HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: garvey@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Heather Garvey)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Sexist language
Date: 14 Dec 1992 20:11:56 GMT
Organization: Smith Undergraduate Lab, CWRU, Cleve. OH, 44106, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: marina.scl.cwru.edu

(Amy J. Pezzillo) writes:
>
>Consider the following statement:
>"Every person is entitled to his right to have an abortion."  You
>thought that sounded strange, because "he" automatically brought up
>the image of men. 

	Well, I feel very strongly that men should be allowed to
have abortions, too. :) Whether they will ever use that right or not is
moot.  And you know very well that making that statement gender-neutral
no matter what the actual words ("One is entitled to one's right to have 
an abortion.") is ridiculous. If the statement is decidedly feminine,
then no  fool is going to use gender-neutral language, whether you use
the old "he-is-neutral" style or some new one.

>Well, no more baby. Women are waking up and realizing that we have a
>right to be included in those non-gender neutral terms.  So we're
>using TRULY gender neutral terms wherever possible,

	Maybe *you* are, "baby", but most of us are just rolling our
eyes and making gagging noises at folks like you. Don't you have something 
better to worry about in your life?

>I never liked hearing about "forefathers" and "mankind" and
>"brotherhood" and feeling totally excluded by these terms either.

	What are you, an etymologist? To me, each word has a meaning 
of its own. If you start borrowing its root words to warp it meaning, 
again, you really should find something better to do on your weekends.
Just because the word has a string of letters forming the word "father"
or "man" or "brother" doesn't mean the word is intrinsically *male*.
Regardless of its etymology, each word has its own contextual meaning.
Doesn't the word "perSON" make you just feel so left out?? I mean,
look, there's that nasty "SON" word!

	Jeez....

	P.S. - Before someone starts posting corrections, no, I can't
remember if it's entomologist or etymologist.  One is a bug scientist;
one studies origins and development of a word from its root. :) You know
which I mean. :)

--
						| Heather "Moose" Garvey
	"CHAD BLUNT, the BALL carrier!"		| Biochemistry - CWRU '93
		-- The entire band after 	| <hlg@po.cwru.edu>
		   any given running play	| "Wooooooah, PIZZA!"
Newsgroups: soc.college
From: g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh)
Subject: Re: Comments on fraternities (was Re: Comments on G**** life)
Organization: University of Toronto Computing Disciplines Facility
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 22:55:59 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.152209.2874@gacvx2.gac.edu> censtad@nic.gac.edu (Topher the Gustie) writes:
>In article <1992Dec12.001651.29951@cdf.toronto.edu> (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
>> Why are you assuming that any woman would be upset to see you naked? 
>No I'm upset that a woman would see ME naked.  Is it ok with you PC cops  
>if I feel this way?  Gee thanks.

Topher, I was responding to another poster, who said he wasn't upset by having
women see him naked, he thought that the women would be upset.

Here is the context I gave in my post:
In article <1992Dec12.001651.29951@cdf.toronto.edu> (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
>In article <1992Dec10.061711.10033@njitgw.njit.edu> dcg5662@hertz.njit.edu (Dave Grabowski (KxiK)) writes:
>>  Why is this a "problem" that we need to "get around"? It's not my
>>problem that someone sees me naked. It's someone ELSE'S problem. And
>>frankly, I don't want to hear about someone ELSE'S problems. That's why
>>I don't want women living in my fraternity house.
>>
>Why are you assuming that any woman would be upset to see you naked?  If you
>are concerned about it, mention it to people who are thinking of joining the
>frat:  "Some residents of this house sometimes walk around naked.  If this
>would offend you, please do not join."

If you are shier about this than Dave G., put on a bathrobe!  It's not that
hard!
-- 
Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics
g9rwaigh@cdf.utoronto.ca   University of Toronto
	"Looking at the Earth from afar you realize it is too small
	for conflict and just big enough for co-operation."  Yuri Gagarin
From: adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Simon's Rock of Bard - shooting
Date: 17 Dec 92 20:44:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: das.1992Dec17.204402.29771
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University

In article <1992Dec17.183155.8167@tfs.com> ashish@tfs.com (Ashish Mukharji) writes:
>
>Does anyone have details of the shooting at Simon's Rock of Bard College?

