From: alan@auntbea.austin.ibm.com (Alan R. Weiss)
Newsgroups: soc.bi,soc.motss
Subject: Re: Liberty (was something relevant about CO-2 long ago...)
Date: 18 Dec 92 19:15:17 GMT
Organization: Republic of Texas

In article <BzGp8E.6K7@ecf.toronto.edu> ambidge@ecf.toronto.edu (Chris Ambidge) writes:
>
>Piglet and Alan, among others, have been debating gender-neutral
>language of late.  Here is some of the discussion:


Alan, with tongue firmly planted in, ah, cheek, perks up at
a sign of literate discussion about to commence .....


>As George Orwell pointed out in Nineteen Eighty-Four, language and
>how we speak  *does* have significant impact on how we humans think.

Then again, ol' Eric (George's real name was Eric) mentioned
something about the politization of speech as well.  Language
as mindcontrol:  control the language, and you control the mind.
You are making my point, which is this:  by ramming some Newspeak
down people's collective throats in a fit of Political Correctness (tm),
you are attempting to control their thoughts.  And THAT, my dear
Chris, is what people in general object to.  Feminism is ill-served
by tying a virtual colostomy bag to the side of the English language.

(Alan, by now roused to the chase, eagerly awaits the next volley ......)



>Then again, to those who think "man" and "mankind" and the rest
>are "inclusive", one can ask, what is wrong with  this sentence:
>
>	"Man, being a mammal, breastfeeds his young"
>
>It just doesn't work in late-20th-century English.  The  language
>is a living thing, and cannot/should not be fossilised or chipped
>into stone for all time.  

Nor should it be manipulated, as Eric Blair (George Orwell) indicated.


>Some things have to go, and some things have to be/are being changed.
>I agree with some of these suggestions:

Some things have to go, IN YOUR HUMBLE OPINION.  My point is
this, Chris:  it doesn't matter what you or I think - you must
market your ideas for adoption by the common weal.


>>Then propose something, and start a campaign to get people to use
>>it.  Howzabout these:
>>
>>	woman		womyn
>>	his/her		just substitute the plural "their"
>>	him/her		herm
>
>>	He/She		Sheesh
>>	Edwin Newman	Edwin Newperson
>>
>
>The last two I personally don't like -- sheesh because it means
>something else, and Newperson because it's  a proper noun (initial
>capital, and all that).


(Chris, swapped out while Alan tries a bit of punnery, misses it ....)


>  It's also trivialising something that is
>quite serious.


( .... but finally realizes it was a joke!)


Perhaps.  Just trying to have a little fun.  :-)   Sorry, lost my hipness.


>There are areas around here (North York [suburbs of Toronto] Board
>of Ed, for instance) where they and their are accepted as 
>words for singular persons, not exclusively for the plural case.
>This gets some pedants in a hissy fit, but that's *their* problem.
>
>Chris
>-- 
>Chris Ambidge / ambidge@ecf.toronto.edu / ambidge@ecf.utoronto.ca  
>   chemical engineering / university of toronto
>   200 college st / toronto ON / M5S 1A4 // 416 978 3106


Ask THEM to invent a nice, euphonic gender-neutral personal
pronoun series, then.  That should keep the bureaucrats working
for, oh, say, the next century or so.


THE PROBLEM WITH FEMINISM, IN ONE EASY SENTENCE:

Feminism is too boring, and takes itself too seriously.

You will never win the market-share-of-the-mind by telling
people how BAD they are for thinking the way they do.

But ........... make it attractive.  Make it fun.  Make it,
oh-fer-crissake ..... HIP to be a feminist (no fair snickering
at the Alan Alda and Phil Donohue jokes right now!).
THEN watch it take off.  We need a sort of Lee Atwater
of Feminism.  A Madonna of Marketing.

Or, so I say, IMHO.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Hugfest '93, with your host,
Mike Lloyd (grin, Mike, [GRIN!]).

Regards,

Big Al and the Language Fascist School of Fine Arts
Cadillac Ranch, Texas
-- 
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