How can I change the name of the group SOC.WOMEN?
Roger RDC Carasso
>This SOC group is misspelled. It should have originally been listed as
>soc.womyn, as womyn take offense at spelling it any other way.
I say let them have their stupid "soc.womyn" and from now "women" be
spelled "womyn". HOWEVER, I also propose that we counter attack, and
change "men" to "myn", and "soc.men" to "soc.myn".
Roger
---------------------
"you can get the "men" out of the "women", but you can't get the
"myn" out of the "womyn"
Mikki Barry
writes:
> I say let them have their stupid "soc.womyn" and from now "women" be
> spelled "womyn". HOWEVER, I also propose that we counter attack, and
> change "men" to "myn", and "soc.men" to "soc.myn".
Ah, by the term "counter attack", I get what you really mean. A WAR GAME! Oh
goody! Just what I've been waiting for in soc.women. (oops, spelled it wrong,
damn).
Seriously, why do you see an attempt to make some people more comfortable as an
"attack" that you must "counter"? Is this endemic of the problem of having a
group for women's issues on the net?
Just Wondering,
Mikki Barry
Bradley L. Richards
>> I say let them have their stupid "soc.womyn" and from now "women" be
>> spelled "womyn".
Mikki Barry writes:
> ...why do you see an attempt to make some people more comfortable as an
> "attack" that you must "counter"?
While Roger's comments are a tad tactless, I'm surprised that mispelling
"women" would make anyone more comfortable. Seeing language misused to no
apparent gain makes me UNcomfortable. Do you honestly believe that the current
spelling in any way contributes to gender bias? In any case, if one must find
fault with the word "woman," the most glaring problem isn't the spelling of the
last syllable but the fact that the first syllable derives from the old English
"wif" meaning "wife." Hence "woman" = "wife (of) man." Changing "e" to "y"
doesn't alter the etymology of the word.
In spite of the above diatribe, I'm all for constructive changes to the
language. Gender-neutral writing, for example, would be a lot easier if we
could all agree on a neutral personal pronoun. For some reason "te" just never
caught on. And we need a better term for the awkward "significant other,"
though this at least is better than nothing. Personally, I always liked Ursula
LeGuin's suggestion of "kimmering," but that also never gained much acceptance.
Bradley
Mara Chibnik
>Mikki Barry writes:
>> ...why do you see an attempt to make some people more comfortable as an
>> "attack" that you must "counter"?
>
>"women" would make anyone more comfortable. Seeing language misused to no
>apparent gain makes me UNcomfortable.
Okay, let's look at this again. You may be surprised, but there are
those (no, I'm not among them) who say that it does make them more
comfortable-- or less uncomfortable.
So this "misuse to no apparent gain" depends some on writing off a
gain that some people see.
Why should I consider your failure to understand how they feel more
important than their feeling?
> Do you honestly believe that the
>current spelling in any way contributes to gender bias?
Well, I didn't used to. And then I started to observe the heat of
the reactions against alternative spellings, and the nature of the
arguments used to insist on conservative spelling, and I began to
wonder. I think that most of our culture contributes to gender
bias, and that it pays to be open to the affects on us of exposure
to radical neologisms.
> In any case,
>if one must find fault with the word "woman," the most glaring problem
>isn't the spelling of the last syllable but the fact that the first
>syllable derives from the old English "wif" meaning "wife." Hence
>"woman" = "wife (of) man." Changing "e" to "y" doesn't alter the
>etymology of the word.
What fault? I don't really care what the parts of the word meant to
whom before the fifteenth century, I care about current usage and
connotations.
>In spite of the above diatribe, I'm all for constructive changes to the
>language.
Good. Maybe you can suggest a means of putting some of these
changes into place. Would legislation help, do you think?
> Gender-neutral writing, for example, would be a lot easier
>if we could all agree on a neutral personal pronoun. For some
>reason "te" just never caught on.
