don't get in trouble.
"That gift you gave me was sure original!" Probably grew
out of "office politics". But the don't-offend-minorities
croud new-speaked it into something else.
But if you really want to see a word that is used to mean
just about anything, look up "stir"! The meanings of PC
are down-right unified by comparison.
---
Tye McQueen t...@metronet.com || t...@doober.usu.edu
Nothing is obvious unless you are overlooking something
curtis brothers
Select a term or phrase you feel comfortable with describing a group
To the left of that are the whining PC crowd
To the right of that are insensitive bad-mannered pig-dogs
Pat Brothers
NYC
Anthea F Gupta
: The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
: "they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
: reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
: was common, you may notice two problems with it.
Keep saying this -- the message never seems to get through. The
nonsexist usage is *not* an innovation of the feminist movement. It *is*
"traditional". See OED for many examples.
: One is, that it conveys a false picture to the reader. Quite
: unconsciously, the reader of a nonfiction work on, say "Primitive Man" will
: come out with the impression that Primitive Woman did -nothing- but give
: birth and suckle babies, while her male counterpots busily invented
: everything from pottery to poetry. The writer can claim not to have -said-
: that, but the reader still remembers the facts that way.
Yes!!!
: By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
: copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
: is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
: dedication to an astrologer.
I too assume that anyone who uses so-called "generic" he post
mid-eighties is doing it because of their political stance. I don't see
why the writer coming from England is at all relevant. Why should that
excuse someone? I'm from England myself.
Anthea
_________________________________________________________________________
Anthea Fraser GUPTA
English Language & Literature
National University of Singapore
Kent Ridge e-mail: ellg...@nus.sg
Singapore 0511 telephone: (65) 772 3933
________________________________________________________________________
Jill Lundquist
Dan Harper <dwha...@ingr.com> wrote:
> [...] Still, some might argue that the demand
>that we keep up with the ever changing euphemisms for Black people
>(what is the latest preference now, African-American?) is an
>example of political correctness. The line is often a fine one.
>However, the fact that certain people seem to be willing to use
>their own judgment in drawing that line is, for me, an example of
>the mind set behind political correctness.
I do believe that it's essential to give someone the benefit of the
doubt that they are trying not to offend. Otherwise it's easy to
alienate people by slapping them in the face for using a term that
they had no idea was no longer preferred. I also give more benefit of
the doubt to older people who obviously mean well. My family is
white, and I remember my grandmother telling me about an adored
friend of my cousin Alan's, a man who talked with him for hours
about baseball. She took me by surprise by saying "of course, he's
colored, but that doesn't bother us." I thought that if it really
deep down didn't bother her or at least feel odd to her that Alan's friend
was black, it wouldn't have occurred to her to mention it. I think
this kind of discomfort in white people is a consequence of growing
up white in a racist society, but I also seem to recall that "colored"
and "negro" were polite terms not terribly long ago. I would
question the motives of someone my age who described my cousin's
friend as "colored," but it would be uncharitable to decide that
my grandmother was a dyed-in-the-wool racist because she used that
word. (further background: my grandmother has lived her entire life
in an all-white small town)
Incidentally, my problem with "African-American" is that it blurs
the distinction between someone who has recently come to the USA
from, say, Sudan and someone whose family has been in the USA for
many generations, ever since her great-great-great-grandfather
was seized on the Ivory Coast and brought to Virginia on a slave
ship. I think the latter person is clearly not an immigrant,
and that her parents are not immigrants, which is what the
hyphenated-American word implies. Black people I have who are
from Africa also seem quite culturally different than black people
I've met whose families have been in the USA for a long time. It's
also similar to having to distinguish between "Asian Indian" and
"American Indian."
>People who despise political correctness usually are people who
>feel that getting all mushy and sensitive about a problem will not
>make the problem go away. These people usually believe in the
>concept of "hard love." By that I mean they don't think that you should
>coddle people or sugar coat everything and that to do so is to do
>people harm.
Yes, this is another fine line. By that I mean that one can also
invoke the bogeyman of "political correctness" when one simply wants
to say something offensive without being criticized for it. For
instance, I would think quite badly of a man who ignored my
request to be called a "woman" rather than a "girl" in business
settings, but I would *know* that he was someone I didn't want
to work for if he sneered at my request by calling it "politically
correct." That would indicate to me that he didn't care how
I perceived him, and that he would be unlikely to listen to me in
other contexts. I picked a pretty straightforward example here;
I think it's pretty obvious by now that most adult female employees
would rather not be called "girls" at work, however we may feel
about the usage in social situations. But it's not always clear
whether someone is using "hard love" or using the notion of "PC"
as a socially accepted way to be rude or to express hostility.
Given that the line between being annoyingly hypersensitive on one
side ("I will be OPPRESSING these people if I call them XYZ") and
disgustingly insensitive on the other ("It's a racist world, and
him wanting to be called a ZYX instead of a QQQ [where QQQ has been
considered mildly offensive for, say, twenty years] isn't going to
change that!") is drawn in so many places, I have chosen to paint
it instead with a broad brush. So I have many terms that fall into
an overlapping zone, and I try to use the one that best expresses
what I mean. Part of the meaning of the word, of course, it its
connotations. The volatility of words to describe issues of race
or nationality or sex reflects the explosiveness of the feelings
around these issues.
Jill Lundquist
"Politically Correct," I have come to the following conclusions:
I agree with some things and disagree with other things that fall
under this rubric. "PC" seems to be interpreted as including
some things that are purely word usage and some that are political.
Where political issues are concerned, I have not yet found a use
for "Politically Correct." If I disagree with something, I will
find less vague terms to criticize it. If I do not understand what
speakers and writers are trying to communicate when they describe
something as "PC," I'll ask them if possible and shrug the sentence
off if not.
Where word usage is concerned, I see nothing wrong with being
polite, particularly where sensitive emotions and issues are
concerned, and I intend as well to continue to encourage others
to be polite whenever reasonable. I also believe that language
change happens slowly and will continue to allow considerable
leeway for others who draw the line between acceptable and
unacceptable language somewhere that I consider reasonable,
even if I would not myself make the same choice they make.
If something I need to say cannot be said politely, I will
say it impolitely until I figure out a polite way to say it.
If I am trying to be rude, I will be straightforwardly rude
and not take cover behind the "PC" bogeyman while doing so.
Most of the uses of "PC" to describe word usage are covered
by clearer words. Some of the words that seem to be dismissed
as "PC" can be more clearly described with words like: inoffensive,
excessively politicized, namby-pamby, leftist, walking on
eggshells, hypersensitive, misrepresentative of reality,
awkward, feminist, representative of reality, and inclusive.
Interesting that some of these are antonyms.
However, one form of language seems to be admirably suited for the
term "PC": the bizarre rhetoric that springs up in extreme leftist
political parties. (this is not to imply that extreme rightist
organizations do NOT say bizarre things, only that PC seems to
encompass only the rhetoric of the left) This is the sort of
nonsense that refuses to admit that there is any reason for words
to be reasonable to use, the sort who believe that the word
"woodsman" discourages women from taking up this job (I agree
there), but who instead of coming up with a usable substitute
(like "woodcutter") rename the position something like "Manual
Firewood Collection Technician" and then fly off the handle
when people find that cumbersome to use in real life.