(If you're an alumni of Simons Rock, and want more information, please
send me mail.  We have a mailing list set up to distribute information
as it unfolds.  -Adam)

Heres a UPI article that summarizes what happened:

        GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. (UPI) -- A college student wearing a T-shirt
that read ``Sick of it all'' was arraigned Tuesday morning on murder
charges after a shooting rampage that left two dead and four wounded.
        Police said Wayne Lo, 18, of Billings, Mont., went on a rampage
Monday night with a mail-order rifle, killing a professor and a student
at Simon's Rock College, a small private liberal arts college in the
Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts.
        Lo, a sophomore, was arraigned in Great Barrington District
Court on
two counts of murder, four of assault with intent to murder and four of
assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
        Judge James P. Dohoney ordered Lo held without bail in the Berkshire
County House of Corrections.
        The Berkshire County District Attorney's office said the shootings
began about 9:30 p.m.
        Reports said Lo first shot a female security guard at the main gate
of the college and then killed a faculty member and a student and
wounded three other students.
        Lo then surrendered to police without incident.
        The dead were identified as Nacunan Saez, a native of
Argentina and a
teacher of languages at the college since 1982.
        The dead student was Galen Gibson, 18, a sophomore from Gloucester,
Mass.
        Taken to Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington were Matthew David,
18, a freshman from Montclair, N.J., Joshua Faber, 15, a freshman from
Pittsford, N.Y., Thomas McElderry, 19, a sophomore from Kotzebue,
Alaska, and Teresa Beavers, 42, a security guard from South Lee, Mass.
        A spokeswoman at Fairview said three were in stable condition
and one
was in critical condition.
        District Attorney Gerard Downing said the murder weapon was a semi-
automatic rifle owned by the suspect. Reports said the suspect received
the weapon and some ammunition in the mail Monday from North Carolina.
        Downing said a motive for the shootings has not been established.
        Simon's Rock College officials launched a series of emergency
counselling and information services for parents, students and staff to
help deal with the tragedy.

Adam Shostack 					adam@das.harvard.edu

What a terrible thing to have lost one's .sig.  Or not to have a .sig
at all because of elections.  How true that is.
Xref: sparky soc.college:5775 alt.usage.english:9756
From: J.Theodore.Schuerzinger@dartmouth.edu (J. Theodore Schuerzinger)
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Sexist language
Date: 19 Dec 92 20:48:15 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
X-Posted-From: InterNews1.0b1@newshost.dartmouth.edu

In article <92354.130547HERSCH@auvm.american.edu>
<HERSCH@auvm.american.edu> writes:

> The term "herstory" is a jocular way of pointing all of this
> out, which it does with rather remarkable concision. I know of
> no one who proposes it seriously as a replacement term for "history".
> Do you?

But some people obviously must have seen the word 'history' as sexist,
or elst nobody would have created the word 'herstory'.  'History' comes
from the Greek (I believe) 'histos' meaning, roughly, 'learned'.  The
word has nothing to do with gender.
--Ted Schuerzinger
email: .zed@Dartmouth.EDU
"I should have known it would be bad vodka when all the label said was
'Russian Vodka'."
Xref: sparky soc.college:5703 alt.usage.english:9672
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Shaking people up with "she"? (was Re: Sexist language)
Date: 17 Dec 92 11:52:46 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Dec15.021930.7866@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec15.002645.1684@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> J.Theodore.Schuerzinger@dartmouth.edu (J. Theodore Schuerzinger) writes:
>>BTW: Finnish has one word, han (with two dots over the a), to specify
>>both he and she.
>
>It's a shame we don't have a third-person singular the way the Finnish do.