Nor did Marge Piercy's "per" ("person" in the nominative), which
I like better.
>And we need a better term for the awkward "significant other," though
>this at least is better than nothing. Personally, I always liked
>Ursula LeGuin's suggestion of "kimmering," but that also never gained
>much acceptance.
A friendlier term for SO is the only thing that I think stands a
chance of making it into popular vocabulary within a generation.
"Kimmering" sounds too much like a collective to me, but I haven't
read how LeGuin would use it. Maybe I'd feel differently if I did.
--
cmcl2!panix!mara ma...@dorsai.com marob!panix!mara
Mara Chibnik
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Mathemagician
>fault with the word "woman," the most glaring problem isn't the spelling of
>the last syllable but the fact that the first syllable derives from the old
>English "wif" meaning "wife." Hence "woman" = "wife (of) man." Changing
>"e" to "y" doesn't alter the etymology of the word.
You need to check your etymology.
"Wif" meaning "wife" derives from "wif" meaning "female."
"Man" meaning "male" derives from "werman" meaning "male person."
In Old English, the terms were "werman" and "wifman."
Also, "she" does not derive from "he." "He" comes from the
Old English "heo" whereas "she" derives from "seo."
>In spite of the above diatribe, I'm all for constructive changes to the
>language. Gender-neutral writing, for example, would be a lot easier if we
>could all agree on a neutral personal pronoun. For some reason "te" just
>never caught on. And we need a better term for the awkward "significant
>other," though this at least is better than nothing. Personally, I always
>liked Ursula LeGuin's suggestion of "kimmering," but that also never gained
>much acceptance.
Well, the thing is there *is* a neutral personal pronoun, but, as
you say, we don't agree on it. "He" is defined to be a pronoun
in the third person that has no gender attached. People, on the
other hand, refuse to accept this definition (and that is certainly
within their rights...they can use the language any way they want.)
The same feelings that make me roll my eyes when I see the word
"womyn" are the same feelings that make others angry when they
see the word "he" being used in a generic sense.
Both of us feel that the other is being unreasonable and can't
see "what's going on."
--
Brian Evans |"Momma told me to never kiss a girl on the first
bevans at gauss.unm.edu | date...But that's OK...I don't kiss girls."
Jonathan A Woodman
>In spite of the above diatribe, I'm all for constructive changes to the
>language. Gender-neutral writing, for example, would be a lot easier if we
>could all agree on a neutral personal pronoun. For some reason "te" just never
>caught on. And we need a better term for the awkward "significant other,"
>though this at least is better than nothing. Personally, I always liked Ursula
>LeGuin's suggestion of "kimmering," but that never gained much acceptance.
I heartily agree with need for a new word to replace "significant other". My
girlfriend (that is what she has chosen to refer to herself as) and I have
struggled with this for a long time, since we both dislike the terms
"girlfriend" and "boyfriend", but dislike other terms even more. She has taken
lately to simply calling me "her man", but this simply doesn't not work in
reverse, for when I call her "my woman" it just doesn't sound right at all.
I haven't asked her yet, but I don't think either one of us is going to go for
"kimmering". Are there any other suggestions out there?
Jonathan Woodman
Adrienne Regard
Re Kimmering, SO, etc.
I use 'partner'.
Adrienne Regard
Kate M. Gregory
>In article (Bradley L. Richards) writes:
>
>>we need a better term for the awkward "significant other,"
>>though this at least is better than nothing. Personally, I always liked
>>Ursula LeGuin's suggestion of "kimmering," but that never gained much
>>acceptance.
>
>I heartily agree with need for a new word to replace "significant other". My
>girlfriend (that is what she has chosen to refer to herself as) and I have
>struggled with this for a long time, since we both dislike the terms
>"girlfriend" and "boyfriend", but dislike other terms even more. She has taken
>lately to simply calling me "her man", but this simply doesn't not work in
>reverse, for when I call her "my woman" it just doesn't sound right at all.
