X-To: PO%"WORDS-L@UGA.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 22:13:33 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      RE: On Gender and Such

>male member of the set, instead of a member unmarked for sex.  Something
>in the way she expressed that thought (something about "sexism embedded
>in the language") got Michael ka's hackles up, and he and Carol began
>to have it out, with added commentary from Natalie and Bayla.

The only thing that got my hackles up was the suggestion that the
source of the "discrimination" in the generic usage of he/him is
"the language," when the "source" is really a wilful misreading
of instances where "man" *is* non-gender specific--a
"discovery", as it were, of a possible reading, not necessarily a
misreading.  But the mistake is to privilege that reading as
somehow objectively "out there."

>ness to use non-gender-specific language.  The analogy is good
>except for one thing.  He alluded to the possibility of saying
>that FBI in "not the way the game is played."  But the difference Now the way
 English has worked up to now, "he" and "man" have
>between tennis and language is that in language, if enough of the in some cases
 been acceptable to designate people without
>speakers decide that FBI, or NGSL is the rule, then it actually
>*becomes* the rule.  Not immediately, to be sure, but in time.

I think what I said was that an acceptable response to a
proposition that FBI be played is "Sorry, that's not how the game
is played"-- that is, a *political* decision not to change the
rules on that occasion.  Not particularly important.

>Men's Room).  I suspect that, just as language naturally
>hates synonymy, or one meaning being shared by two forms,
>it also dislikes having one form do double duty for more
>than one meaning, most especially when the meanings are
>semantically close, as man:  human  and man:  male human
>are.  (These are a lot closer than, say, well:  adverb of
>good and well:  source of water are.)  If this situation

Without going into grotesque theoretical detail, languages don't
hate synonomy.  No two words mean exactly the same thing.  The
more synonyms, the more shades/ refinements are possible.  The
Jakobsonians would have it that there is no real synonymy.  A
different form "means" a different function.  The classic example
is the morning star and the evening star.  Both are Venus, and
yet each carries a whole range of meaning/ feeling absent in the
other.

>Personally, I have no discomfort with the two meanings of
>man and he, as long as the implication is nonambiguous.

The problem, Frank, is that if sexism is *embedded* in the
language, as Carol was suggesting--and I never flamed over this;
I just thought it was the wrong ground to occupy--there is no
non-ambiguous implication.  The "irony" in the generic use of
he/him is inherent in the usage itself.  (For Carol it is--with
which fact I have no argument.)

And no--you did not bore me to tears--although I'm not sure I
approve of your paraphrase of what I had to say, while at the
same time I take your word for it that this thread has gone over
some very old ground.

Still, no one has given me a good reason why the usage of person
to include blacks is any less or any differently ironic than the
usage of he/him for all people, given the historical realities.

Glad it stopped at three feet,

-Mka
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