And now I'll say that we need a word to describe rhetoric of
the right, phrases like "Protection of the family" to describe,
well, anything the organization wants...
--
Bonita Kale
In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>In article <3e542m$k...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale) says:
>>He isn't talking to me, but I'm going to add my two cents.
>
>Go for it. However, I am offended that you assume that I am a "he."
I do assume it; that wasn't a nonspecific "he".
>
>>The problem with using "he" for a person of undetermined sex, is -not- that
>>it is offensive to female readers. Or at least, that's not the main
>>problem.
>>
>>The main problem is that it doesn't -work-!
>When did it suddenly stop working? It worked for all the years
>that I have been reading and writing, that is, until this political
>movement came along and declared it sexist.
>I think is clear that the reason we are discussing this at all is because
>some female readers find certain aspects of the English language
>offensive. However, go ahead with your arguments.
Let's see if I can remember how I first reacted to the idea that "man"
and "he" might not work when used inclusively. I think I was
amused. After all, I thought, they work for -me-!
But gradually I saw that they did not work, and had never worked.
One eye-opener was a furor that arose in my church over inclusive
language AND the ordination of women. "I always thought the
Prayer Book meant all of us," my mother said. "But now I see
it didn't." Another was reading some of the early books that did
suggest that women as well as men affected the world, and then
going back to see that the older books really -didn't- use the
words to mean both sexes, even when the writers thought they were
doing so. There was a vagueness of thought, a back-and-forth
motion, between man as male and man as human, with the writer
(and the reader, including the female reader) totally oblivious
to what was happening.
>>The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
>>"they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
>>reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
>>was common, you may notice two problems with it.
>If "he" as an exclusive pronoun is fairly new, how did we refer to
>a noun of obviously male sex? Did you mean to say "inclusive"?
I was unclear--I meant the exclusive use of "he" as the referent
to a person of unknown sex. Austen used "they", but I don't
remember whether she also used "he".
I apologize most humbly; I did not remember, and may not have read,
your paragraph. I used the Primitive Man example because it has
been a particularly egregious one. But your paragraph, while a bit
strained, is not in the least unclear, and I'm sorry if I seemed
to read it uncharitably.
I wish to point out, however, that a woman who assumes men are
biased against women is right more often than not, just as (at least
around here) a black person who assumes white bias is right more
often than not. To act as if you assume the best is wise, but
to really assume it is foolish.
>What you have done is to make the writer entirely responsible
>reader's own androcentrism. Instead of addressing the true
>causes of the problem, you propose that we *force* a cosmetic
>change to the language. There is nothing sexist in what I wrote; and
>if a reader sees sexism or unconciously misinterprets my piece, the
>androcentrism is his (untagged), not mine.
I'm a writer. The writer is responsible for doing the best he or
she can to communicate exactly what is intended. The reader's
androcentrism is part of the writer's material, like the reader's
language, the reader's tastes, the reader's tendency to go to
sleep...
>>The other is, that it confuses the -writer-. All too often, the writer,
>>writing "he", will go on talking about people in general, and about male
>>people in particular, without making any distinction, until coming to
>>something that is solely female. Then, finding that "his breasts fill with
>>milk," doesn't sound right, Traditional Writer will resort to something
>>like, "His women's breasts..."
>I disagree; a good writer will not become confused and will be
>careful to maintain the distinction. For the most part, writers
>will also make use of other terms such as mankind, human, people,
>persons, etc. I see nothing wrong with this, but I also see nothing
>wrong with the clear, careful use of the generic term "man." I
>could contrive a paragraph that uses "man" in an unclear and
>sexist way--so what. I can contrive innumerable paragraphs
>that use other terms unclearly or ambiguously.
But "man" and more especially "he " lend themselves to unnecessary
confusion--more, I believe, than other words do.
On the other hand, using them is not "wrong" like stealing or
setting fire to chipmunks. My usual term is "dumb"--I think
this is a part of English that is better changed, like the
spelling of "jail" or the use of the past participle in
flashbacks.
>>I truly believe that the thought of those who use this locution is less
>>clear than that of those who don't.
>
>And well it may be.
>
>>By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
>>copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
>>is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
>>dedication to an astrologer.
>
>Is this a dig at English authors?
>
>Dan Harper
>
No. Well, sort of. They seem awfully old=fashioned about this
issue. But they write beautifully.
--
Bonita Kale
bf...@cleveland.freenet.edu
Dan Harper
<many insightful comments deleted>
We seem to be very close in our views. Not quite a "Hear! Hear!"
but close.
Dan Harper
Marjorie Neumann
>>If you are using my "primitive man" paragraph as an example,
>>
>> "Primitive man was an interesting animal. Man lived in loosely
>> associated groups called tribes. The main purpose of these tribes was
>> protection, but the tribes also provided companionship and social
>> interaction--this social intercourse proved to be extremely important in
>> the development of man. In the tribe, the men were the hunters while
>> the women were the gathers and the primary providers of child rearing.
>> For many years, Anthropologists had assumed that it was the men of these
>> tribes who invented agriculture. However, they now believe that it was
>> women who actually took those first steps toward this important skill
>> that freed man from a stone-age existence."
>>
>>you will notice that at first I talked about all of mankind. I then talked
>>about each individual sex. I use the plural "men" as a signal that I was
>>switching the focus to a specific sex. It also helps that I mention
>>"women" in the same sentence thereby reinforcing my signal that
>>a transition from talking about both sexes to talking about the specific
>>sexes was occuring.
>>
>>Were I to read my own paragraph with the same lack of charity you
>>seem to think people read with, I would come away thinking the only
>>thing primitive men did was hunt.
>
>
>I apologize most humbly; I did not remember, and may not have read,
>your paragraph. I used the Primitive Man example because it has
>>>By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
>>>copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
>>>is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
>>>dedication to an astrologer.
Older books are a problem--which is another way of saying that the use
of generic "man" and "he" is disappearing.
Marjorie Neumann
(Dan Harper) says:
>Some people would argue that English has
>no grammatical gender, but I believe that it does--although it
>is not as pronounced as say, Latin. However, I think it is
>pretty obvious that some people would prefer that English
>had only natural gender.
>
>Dan Harper
It isn't a matter of belief or preference but of fact, of clear-eyed
analysis.
Marjorie Neumann
>
>But it is pc becaue it is acquiescing to the political agenda of the
>feminists and others that somehow man (as a gender neutral pronoun)
>is sexist.
>
What is the political agenda of those who say generic "man" isn't
sexist? BTW, "man" isn't a pronoun.
Daniel Murphy
>And now I'll say that we need a word to describe rhetoric of
>the right, phrases like "Protection of the family" to describe,
>well, anything the organization wants...
Heh. You ain't one of those "inoffensive, excessively politicized,
namby-pamby, leftist, walking on eggshells, hypersensitive,
misrepresentative of reality, awkward, feminist, representative of
reality, and inclusive" LIBERALS are you? :-)
Seriously now, perhaps one reason the American right is effective beyond
its numbers is its tenaciously held near-monopoly of the "pro" side on the
issues of "family values", "life", God and apple pie. This rhetorical
legerdemain distorts political debate by forcing the left-of-right to
argue from a "anti" position.