Here's my two cents on the matter: stop trying to come up with a noun.
Just use the person's name. Most of the time people will guess that this
person is linked to you romantically. If you have reason to believe they
won't guess that, or if they say "who's that?" then instead of a noun,
use verbs: "we live together", or "he lives with me", or "we've been dating
for the last few months", or "we're in love", "we had a blind date last
night" or whatever. People usually
have no trouble coming up with a verb they are happy with.
So you could introduce someone not as "Bradley, my SO" but rather just
Bradley or perhaps "Bradley, who lives with me." Try "This is Bradley.
We're getting married this fall." [Sorry, Bradley, but I needed a name and
yours was at the top of the page.] Same goes for referring to the person in
Usenet postings or cafeteria conversations. Just tell that funny story
with the name in it, instead of "my SO". Perhaps on first reference
you could explain a little: "Bradley, (we live together you know) was
coming out the door and what did he see? ....".
Anyway, it works for me. And you know those messy "this is my college
roomate's first husband's sister" kind of things you do at reunions
and weddings: I learned from my sister how unnecessary they are. Just
say "this is Laura." Then when the conversation flags, someone can
say "How do you know Bradley, Laura?" and you have a built in topic
of conversation. If that is too awful to contemplate, try "This is Laura.
Her brother was once married to Jane, Bradley's old roomate." Switching
from nouns to verbs has allowed you to get the information to
your listener more clearly.
Your mileage may vary, but I've dropped nouns from my introducing and
my third party referencing as much as I can. And no, I don't introduce
or refer to my sister as "this is Sarah. We have the same parents." There
is a limit. But only when I'm kidding around do I talk about certain family
members as "my father's wife's sister's ex husband's children by his
first wife". Michael and Aaron is so much easier.
Kate
JA Badner
Judy
K. Roper
"Kimmering"? Heh, I like it (but I'm accustomed to my name, too :>
As for my partner, he doesn't seem to mind being called "the scruffy
bum". Usually I call him Jeff. Since we're joined at the hip,
nomenclature isn't a problem ]:>
=========
Kim Roper
Dept of Chem Eng, Queen's University
Internet: rop...@qucdn.queensu.ca
Debora Weber-Wulff
that might not work too well in the Anglo-American areas...
--
Debora Weber-Wulff
snail: FU Berlin, ZI Fachdidaktiken, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, W-1000 Berlin 33
email: web...@inf.fu-berlin.de, d...@math.fu-berlin.de
Valerie Maslak
I've been using "partner" as regards my silver-cuffed sweetie, too,
Adrienne, but I'm finding more people that I would have expected
respond, "Oh, are you in business together??"
I use "friend and partner," or "housemate and partner," too, sometimes.
Still, I guess I like the fact that we can DECIDE what to call each
other.
Valerie
Melissa C Merrill
neutral pronoun. Shibley-Hide did a study on this with grade-school
children and college people, and found that the children overwhelmingly
did not understand that "he" was intende as gender neutral, no matter
the context of the sentence, and that a good share of college students,
when given a sentence with "he" in it assume that it's a man. Perhaps
"he" isn't as gender neutral as we think?
(please don't flame, I'm not "taking side", I just thought I'd throw this
in.)
Melissa
Ami A. Silberman
> I've been using "partner" as regards my silver-cuffed sweetie, too,
>Adrienne, but I'm finding more people that I would have expected
>respond, "Oh, are you in business together??"
Have you gotten "what convention do you play"?
I've always felt comfortable with "boyfriend/girlfriend", since it is
just about as ambiguous as anything else.
ami silberman - janitor of lunacy
Amanda Walker
seen it more in science fiction books than in real life.
--
Amanda Walker ama...@visix.com
Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!amanda
--
"Haven't you learned yet that X is a vendor conspiracy to sell more
memory and disks?" --Bob Scheifler