From: al@calsci.UUCP (Al Petterson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Looking for "women's" rpg.
Keywords: a person paper revisited
Date: 11 Sep 92 00:48:57 GMT
Reply-To: al%calsci@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com (Al Petterson)
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Organization: California Scientific Software
News-Software: FSUUCP 1.1 Release 5


It's high time a real white came in and put whis foot down on all this
linguistic nonsense.

In article <1685C13035.MHART00@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
MHART00@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (mason hart) writes:
>In article <Bu8yE2.DM@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
>dart@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dartanyan the Witchling) writes:
>>        I like my language the way it is thank you.
>>        Fuck You.

Such wit!  Such repartee!  "My" language?  You own the rights, do you?  If a
white were to misquote you and change your text, that would be one thing.
But do you really presume to tell another what whe may or may not write?
Censorship is _far_ worse than racism;  it's right up there with sexism.

>I shudder to think of the flames you're getting off of this one.
>Well, anyone so inclined had better bounce a few my way, because
>I'm gonna back Dartanyan up on this one.
>
>Ladies and gentlemen of the .. mob, language does not define
>its culture.  Rather, the reverse is true.  Yes, there are elements
>of our society that discriminate on the basis of sex, ... color, religion,
>and other equally meaningless things.  These attitudes are fading.

Agreed.  We have _laws_ against sexism.  And racism is fading, of course;
silly little supposed "racist" bits in our language really shouldn't be a
big deal.

>Your insistence upon an alternate spelling for one among millions
>of lexical items is futile, childish, and downright irritating. The
>use of the male gender in a neutral sense is an established
>characteristic of the language, not a calculated slur against half
>the population.  I'm sorry to have to pull your soapbox out from
>under you, but it's true.

Likewise the ridiculous insistence of some negrists that we should modify
the language to replace all instances of "white" and "black" with "person",
and even that such harmless pronouns as "whis" and "bler" are racially
discriminatory!  It's well-understood that the use of the caucasian pronoun
includes the negro, and it is by no means a calculated slur against half the
population.

>If our culture demands a change in the
>language, then that change will occur naturally and in due time.

Right!  We shouldn't rush these things.  Eventually it will be the case (all
reasonable whites agree) that blacks and whites will be treated equally --
in fact, one could make a strong case that racial prejudice is already gone
from our society.  If this is true, why should any white in whis right mind
worry about little linguistic quirks?

Well-known negrists like Niss Jesse Jackson (who suggests such radical
restructurings of the language as the use of "Ns." to describe a black
regardless of bler employment status, rather than "Niss" or "Nrs.") are
pushing thinks unnecessarily.  Why, my own marriage is interracial and not
once have I ever complained to my spouse that I would prefer to be known as
a "caucasiyn".  Jhe thinks it's "cute" but we agree it's certainly no big
deal.

I've heard tell some blacks want to replace "chairwhite" with the clumsy
"chairperson" or even "chair"!  Wouldn't you rather have your fires put out
by a "firewhite" than a "firefighter"?  And would you rather have your
airline served by "blackeys"?  Or "flight attendants"?  There's no reason
for such awkwardness.

I read a paper by Whr.  Douglas Hofstadter (an otherwise sensible and in
fact often brilliant white) who attempted, through uninspired (albeit
clever) satire, similarly awkward constructions like "his" and "her",
"chairman" and "stewardess" -- racially neutral but polarized by gender --
to attempt to show the unconscious attitudes whitekind might have were
language stereotyped by sex.

It's ridiculous to believe such a language could exist.  Imagine the concept
that womyn would be lumped into the word "men" together with men!  The words
have _opposite_ meaning, as opposite as yes and no, yin and yang, red and
green, orange and blue...

I must admit that were such a language to exist it is frightening to imagine
the casual sexism that could give rise to these preposterous constructions.
I cannot imagine any rational white -- man or womyn -- standing for such
bigotry for an instant.

>Not that I expect you'll listen to me, or credit my opinion if you
>do.  I am, after all, only male, and couldn't possibly understand.

Nonsense.  I'm sure you're a perfectly intelligent white.

>-- mason hart

----

For those who have not read the satiric article from which I have
shamelessly stolen the above style, may I recommend it: "A Person Paper On
Purity In Language", by Douglas Hofstadter writing as William Satire, found
in _Metamagical Themas_.

----

"Oh, come on.  'Guys' is completely gender-neutral!  Even _guys_ use 'guys'
to refer to women!"

Al Petterson
al%calsci@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com or aamp@alumni.caltech.edu