I say "near-monopoly" because the "pro-life" slogan is opposed by
"pro-choice". Even here, no one wants to be "anti-life", do they, and the
left-of-right has been unable to saddle the right with an "anti-choice"
or "anti-freedom" label.
Lest anyone complain about political discussions in a.u.e., this is merely
an objective observation on the semantics of political rhetoric.
--
--
Daniel Murphy | "Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and
Brooklyn NY | me. I am sick of both." - Samuel Johnson
c...@panix.com |
Marjorie Neumann
(Pascal MacProgrammer) says:
>
> Traditional English grammar has three genders:
>
> Neuter -- denotes a non-person
> Masculine -- denotes a person, does not specify female
> Feminine -- denotes a person, specifically a female one
>
Steve, meet Larry:
In article <3dt32b$m...@rusty.kronos.com>, Larry Krakamer says:
>Responding once to the statement, "We've hired a new departmental
>secretary", I asked, "What's his name?". People looked at me
>quizically, and someone said, "Who?". The secretary, of course;
>the rules of English require that if I don't know the sex of the
>person hired, I use "he" as the pronoun. Had I said, "What's
>**her** name", I would have been making the sexist assumption
>that the secretary was female.
T. Bruce Tober
stev...@bud.indirect.com "Pascal MacProgrammer" writes:
> >Personally, I've opted in verbal (and often written) usage to agree in
> >gender and disagree in number, and simply use the word "they." Seems to
> >me number-disagreement is far less aggravating than gender disagreement;
> >the listener or reader can usually tell from my context whether I'm
> >referring to a singular or plural subject, and I like being
> >gender-neutral in my thinking, speaking and writing whenever possible.
>
> And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
> and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
> it's his own problem -- not mine.
hear! Hear!
=======================================================================
tbt |"Kitty, a fair, but frozen maid,
Octob...@crecon.demon.co.uk |Kindled a flame I still deplore..."
=======================================================================
T. Bruce Tober
bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu "Bonita Kale" writes:
> The problem with using "he" for a person of undetermined sex, is -not- that
> it is offensive to female readers. Or at least, that's not the main
> problem.
What pure and utter drivel. And it just gets worse.
> The main problem is that it doesn't -work-!
It works for my and hundreds, if not thousands of other writers and
has done for a couple of centuries now.
> The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
So is the use of astronaut, so what. (notice no question mark, that
wasn't a question)
> "they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
Perhaps she wasn't educated well enough to know better, she was after
all only a woman.
And as we all know, women in her time were classed as second class
citizens good only when barefoot and pregnant.
Matter of fact, I can't find a notation of where
she was educated so it's likely she received no formal education. And
since she began writing as a child, we can assume she developed and
maintained some bad habits.
> reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
> was common, you may notice two problems with it.
In which WHICH usage was common, "they" which is the precedent for
the pronoun or "he" which is the one under discussion generally?
> One is, that it conveys a false picture to the reader. Quite
> unconsciously, the reader of a nonfiction work on, say "Primitive Man" will
> come out with the impression that Primitive Woman did -nothing- but give
> birth and suckle babies, while her male counterpots busily invented
> everything from pottery to poetry. The writer can claim not to have -said-
> that, but the reader still remembers the facts that way.
Not this reader. It's been said again and again, and here, I'll say
it one more time, if the writer is worth his salt and the reader is
worth his salt, then the writing will be done well enough to elminate
such confusion (as you'll see a bit further down) and the reading
will be proficient enough to further eliminate such confusion.
>
> The other is, that it confuses the -writer-. All too often, the writer,
Never confused this writer, as in the above paragraph of mine, I
could just as easily called the writer a she or the reader a she and
there still would have been no confusion.
> writing "he", will go on talking about people in general, and about male
> people in particular, without making any distinction, until coming to
> something that is solely female. Then, finding that "his breasts fill with
> milk," doesn't sound right, Traditional Writer will resort to something
> like, "His women's breasts..."
You are truly either ignorant, foolish or condescending enough to
think that we, your readers are either ignorant or foolish. I don't
know about anyone else here, but I am neither.
Primitive man lived in hut, caves and other natural and/or makeshift
abodes he either found or created at the spur of the moment as
needed. The men hunted and women farmed usually only taking home what
was needed to fulfill dietary needs. He would cook only those foods
which were tooo difficult to eat uncooked and he wouldn't bother repairing
clothing, but rather would take a new animal skin.
When a child was born into a family, the woman's breasts would fill
with milk and the baby would suckle. The man would often take over
the duties in the fields as well as the hunting until his partner was
ready to resume her chores there.
Are you trying to tell me that any but the most dense reaer is going
to assume that only the men lived in huts and caves etc. and women
lived out in the open. Or that only men cooked and women only ate raw
foods? Sorry I don't buy it.
>
> I truly believe that the thought of those who use this locution is less
> clear than that of those who don't.
So do I which is why no writer would be published who tried to write
anything as stupid as what you were suggesting when you said, "Then,
finding that "his breasts fill with milk," doesn't sound right,
Traditional Writer will resort to something like, "His women's
breasts..."
>
> By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
> copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
> is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
> dedication to an astrologer.
Wow, that's exciting, but what the hell's it supposed to mean.
T. Bruce Tober
n742...@henson.cc.wwu.edu "Paul Tholfsen" writes:
> In article <3e1bdf$9...@panix.com> fire...@panix.com (Elayne Wechsler-Chaput)
> writes:
> [snip]
> >
> >: And I've opted to continue to have my pronouns agree in =both= gender
> >: and number with their antecedents. If anyone has a problem with this,
> >: it's his own problem -- not mine.
> >
> >Well, if I have a problem with this, it's MY own problem, and *I'm*
> >female. Therefore, you HAVEN'T agreed in gender. Which is what this
He certainly has, "it's his problem" refers back to the gender
neutral "anyone."
> >whole discussion is about. The way it's set up now, you EITHER agree in
> >gender OR number - unless you want to use the pronoun "its" (which not
> >only seems to insult many people, but appears, amazingly, to be one of
> >the hardest words in the English language to spell correctly!:)
Wrong, most people spell it just fine, it's punctuating it that's a
problem.
Robert Bryan Lipton
The question strikes me as a purely stylistic one. In general, in any
list, the shorter words come first: man and woman. By this rule, the
phrase should be 'man and wife' but, in the newer version of the wedding
ceremony it remains 'husband and wife' because 'husband' is a simple
substitution. I must admit that 'wife and husband' sounds more euphonious
to my ear. I must remember that if I ever get married again.
FInally, the question is not 'he or she' vs. 'she or he'. It is 'it, he
or she' vs. 'it, she or he.'
Bob
Dan Harper
>
>In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>
>>In article <3e542m$k...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale) says:
>
>>>He isn't talking to me, but I'm going to add my two cents.
>>
>>Go for it. However, I am offended that you assume that I am a "he."
> I do assume it; that wasn't a nonspecific "he".
Well, I think we should all have sex-neutral names (like Pat) so
no one can make assumptions about my sex. (Sarcasm alert.)
I mean, someone might assume I am a man (sex-specific) and
further assume I an "andro-centric arrogant human *#@!"
>>>The problem with using "he" for a person of undetermined sex, is -not- that
>>>it is offensive to female readers. Or at least, that's not the main
>>>problem.
>>>
>>>The main problem is that it doesn't -work-!