Is it a shame that different languages have different features?

>It would be a simple solution. 

It is frequently useful to have a separate masculine and feminine
pronoun, though.  You know, for those long passages where you have two
characters of different sexes (and such passages come up extremely
frequently, both in speech and writing), and you can refer to them as
"he" and "she", rather than by constantly repeating their names or
using other referential expressions.  Finnish can't do that.

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: PC world--the word is...
From: censtad@nic.gac.edu (Topher the Gustie)
Date: 17 Dec 1992 17:59:52 GMT
Reply-To: censtad@nic.gac.edu
Distribution: world
Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College
NNTP-Posting-Host: dumaine.gac.edu

When you talk about fraternities all you PC people do NOT use the word  
frat if you are really as PC as you think you are


I mean... would you call your mother a moth?
		would you call your country a cunt?
Xref: sparky soc.college:5555 alt.usage.english:9503
From: varhus@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Kristofor A Varhus)
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Sexist language
Date: 15 Dec 92 04:05:49 GMT
Followup-To: soc.college
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Dec13.032106.21567@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <101793@netnews.upenn.edu> varhus@lindy.seas.upenn.edu (Kristofor A Varhus) writes:
>>Simple?  Whaddaya mean, simple?  "Freshman" has only two syllables, while
>>"First-Year Student" has four.  
>
>But "freshman student at the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1995"
>has a couple of dozen or so syllables.  While "first-year" has two.
>Gee, comparing apples and oranges is fun!

Huh?  That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!  Freshman is a noun.  
First-year is an adjective.  One must append the "student" to "first-year"
in order to get a noun.  And who ever says "freshman student"?

>
>>I refuse to waste so much energy to change
>>from using a normal, widely accepted, only considered offensive by people
>>who have too much time on their hands term to a twice as long one.
>
>So you have no objections to replacing "chairman" with "chair"?

None at all.

>
>>Also, what is so inaccurate about "freshman"?  
>
>It's infinitely less descriptive than "first-year".  And first-year
>rhymes with more words, anyway, so it's better suited for Hallmark cards.

What?  Freshman is very descriptive!  Obviously, it's someone who is new at
what (s)he's doing!  And, actually, freshman rhymes with many more words! I'd
much rather see "freshman" on my Hallmark cards than "first-year student". 

>
>>If words in the english language
>>are which end in "-man" are generally used to describe humans of either
>>gender, what is wrong with using them?  
>
>But they're not, and only have been in recent years.

Ummm, ted?  If they have been used to describe humans of either gender in
recent years, then they are used to describe humans of either gender (I know
I use them that way).  Anyway, entertaining post, ted.

--
\_\_\_\_  \_\_\_\_  \_    \_  \_    \_      |     Kristofor A. Varhus 
 \_    \_  \_        \_\_  \_  \_\_  \_     |  varhus@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
  \_\_\_\_  \_\_\_\_  \_ \_ \_  \_ \_ \_    |
   \_        \_        \_  \_\_  \_  \_\_   |   University of Pennsylvania
    \_        \_\_\_\_  \_    \_  \_    \_  | Engineering and Applied Science
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: Re: PC world--the word is frat
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 23:27:57 GMT

In article <baron.90.724691835@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis
Baron) writes:

> People of college age call their parents  * 'rents *
            ^^^^^^^^^^^

And what age would that be?


Marie Coffin
Xref: sparky soc.college:5685 soc.college.gradinfo:1799
From: andrea@tnds.bellcore.com (Andrea Tonoli)
Newsgroups: soc.college,soc.college.gradinfo
Subject: MBA overseas
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:30:08 GMT
Distribution: ?

I need info about the "relationship" between MBA programs 
offered in the american schools and "MBA" program offered in European
schools. 
In particular, is it possible to begin a MBA course in USA (NJ area, for
example) and carry over the credits in a European Business School
(Italy, "for example")?
No one of the school I've asked seem to have agreement with overseas 
business schools.

