From: brokow@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mike Brokowski)
Subject: Re: The "his", "he" Issue
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 17:46:22 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.182219.15475@access.usask.ca> (M. Bickis) writes:
>In article <1992Aug20.212832.8216@midway.uchicago.edu> 
>(Sheheryar Hasnain) writes in reply to:
>>>Max Zener:BTW, I'm still waiting for someone to demonstrate why someone
>>>who uses the neutered forms in English must necessarily be sexist.
>
>>She is as much a neutered form as he.  Think about it.  What, to you,
>>is the difference between she and he as neutered forms?  It seems
>>that the only difference you can come up with is that one is "correct" 
>>and the other is not.   
>
>"He" is not really a neutered form.  The neuter pronoun in English is "it".
>However, it has been convention in this language, (as in many others) that
>in cases of mixed or unknown gender the masculine form is used.  In
>English this is only an issue when speaking about people (or at least
>higher animals) since inanimate objects do not have gender. It is not so
>simple in some other languages.

This is correct.  "he" is not the neutered form.  "he" is the 
*common* form.
While Max stated neutered, I believe he meant common.  I case most 
people had more fun during eighth grade grammar than I did, I'll 
briefly note that: (this is informal, no lexical flames please)
     neutered refers to objects considered *neither* 
     male nor female,
whereas
     common refers to objects considered *either* male
     *or* female.
As noted by the previous poster (Bickis), "it" is the neutered 
singular form.  The common singular form is "he."

Many people in this thread (myself included) have been referring 
to a "generic" singular pronoun.  I hope we can agree that this 
has the same denotation as common.  (At least that is what I
mean by it.)

> Whether this is "correct" is not an absolute question.  That is the way
>that educated people (of both sexes) have spoken and written.  Languages
>and conventions change.  Today, many educated people (of both sexes)
>shun such usage--primarily for political reasons.  I personally do not
>like constructions like the singular "they", and I find "he or she" can
>get tedious after a while.  Although I am not PC, I do find that I am
>saying and writing "he or she" when talking about a generic person, and
>I will frequently use "she" when talking about a hypothetical person of
>otherwise unspecified gender.  I dub this being PT--"Politically
>Tactful".  Given that certain groups in our society have made this
>he/she, man/person thing an *Issue*, what is to be gained by provoking
>their ire?  After all, the purpose of language is communication, and if
>someone is going to *misunderstand* my use of the masculine gender as
>*excluding* women (whether deliberately or negligently), then why should
>I not avoid the misunderstanding by adopting another convention?

I would generally agree here, with a few caveats.  First, 
whether things. are correct is largely a matter of definitions.  
Certainly definitions can change with time, but right now (and 
probably for a while), "he" can mean either "he" or "he or she", 
depending on context.  It just happens to be the current 
definition.  For anyone to argue that "she" means "she or he" 
because the definitions are fluid is a little silly.  One may as 
well say that "weasel" means "brick".  Of course the definitions 
may change so that one day weasel will mean brick, but right now 
it doesn't and it is worthless to argue that it does.  Since 
"he" can mean "he or she", why should I change my speech because 
some people don't are too lazy to understand the language?  
Remember that language would be useless if it changed every other 
day.

Second, almost any communication requires interpretation from 
context, so I wonder about the people (both men and women, BTW) 
who immediately scream "sexist/discriminator/oppressor of 
women/fascist/nazi/killer of baby fur seals/mattress tag remover" 
when someone uses the common "he".  Are they being paranoid or 
just deliberately provoking an argument.  If the context doesn't 
exclude women, why assume that the common pronoun should?

Also, I hear it said that people will use "he" to generally refer 
to doctors and lawyers, but "she" to generally refer to 
secretaries and flight attendants and that this sort of 
stereotypical speaking reflects stereotypical (and sexist) 
thinking.  Perhaps it does.  Intelligent people don't deny that 
sexism exists and is bad.  However, if people think of a woman 
whenever a generic secretary is mentioned, IMNSHO, it is 
probably because that reflects their encounters with secretaries.  
This does not mean that there is some wacky genetic factor 
forcing women to be secretaries.  That is ridiculous.  It doesn't 
even mean that a person who pictures a woman when "secretary" is 
mentioned thinks that women are somehow limited.  The thinking 
will change when the reality does.

This gets to a central dogma of the PC doctrine, and one to which 
I do not subscribe.  PCers will argue that by changing the speech 
(from "he" to "he or she") they can change the reality (sexist 
thinking).  Frankly, I think that speech derives from the urge to 
express one's thoughts and not the other way around.  Oh sure, to 
some extent language shapes thinking, but a sexist thought 
disguised in PC speech is still a sexist thought and a nonsexist 
thought sans the various PCish modifications is still nonsexist.  
If people are pressured into cluttering up their speech with "he 
or she"s all the time, they will just get lazy and *think* the 
same old thoughts, all the while spouting the "he or she" PCisms. 

>I think it a great pity that some people have made a big deal about
>"inclusive  language", and I am afraid it is getting worse.  However,
>given that, it is no big deal for me to change my writing style so that
>those who read me get my message and don't get hung up about the gender
>of the pronouns I have used.

I concur that the situation is pitiful, but I still don't feel 
quite right about censoring perfectly good language to appease 
people who are determined to make the worst of what I say.

  - Mike
  Disclaimer:  The author intends no malice towards weasels.