<snip snip my objections that it does work>
>Let's see if I can remember how I first reacted to the idea that "man"
>and "he" might not work when used inclusively. I think I was
>amused. After all, I thought, they work for -me-!
>
>But gradually I saw that they did not work, and had never worked.
>One eye-opener was a furor that arose in my church over inclusive
>language AND the ordination of women. "I always thought the
>Prayer Book meant all of us," my mother said. "But now I see
>it didn't." Another was reading some of the early books that did
>suggest that women as well as men affected the world, and then
>going back to see that the older books really -didn't- use the
>words to mean both sexes, even when the writers thought they were
>doing so. There was a vagueness of thought, a back-and-forth
>motion, between man as male and man as human, with the writer
>(and the reader, including the female reader) totally oblivious
>to what was happening.
Any example that dealt with a Christian church would
be a very bad example. They are very andro-centric.
>>>The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
>>>"they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
>>>reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
>>>was common, you may notice two problems with it.
>
>>If "he" as an exclusive pronoun is fairly new, how did we refer to
>>a noun of obviously male sex? Did you mean to say "inclusive"?
>
>I was unclear--I meant the exclusive use of "he" as the referent
>to a person of unknown sex. Austen used "they", but I don't
>remember whether she also used "he".
Oh, it is a little clearer now. There are four usages:
1) "He" to refer to person who you know is male.
2) "He" to refer to a single person of unknown sex.
3) "They" to refer to multiple persons of unknow or both sexes.
4) "They" to refer to a single person of unknow sex.
Am I correct in saying that you think that usage 4 is preferable to
usage 2 and that your original statement said that usage 2
"is a fairly new innovation"?
<snip snip goes my primative man paragraph>
>I apologize most humbly; I did not remember, and may not have read,
>your paragraph. I used the Primitive Man example because it has
>been a particularly egregious one. But your paragraph, while a bit
>strained, is not in the least unclear, and I'm sorry if I seemed
>to read it uncharitably.
No need to apologize; apparently you had another primative man
example in mind.
>I wish to point out, however, that a woman who assumes men are
>biased against women is right more often than not, just as (at least
>around here) a black person who assumes white bias is right more
>often than not. To act as if you assume the best is wise, but
>to really assume it is foolish.
I will concede this point if you will concede that the bias runs in
more than one direction--Men are biased against women, women
are biased against men, and some women are even biased against
women. Your race example works this way, too. Many Blacks are
biased against Whites.
Your little bit of wisdom at the end is nice, but is it not hard to act
a certain way if you really don't think that way?
>>What you have done is to make the writer entirely responsible
>>reader's own androcentrism. Instead of addressing the true
>>causes of the problem, you propose that we *force* a cosmetic
>>change to the language. There is nothing sexist in what I wrote; and
>>if a reader sees sexism or unconciously misinterprets my piece, the
>>androcentrism is his (untagged), not mine.
>
>I'm a writer. The writer is responsible for doing the best he or
>she can to communicate exactly what is intended. The reader's
>androcentrism is part of the writer's material, like the reader's
>language, the reader's tastes, the reader's tendency to go to
>sleep...
You are essentially correct about the writer's responsibilities.
However, I believe that the reader has responsibilities, too.
If either party neglects their responsibilities, miscommunication
will occur. Clear and careful use of the term "man" is not anymore
problematic than a vast number of other terms. As I see it, the
main issue is not that it is inherently unclear, but that a minority of
people (usually women with feminist leanings) don't like the term.
The real question is "As a writer, what are my responsibilities to
accommodate the vocal minority opinions of these people?"
>>>The other is, that it confuses the -writer-. All too often, the writer,
>>>writing "he", will go on talking about people in general, and about male
>>>people in particular, without making any distinction, until coming to
>>>something that is solely female. Then, finding that "his breasts fill with
>>>milk," doesn't sound right, Traditional Writer will resort to something
>>>like, "His women's breasts..."
>
>>I disagree; a good writer will not become confused and will be
>>careful to maintain the distinction. For the most part, writers
>>will also make use of other terms such as mankind, human, people,
>>persons, etc. I see nothing wrong with this, but I also see nothing
>>wrong with the clear, careful use of the generic term "man." I
>>could contrive a paragraph that uses "man" in an unclear and
>>sexist way--so what. I can contrive innumerable paragraphs
>>that use other terms unclearly or ambiguously.
>
>But "man" and more especially "he " lend themselves to unnecessary
>confusion--more, I believe, than other words do.
I agree that they can be confusing at times (especially when not used
clearly and consistently), but I do not this it is the bugaboo you
seem to think.
>On the other hand, using them is not "wrong" like stealing or
>setting fire to chipmunks. My usual term is "dumb"--I think
>this is a part of English that is better changed, like the
>spelling of "jail" or the use of the past participle in
>flashbacks.
You must be insensitive toward people who are mute if you use the
term "dumb" as a synonym for stupid.
Is the above not a similar argument to some arguments
some people make against the use of man?
>>>I truly believe that the thought of those who use this locution is less
>>>clear than that of those who don't.
>>
>>And well it may be.
>>
>>>By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
>>>copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
>>>is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
>>>dedication to an astrologer.
>>
>>Is this a dig at English authors?
>
>No. Well, sort of. They seem awfully old=fashioned about this
>issue. But they write beautifully.
Thank you for bringing up the "loss of a bit of the poetry of our
language" argument.
Dan Harper
Dan Harper
<snip snip>
>Older books are a problem--which is another way of saying that the use
>of generic "man" and "he" is disappearing.
And there is nothing wrong with this disappearance as long as it due
to evolution, not revolution.
Dan Harper
Dan Harper
The sentence "Someone with large hands should not make
dentistry his profession" *is* an example of grammatical gender.
Granted, English does not have much grammatical gender left, but
it is not dead yet.
I suggest you take your "clear-eyed analysis" and have it checked
for cataracts.
Dan Harper
Dan Harper
>
>Bonita Kale (bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
>
>: The exclusive use of "he" is a fairly new innovation. Jane Austen used
>: "they" quite unselfconsciously in her novels. But if you go back and
>: reread books from the fifties and sixties (in the US), in which this usage
>: was common, you may notice two problems with it.
>
>Keep saying this -- the message never seems to get through. The
>nonsexist usage is *not* an innovation of the feminist movement. It *is*
>"traditional". See OED for many examples.
It certainly was not used anywhere nearly as often as the untagged
"he". And whilst it may not be an innovation of the feminist movement,
this movement certainly has championed it. Some people would
even say that the feminist movement has done more than just
championed this--rammed it down our throats is more like it.
Dan Harper
Kathleen Jo Powell Hannah
: And now I'll say that we need a word to describe rhetoric of
: the right, phrases like "Protection of the family" to describe,
: well, anything the organization wants...
I think the term is "family values," as in the rightist group here in
Mississippi, "Mississippians for Family Values," whose main goal is to
discourage homosexuality, and particularly to close down a feminist
retreat near Ovett, MS.
Anthea F Gupta
[Bonita said]
: >>By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
: >>copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
: >>is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
: >>dedication to an astrologer.
[Dan Harper replied]
: >Is this a dig at English authors?
[Bonita replied}
: No. Well, sort of. They seem awfully old=fashioned about this
: issue. But they write beautifully.
