From: dholland@husc10.harvard.edu (David Holland)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Sexist languagey
Date: 21 Dec 92 04:00:50 GMT
 <1992Dec14.063653.2455@news.columbia.edu><1992Dec14.163456.9037@hobbes.kzoo.ed
 u> <101955@netnews.upenn.edu><1992Dec14.171441.2006@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <4320@novavax.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services, Cambridge, MA
In-reply-to: mitch@novavax.UUCP's message of 18 Dec 92 03:18:30 GMT


In article <novavax.4320> mitch@novavax.UUCP writes:

 > Traditionally, "he" may have included the female pronoun in English
 > usage, but I disagree that such usage is acceptable now.  Such a usage
 > is most obvious in a language like Latin, wherein *one* male member of
 > a group, no matter how large, requires that the group be referred to
 > by the third-person plural *masculine* pronoun.  This usage is well

This is not entirely accurate and somewhat misleading, but we'll let 
it pass, as it's several topics removed from this newsgroup.

 > and good in Latin, but Latin is a dead language (by which I mean that
 > it no longer has any native speakers). English, however, is a living,
 > evolving language.  One of the central notions behind linguistics is
 > that there is an association between how  people communicate and how
 > they think (the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.)  If one wishes to communicate

This one, on the other hand, can't be allowed to slip by. 

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, far from being "one of the central notions 
behind linguistics", is only true as a rather weak tendency, and is 
generally considered more or less false by linguists.

Whorf claimed that people's world views and thinking are defined and limited
by aspects of their language. This is exactly what the p.c. folks are
clamoring about: they tend to assert that words containing "man" or "men" 
are sexist because they contain the word for an adult male person and 
that therefore people think these words refer only to men. Unfortunately
for them, the Sapir-Whorf tendency generally only manifests itself when 
there's no additional semantic data, so for the most part all this 
"sexist" language has no effect.

For example, if somebody says the word "chairman", totally out of 
context, you probably do think of a male person. However, if somebody
says "...she was the chairman of the department...," or "...the 
chairman, Diane so-and-so," do you think of a male person? I would
doubt it. (If you think there's a conflict between "she" and "chairman"
in this example, you might want to ask yourself whether your intuition
tells you so or whether you're just saying so because of exposure to 
radical feminism. The difference is that the former would reflect 
language, while the latter simply reflects a conscious decision.) 


 > that women are subordinate to men, one may.  But if one wishes to
 > imply that women and men are equal (a proposition I feel fairly safe
 > in advocating), one ought to so indicate in hir communication--in hir
 > use of the English language.

English doesn't have an ambiguous-grammatical-gender form. Making one 
up doesn't help anybody; it only reduces the chances that people will
understand what you're talking about. It also carries the risk that
some people may classify you as p.c. and then not take you seriously. 
I don't see any need to have such a form anyway; it's not needed if
you write appropriately. Besides, who says grammatical gender has to
reflect biological gender? It doesn't in French, German, Italian, 
Latin, and who knows how many other languages. (I'm told Swahili has 
six grammatical genders, and being African, I believe it is automatically
accepted as p.c.)

--
   - David A. Holland			dholland@husc.harvard.edu

  That all men should live as brothers is the dream of someone who has none.
Xref: sparky soc.college:5757 alt.usage.english:9746