Oh come on ... This is just stereotyping. There are sexist writers on
both sides of the Atlantic. There are writers on both sides of the
Atlantic who write beautifully.
Otherwise I agree with you.
Steve Anderson
MNE...@american.edu "Marjorie Neumann" writes:
What if, horror of horrors, they don't have a political agenda at
all?
BTW, it is in German. Which is _about_ as relevant as your point,
so don't bother.
Shift k.
--
Steve Anderson
"Evil Bill, I got a full-on robot chubby!"
** Product not
PC compatible ** ;)
Marjorie Neumann
And what, pray tell, makes you think it is evolution? Do you think
it would have have happened if it weren't for all those nasty feminists?
Dan Harper
Dan Harper said:
>>And there is nothing wrong with this disappearance as long as it due
>>to evolution, not revolution.
>And what, pray tell, makes you think it is evolution? Do you think
>it would have have happened if it weren't for all those nasty feminists?
Yes.
First, I don't think there are that many "nasty feminists" out there.
Second, I think the few "nasty feminists" that are out there
are, on balance, *not* expediting the progress.
Now, if we are talking about the women's movement and not
militant feminists, I would agree that they were (and are) an
influence in the evolution of English. Evolution does not happen
in a vacuum. There must be something that pressures it to move
in a certain way. However, gradual movement in a direction due
to a social pressure hardly constitutes revolution. Evolution is
gentle on society, revolution is hard. Revolution brings about
change, but at a cost. The undesired side effects of revolution
are often worse than the condition that prompted the change.
There is a great deal of inertial in the English language. Older
folks are going to resist change no matter what. But each new
generation is open to change; so change happens, but not over
night. Short of having language police, I don't see how you can
make change occur much faster.
Dan Harper
T. Bruce Tober
> >Because that is the shorthand (and pc is even shorter han) label
> >given it and we all tend to prefer shorthand labels to having to find
> >a different way (and perhaps clumsier) to express the idea.
>
> But what idea is that? I've heard "PC" used to mean so many different
> things that I'm never sure what someone who uses it is trying to say.
>
> Some examples:
POLITICALLY INCORRECT OPENING
Jill, I hope you don't mind my calling you Jill, let me see if I can
sort this out for you, as I am a man and all knowing and you just a
little woman.
POLITICALLY CORRECT OPENING
M. Lundquist, if I may, I'd be only too happy to attempt to clarify
the varying degrees and definitions of PC for you. I'm sure, you being a
superior in every way woman, and me only a lowly,
rape-every-woman-I-see man, my explanations will hardly be completely
up to snuff or even comprehensible, but allow me most kindly to try.
Jill, the story, as I see it, is this. Everyone sees PC as having
come about by means of their least favourite political group. I, for
example recall watching a Nightline programme with TedKoppel in the
mid '80s detailing the adventures of a certain very right wing
college newspaper editor of oriental extraction (as I recall it)
inventing pc language. Right wingers tend to think liberals invented
it and cite suitable examples.
that is to say everyone has today, their idea of what is pc and what
isn't and what causes carry a pc agenda and which don't and which
should or should not.
When I hear the word black in reference to a person, I don't know if
that is the currently preferred term or whether it's coloured, negro,
african american, or whatever. when I see someone in a wheel chair I
don't know whether that person is lame, crippled, handicapped,
specially abled or differently abled.
I don't know because I don't know what these individuals think of
themselves as (until if and when I discuss it with them) or what the
group representing them thinks of themselves as or what the group
raising awareness of them, or the group on the left thinks they
should be called, or the one on the right thinks.
It's a muddle. Pure and simple. There is no answer to your question,
just lots of confusion and personal attitudes and viewpoints.
My situation is this. I've taken all of this on board and decided I'm
an old leftist from way back when, but when it comes to language,
I'll stick with traditional, easy to use and understand language as
long as it's not abusive or defamatory. I won't call a black a nigger
(though among themselves it's a term of endearment almost) of an
african american (because it's too cumbersome a term) but black
because I consider myself white and therefore if I can be called by
my colour so can they. I won't write about an unspecified one of a
group of editors they. That one is representative of the whole and is
"he", so is the one among a group of nurses or teachers or firemen or
executives or secretarys. I won't use terms such as s/he, differently
abled, follically challenged, etc. they are cumbersome, meaningless
bs devised by one group of malcontents or another with a political
agenda to put forth.
I do hope that goes some way towards answering your question.
Bonita Kale
In a previous article, ellg...@leonis.nus.sg (Anthea F Gupta) says:
>Bonita Kale (bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
>
>[Bonita said]
>: >>By the way, when I run into it in a non-fiction book, I check the
>: >>copyright. Often the info is too old to be useful. (Sometimes the writer
>: >>is from England.) Always, I'm wary, as if the author had started with a
>: >>dedication to an astrologer.
>
>[Dan Harper replied]
>: >Is this a dig at English authors?
>
>[Bonita replied}
>: No. Well, sort of. They seem awfully old=fashioned about this
>: issue. But they write beautifully.
>
>Oh come on ... This is just stereotyping. There are sexist writers on
>both sides of the Atlantic. There are writers on both sides of the
>Atlantic who write beautifully.
>
True enough, but there's a kind of delightful, straightforward clarity that
seems to me more characteristic of English than US writers. There seem to
be more well-educated English people who are not afraid to write simply (I
always attributed it to having to read their stuff aloud to dons, but what
do I know?). The US seems to have more of a tendency to jargon and long
words.
Of course, this is not always true. Some English writers are just as dull
and polysyllabic as you can be. But the -standard- seems a little higher,
or just a little different.
Sideways relevance: when I read William Safire's books on writing, I am
usually displeased by what pleases him. He seems to go for a
journalistically overadorned style that I don't like.
--
Bonita Kale
bf...@cleveland.freenet.edu
Bonita Kale
In a previous article, MNE...@american.edu (Marjorie Neumann) says:
>>>Older books are a problem--which is another way of saying that the use
>>>of generic "man" and "he" is disappearing.
and Dan Harper says:
>>And there is nothing wrong with this disappearance as long as it due
>>to evolution, not revolution.
And Marjorie Neumann says:
>And what, pray tell, makes you think it is evolution? Do you think
>it would have have happened if it weren't for all those nasty feminists?
>
And I say, yeah, right! Besides, what's wrong with a little revolution
now and then? That's how we got "draft", "theater", "jail", and women
priests in the Episcopal church.
--
Bonita Kale
bf...@cleveland.freenet.edu
Dan Harper
>and Dan Harper says:
>
>>>And there is nothing wrong with this disappearance as long as it due
>>>to evolution, not revolution.
>
>And Marjorie Neumann says:
>
>>And what, pray tell, makes you think it is evolution? Do you think
>>it would have have happened if it weren't for all those nasty feminists?
>
>And I say, yeah, right! Besides, what's wrong with a little revolution
>now and then? That's how we got "draft", "theater", "jail", and women
>priests in the Episcopal church.
A support revolutions when:
1) they occur spontaneously (naturally verses contrivedly).
or
2) the injustice inspiring the revolution is grievous.
or
3) a less than grievous injustice is not being addressed by
a steady evolution.
The situation with the purported false generics fit none of
my three conditions. Three strikes, you're out.
If you think it is worth going to bat for, swing away--just don't
expect my support.
Dan Harper
tom
: ... there's a kind of delightful, straightforward clarity that
: seems to me more characteristic of English than US writers. There seem to
: be more well-educated English people who are not afraid to write simply (I
: always attributed it to having to read their stuff aloud to dons, but what
: do I know?). The US seems to have more of a tendency to jargon and long
: words.
So I'm not the only one! I've felt this repeatedly when reading English
writers. I think, "Well, you can see who invented the language." But that
isn't the whole story; you have only to read the chapter on Jargon in
Quiller-Couch's _The Art of Writing_, or numerous examples in the original
Fowler, to see how the inventors themselves mess up their own language.
Nevertheless, I still prefer their style when they get it right. I wonder
--is it the influence of Dr Johnson? or possibly of Cranmer's Prayer Book?
--
T. W. Parsons | "The greatest pleasure in life
Hofstra University | is doing what other people say
| you cannot do." --W. Bagehot
Dan Harper
>
>In article <3e1o7f$c...@b30news.b30.ingr.com>, dwha...@ingr.com
>
>>Some people would argue that English has
>>no grammatical gender, but I believe that it does--although it
>>is not as pronounced as say, Latin.
>
So, it is an understatement; sue me. I still think that a sentence
like, "Someone with large hands should not make dentistry
his profession" is an example of grammatical gender.
< Wonderful essay about grammatical gender in Latin and
Old English deleted>
>>The situation with the purported false generics fit none of
>>my three conditions. Three strikes, you're out.
>>
>Mr. Harper, where do you get these ridiculous notions? Thats' a
>rhetorical question. No response is required.
I don't know how you got my paragraph with the baseball
metaphor mixed in with the post you were responding to, but it
came from a post that was talking about the differences between
evolution and revolution and talking about whether the language
changes resulting from the so-called false generics are evolutionary
or revolutionary.
I am assuming that your inclusion of this out of context paragraph
is an oversight, and not intentional. You need only respond
if my assumption is incorrect.
Dan Harper
00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu
> In article <3emqlc$3...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale) says:
>
>>and Dan Harper says:
>>And I say, yeah, right! Besides, what's wrong with a little revolution
>>now and then? That's how we got "draft", "theater", "jail", and women
>>priests in the Episcopal church.
>
> A support revolutions when:
>
> 1) they occur spontaneously (naturally verses contrivedly).
> or
Please name a spontaneous, uncontrived revolution.
Nyal Z. Williams
00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Dan Harper
>
>In article <3en6el$n...@b30news.b30.ingr.com>, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) writes:
>> In article <3emqlc$3...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale) says:
>>
>>>and Dan Harper says:
>snip
>snip
snip
>Please name a spontaneous, uncontrived revolution.
The French Revolution.
Dan Harper
Jill Lundquist
Dan Harper <dwha...@ingr.com> wrote:
>I agree that the women's movement provides much of the
>pressure that currently is moving our language toward sex-neutral
>language. I think we are very close to agreement.
I think that's a fair assessment. In most of your posts I agree
with a great deal and find one or two points that I disagree
with.
><A dreadfully sexist story that demeaned men by making fun of
> the anatomy of the male genitalia has been deleted>
>
>Actually, I found the story humorous. However, do you think
>that I could have posted a story involving a women's vulva and
>not have been crucified--regardless of how funny or clever my
>play on words were. Think about it.
My own words below sound unduly somber to me as I read them,
but I hope others will read them as thoughtful but not
worried or distressed.
I've thought about it, and if you had posted a story exactly
the reverse of the one I posted, I would have defended you
from someone who was offended by it. The equivalent of my
story, in which I made a play on words with the word "foreskin,"
would be a story in which someone made a play on words with,
say, the word "clitoris." I'm not sure how someone could consider
just saying either of those words offensive, considering that
the story did not refer to the body parts that those words
normally indicate.
I'm trying to think of some circumstance under which the story
really might have been offensive, and I can think of one. If
foreskins were an emotional issue for most men in the culture,
something that women laughed about and talked among ourselves
and used to boost ourselves at the expense of men, then this
story as written could make a man uncomfortable. Rather than
do a brain dump here of every association I have with foreskins,
I'll say that in my experience this is not the case, or is only
the case to a tiny, tiny extent.
So I don't know whether you _would_ have been crucified, but I
don't think you _should_ have been. :-(
--
Jill Lundquist ji...@qualcomm.com DoD #882
When hell freezes over, grab the ice skates.
Jim Thorpe
>Subject: English writers (was: He or she or she or he?)
>From: bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale)
>Date: 7 Jan 1995 12:31:52 GMT
Bonita Kale (bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
>True enough, but there's a kind of delightful, straightforward clarity that
>seems to me more characteristic of English than US writers. There seem to
>be more well-educated English people who are not afraid to write simply (I
>always attributed it to having to read their stuff aloud to dons, but what
>do I know?). The US seems to have more of a tendency to jargon and long
>words.
Your mention of long words caught my attention. I was raised in New Zealand
and, apart from the accent, used English English. After living for over 40
years in Canada I have come to the conclusion that the basic difference
between English English and American English is that Americans tend to use
words of Latin origin whereas the English lean more to Germanic roots, which
tend to contain fewer syllables. German itself is another kettle of fish.
That is a broad generalization - see, Latin root - that will get me into
trouble, I know.
Jim T.
Jim T.
T. Bruce Tober
>
> Bonita Kale (bf...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
>
> : ... there's a kind of delightful, straightforward clarity that
> : seems to me more characteristic of English than US writers. There seem to
> : be more well-educated English people who are not afraid to write simply (I
> : always attributed it to having to read their stuff aloud to dons, but what
> : do I know?). The US seems to have more of a tendency to jargon and long
> : words.
>
> So I'm not the only one! I've felt this repeatedly when reading English
> writers. I think, "Well, you can see who invented the language." But that
> isn't the whole story; you have only to read the chapter on Jargon in
> Quiller-Couch's _The Art of Writing_, or numerous examples in the original
> Fowler, to see how the inventors themselves mess up their own language.
> Nevertheless, I still prefer their style when they get it right. I wonder
> --is it the influence of Dr Johnson? or possibly of Cranmer's Prayer Book?
>
As I sat on the bus recently on my way to city centre (downtown to
you on the other side of the pond) I did my usual people watching.
Slowly it dawned on me that this is, at least one reason, the British
are superior writers. Because life is somewhat slower paced here and
we get to smell not only the coffee, but also the roses.
I haven't owned a car in 2.5 years. I often miss it. But this
afternoon, a few days ago, I realised that we (and I do tend to think
of myself as we with the Brits after 3 years here and the intention
of making it permanent) have the time and ability to do the people
watching, we snoop on their conversations, we watch their actions.
We can do so because we're not driving along at 55 mph on the highway or
at 5 mph in urban traffic jams. Instead we're seated in a bus for 15
minutes here, 45 minutes there, two, three, half a dozen times a day.
We can do so because we're not queing at Burger King for a quikmeal
eaten on the run to our next appointment. Instead we're seated in a
cafe or chippy, making at least subconsious (never could spell that)
notes on the people around us.
We can do so because we're not racing around the Stop & Shop at 3 in
the morning trying to get our groceries as quickly as possible at a
time when there are no crowds. Instead we trudge along behind some
oap (old age pensioner) or some young mum with a baby in the trolley
(cart) and one or two in hand, one pulling her back to look at the
biscuits she wants mum to buy her, the other tugging at her pant leg
to hurry forward to the sweets that he wants her to buy.
Paul Giaccone
: I won't use terms such as s/he, differently
: abled, follically challenged, etc. they are cumbersome, meaningless
: bs devised by one group of malcontents or another with a political
: agenda to put forth.
"Follicly challenged" (as it would be correctly spelt) is of course a
pseudo-PC term used to ridicule PC rather than being PC itself.
--
Paul Giaccone
k94...@kingston.ac.uk
Ed Costello
(Paul Giaccone) wrote:
Hmmm.. I thought "Follicly challenged" was PC for "bald".
To digress, would this mean that PC women are "Phallically Challenged"? :)
--
Keith Ivey
: >
: > "Follicly challenged" (as it would be correctly spelt) is of course a
: > pseudo-PC term used to ridicule PC rather than being PC itself.
I believe the word you're looking for is "follicularly". It is true
that "follicularly challenged", like "vertically challenged", began
as a parody of PC, but I have discovered that PC is impossible to
parody. Any suggestion, no matter how ridiculous, is probably taken
seriously by someone out there. For example, people often ridicule
gender-inclusive language by substituting "person" for "man" in
words like "management" that have no connection to the word "man".
I found out last year that there are people who seriously believe
that the word "humanity" is not inclusive because it contains "man"
as a syllable. Logically they would also reject "person" because
it contains "son". Perhaps they do.
I'm sure that somewhere out there someone is using "follicularly
challenged" with a straight face.
Note that I consider the issue of singular "they" and generic "he"
(and to some extent even generic "man") to be separate from that
of political correctness. Using "they" to refer to a singular
antecedent was not invented by the PC police.
--Keith Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org>
Washington, DC
Wei-Hwa Huang
>I'm trying to think of some circumstance under which the story
>really might have been offensive, and I can think of one. If
>foreskins were an emotional issue for most men in the culture,
>something that women laughed about and talked among ourselves
>and used to boost ourselves at the expense of men, then this
>story as written could make a man uncomfortable. Rather than
>do a brain dump here of every association I have with foreskins,
>I'll say that in my experience this is not the case, or is only
>the case to a tiny, tiny extent.
I can vouch for at least one subculture where the situtation exists.
When I was in Taiwan I once saw a comedy movie where the main
character has to undergo a physical examination. He passes many
hurdles (all rather funny) until the genitalia examination, where
the examiner takes one look and jots down something on his pad. Our
protagonist takes one look. It says "foreskin too long." The entire
audience (except for me) laughed loudly. To this date I'm not sure
what was so funny about that.
Rachel Ganz
> understand your usage. That is to say, we refrain from refusing to
> understand it. When you say, "I wish someone would loan me their brain,"
> we do =not= understand you to imply that the someone is more than one
> person, even though the pronoun is plural.
Someone implies singular - no sex implied by either word.
>When we say, "I wish someone
> would loan me his brain," we ask that you do not understand us to imply
> that the someone is male, simply because the pronoun is of the untagged
> gender.
Someone implies singular of either sex. His can be understood to imply a
male someone. For example, in a mixed-sex school,, requesting someone to
lend his brain implies that you are more interested in the male brains in
the class.
> You need not change your usage; we understand you. We will not change
> ours; we ask you to understand us.
There can occasionally be ambiguity. If you make the effort to make it
clear when you mean his (male only) and his (male or female), I'm sure we
will understand you.
I now retire back into the obscurity of disagreeing in silence.
Jens Wuepper
: [...] You'd better give me the PC term for "fatso",
: while you're at it.
How about "gravitationally challenged"?
OK, it was just a guess from someone to whom English is
a second language...
Greetings
Jens
PS: I'm "s+:-".
--
Jens Wuepper wue...@math.uni-hamburg.de
T. Bruce Tober
k94...@kingston.ac.uk "Paul Giaccone" writes:
True, sorry for the misspelling, just didn't bother to check. Used
that as an example exactly as it's intended to further ridicule pc
which is believe is deserving of much worse than ridicule.
00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu
"Hey, Sam! Ya made the pants too long."
- Barbara Streisand - and others who sang it before her.
Nyal Z. Williams
00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Dan Harper
>
>In article <3euhol$e...@b30news.b30.ingr.com>,
>Dan Harper <dwha...@ingr.com> wrote:
>>In article <3esni7$4...@qualcomm.com>, ji...@baloo.qualcomm.com says...
>><explaination of why Jill would not have been offended has been
deleted>
>>
>>>So I don't know whether you _would_ have been crucified, but I
>>>don't think you _should_ have been. :-(
>>
article
>>that makes humorous references to the more private parts of women. I
>>take enough heat just using "man" and "he."
>>
>>In general, men do not take offense from this sort of thing as easily
as
>>do women.
>
>Depends on the circumstances in my experience. In a group that's
>nearly all women, men appear to be far less comfortable with such
>jokes than in a group where men are well represented. That's
>probably got more to do with being in a clear minority in an
>extremely unbalanced group than with being a man. Come to think of
>it, that may well be part of the reason that in a workplace where
>women are in a distinct minority (or are concentrated in low status
>jobs), women are more offended by such jokes than men in the same
>workplace are. I've certainly said things that were more, ah,
>anatomically explicit (is that PC for "crude?") in groups that were
>mostly female than in groups that were mostly male or fairly
>balanced between the sexes.
>
>Or if women are more easily offended across group boundaries, it
>might be something far simpler, like women being socialized more to
>avoid such naughty things, or something more abstract, like the
>fact that words describing women's genitalia are used as more
>vicious insults than words describing men's genitalia, or something
>more sociological, like the fact that women are raped (attacked
>with the genitals as a focus of violence) more often than men are.
>I think that calling any of these things The Reason for women's
>greater quickness to offense would be hopelessly reductionist, but
>as a gestalt, they say something about how perhaps if women are
>more easily offended than men, there might be a reason for it.
>
>Whew, better stop this post before everyone starts thinking I
>spend most of my time sitting in groups of various compositions
>telling dirty jokes and using naughty words. :-)
Just a few thoughts: Do men restrain themselves from crude
language in mixed company out of respect for women or from fear
of being fired for sexual harrassment? If men feel free to act
a certain way in front of other men but not free in front of
women, are they really treating women as there equals?
Dan Harper
Bonita Kale
In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>
>Just a few thoughts: Do men restrain themselves from crude
>language in mixed company out of respect for women or from fear
>of being fired for sexual harrassment? If men feel free to act
>a certain way in front of other men but not free in front of
>women, are they really treating women as there equals?
>
>Dan Harper
>
Women also, feel freer in a group of women. Of course; how could
it be otherwise, when each sex is so vulnerable to the other in
so many ways?
Also, if white people refrain from making racist jokes
when black people are in the room, are the white
people treating black people as inferiors, or are they merely
acting in one circumstance as they -should- act all the time?
Oh, dear, this is somewhat off the topic of usage.
--
Bonita Kale
bf...@cleveland.freenet.edu
Katie Henry
|> > Hmmmmm. You'd better give me the PC term for "fatso", >
|>
|> Don't need the pc police for that. Let's see ... Hefty, large, big and
|> tall, buxom, womanly, sturdy, meaty ...
Actually, the PC term for fat people is ... "fat." This is the position
taken by fat-rights activists. The organization is called NAAFA --
the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance
(that might not be completely right, but I do know the F = fat).
It's refreshing to see a group moving *away* from euphemisms.
Katie
Gareth M. Evans
In article <3f1a32$g...@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> fm4...@math.uni-hamburg.de (Jens Wuepper) writes:
Jens> Pascal MacProgrammer (stev...@bud.indirect.com) wrote: : [...]
Jens> You'd better give me the PC term for "fatso", : while you're at
Jens> it.
Jens> How about "gravitationally challenged"?
Jens> OK, it was just a guess from someone to whom English is a second
Jens> language...
It's not all over until the circumferentially challenged femal
vocalises?
Gareth
--
---
Gareth M. Evans, TEL: +44 1223 428245
Tadpole Technology PLC, FAX: +44 1223 428201
Cambridge Science Park, EMAIL: g...@tadpole.co.uk
Cambridge,
CB4 4WQ.
---
Gareth M. Evans
In article <GME.95Ja...@jupiter.dev.tadpole.co.uk> g...@jupiter.dev.tadpole.co.uk (Gareth M. Evans) writes:
>>>>> "Jens" == Jens Wuepper <fm4...@math.uni-hamburg.de> writes:
Gareth> In article <3f1a32$g...@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de>
Gareth> fm4...@math.uni-hamburg.de (Jens Wuepper) writes:
Jens> Pascal MacProgrammer (stev...@bud.indirect.com) wrote: : [...]
Jens> You'd better give me the PC term for "fatso", : while you're at
Jens> it.
Jens> How about "gravitationally challenged"?
Jens> OK, it was just a guess from someone to whom English is a second
Jens> language...
Gareth> It's not all over until the circumferentially challenged female
^^^^
Correct my own typo before some smart-alec flames me!
Gareth> vocalises?
Gareth> Gareth --
Gareth> ---
Gareth> Gareth M. Evans, TEL: +44 1223 428245 Tadpole Technology PLC,
Gareth> FAX: +44 1223 428201 Cambridge Science Park, EMAIL:
Gareth> g...@tadpole.co.uk Cambridge, CB4 4WQ.
Gareth> ---
James Picton-Warlow
: >>>>> "00nzwilliams" == 00nzwilliams <00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu> writes:
: In article <1995Jan11.1...@bsuvc.bsu.edu>\
00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu writes:
: 00nzwilliams> The acid test, IMO, is to call it personure and watch for
: 00nzwilliams> a reaction.--
: perSIBLINGure, please...
I think that should be perOFFSPRINGure, n'est-ce pas?
:)
James Picton-Warlow.
Mark Odegard
khe...@jetsun.SLCS.SLB.COM (Katie Henry) writes:
Apropos . . ., recalling the eeny meeny miney moe thread . . .
Fatty fatty two by four
Can't get through the bathroom door
and its variant,
Fatty fatty four by eight,
Can't get through the garden gate
Paul J. Kriha
Recently, I listened to a sketch on a radio. "person"
was substituted for all occurrencies of "man". Then
the speaker decided that "son" was sexist too and
substituted "body" for every "son".
The speach mentioned several times perbodies and woperbodies....:-)
Paul JK
Daniel Luecking
>James Harvey (har...@indyvax.iupui.edu) wrote:
>> The best one I've heard is "metabolically challenged" for "dead person."
>I concede. You win!
Do I win anything for "decompositionally abled"?
(From the comic strip, "Kudzu".)
Dan Luecking
--
luec...@comp.uark.edu | Anti-disclaimer:
Department of Mathematical Sciences | To first approximation, all
University of Arkansas | views expressed here are not
Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA | opinions, but undisputed facts.
MR. N. NERODE
>> I found out last year that there are people who seriously believe
>> that the word "humanity" is not inclusive because it contains "man"
>> as a syllable. Logically they would also reject "person" because
>> it contains "son". Perhaps they do.
>> (and to some extent even generic "man") to be separate from that
>> of political correctness. Using "they" to refer to a singular
>> antecedent was not invented by the PC police.
>> --Keith Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org>
>> Washington, DC
> Nyal Z. Williams
> 00nzwi...@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Surely you mean perchildure? :-) :-) :-)
(From now on I use "huperchildity" as my pseudo-PC "mankind" substitute.)
--Nathanael Nerode--
--ne...@carleton.edu--
Guns cause crime like flies cause cow-dung.
: Actually, the PC term for fat people is ... "fat." This is the position
: taken by fat-rights activists. The organization is called NAAFA --
: the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance
: (that might not be completely right, but I do know the F = fat).
: It's refreshing to see a group moving *away* from euphemisms.
Yeah, but they're fat, so their opinions don't count.
Jon
Dan Harper
says...
>In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
>
>>
>>Just a few thoughts: Do men restrain themselves from crude
>>language in mixed company out of respect for women or from fear
>>of being fired for sexual harrassment? If men feel free to act
>>a certain way in front of other men but not free in front of
>>women, are they really treating women as there equals?
>>
>>Dan Harper
>>
>
>Women also, feel freer in a group of women. Of course; how could
>it be otherwise, when each sex is so vulnerable to the other in
>so many ways?
It has been my observation that men use language differently
from women. I think there are a few books out there on the subject.
I may have to read one. Anyway, it is my impression that when
women talk in a group they are not playing all the little power
games that men love to play.
>Also, if white people refrain from making racist jokes
>when black people are in the room, are the white
>people treating black people as inferiors, or are they merely
>acting in one circumstance as they -should- act all the time?
Normally, I consider race issues poor analogies for sex issues; but
in this case, I see your point.
>Oh, dear, this is somewhat off the topic of usage.
Oh, I don't know, maybe not that much off. Do you see the use or
restraint of use of the generic "man" and "he" as being comparable to
crude (sexist?) language or racist jokes? Just how far is a person
required to go to avoid offending another person? This ties back into
the "political correctness" thread.
Dan Harper
Bonita Kale
In a previous article, dwha...@ingr.com (Dan Harper) says:
Do you see the use or
>restraint of use of the generic "man" and "he" as being comparable to
>crude (sexist?) language or racist jokes?
Boy, not in degree!
Just how far is a person
>required to go to avoid offending another person? This ties back into
>the "political correctness" thread.
Seems to me the problem is not so much one of offending people, as of
getting one's point across. Ignoring the issues of clarity, which has been
discussed pretty thoroughly, here's another racial analogy.
For several reasons, I generally use "black" and "white" to refer to people
whose ancestors came from Africa and Europe. However, if I were writing
for an audience which generally used "African" and "European" (say, for a
magazine that preferred it that way), I would adopt that usage in order not
to have my message distorted by side-issues about language.
I think writing now, one is severely limiting one's audience in time and
space by using "he" to mean "person of unspecified sex." A lot of people
are going to assume that you are old (which, as you know, is the Sin of
Sins), prejudiced, heedless--name your own adjective. Your message will be
interrupted by the strain of the reader Making Allowances for you.
This isn't the kind of reading most of us want.
--
Bonita Kale
bf...@cleveland.freenet.edu