If somebody has info about it, I'll appreciate.


andrea


Please write to me at

		at@cc.bellcore.com
From: adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Simon's Rock of Bard - shooting
Date: 18 Dec 92 19:06:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: das.1992Dec18.190636.16308
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University

In article <BAGCHI.92Dec18100815@quip.eecs.umich.edu> bagchi@eecs.umich.edu (Ranjan Drzzzzt!  Bagchi) writes:
>In article <osterber.724686468@husc8> osterber@husc8.harvard.edu (Richard Osterberg) writes:

>>>was "troubled". Some claimed that he was also fairly racist, hating
>>>almost all minorities. His father denied the allegations of racism.

>>From everything that I read, he was a very well-documented racist, and
>>quite bigoted (is that a word?). He disapproved of blacks, interracial
>>marriages, homosexuals, etc., etc. It appeared he hated everyone except
>>caucasion heterosexuals.

>	From what I read in the NYT two days ago, he was of
>vietnamese descent.  Don't know anything of his politics, but
>he was said to hate most anything.

He's from Taiwan.  Does anyone know what is needed to get an insanity
plea through?

The fact that he bought the gun, and didn't start shooting untill
several hours later, seems to indicate he wasn't totally bonkers.

Adam





Adam Shostack 					adam@das.harvard.edu

What a terrible thing to have lost one's .sig.  Or not to have a .sig
at all because of elections.  How true that is.
Xref: sparky soc.college:5704 alt.usage.english:9673
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Subject: ghoti (Re: Sexist language)
Date: 17 Dec 92 11:57:10 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <BzABzA.3D4@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar M. Mirashi) writes:
>[...] the day "fish" is spelled as "ghoti".    :)

I prefer the spelling of "potato" (or is that "potatoe"?)
as "ghoughphtheightteau".

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
From: heidi@ucthpx.uct.ac.za (Heidi de Wet)
Subject: Re: Sexist language
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 09:15:30 GMT
Organization: Dept of Elec Eng, UCT

mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar M. Mirashi) writes:
>In article <1992Dec16.184814.3504@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>Mandar, you're writing to 50,000 people here.  "A prejudiced individual"
>> is not the issue on a newsgroup. 
>>
>Well...ok. I agree that *most* people have these prejudices. Isn't it
>time we removed these prejudices directly, rather than make a futile
>attempt to remove them by fiddling with words?
>
>How is changing a word or using a different word going to help?

Admittedly, removing existing prejudices in peoples' minds by means 
of barring certain forms of speech is highly unlikely to work.  On the 
other hand, removing prejudices is much more difficult if the language 
people use every day reinforces the prejudices, so it makes sense to 
provide unprejudiced forms of speech where possible, and for 
(relatively) unprejudiced people to try to use those forms.

Moreover, we should try not only to remove existing prejudices, but
to prevent them forming in children's minds.  Language shapes thought;
if children are taught that the word for all people is 'man', and the 
word for a male person is 'man', they cannot avoid the inference that 
males are the dominant/important part of the human race.  We simply
can't afford to ignore language as a tool for avoiding prejudice.

-- 
The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded 
in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but 
occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that!
                                                     - James 'Kibo' Parry
Xref: sparky soc.college:5755 alt.usage.english:9743
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Frosh (was Re: Sexist language (was...
Date: 18 Dec 92 10:31:05 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Dec15.161343.6867@bmerh85.bnr.ca> nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:
>I'm sorry, but if "mankind" evokes "man" evokes "male", that is most
>definitely a function of language.  "Man" does mean "male human", so it
>is normal that this is the image it raises.

What if "man" has two meanings ((1) `human', (2) `male human')?  This
happens in many other languages as well.  In some its counterpart also
means (3) `human of our tribe/ethnic group'.

What is wrong with a word having more than one meaning?

It's a pity Webster (CBUH) didn't invent a new spelling for "man", which
the rest of the English-speaking world could use for one of the meanings.

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Xref: sparky soc.college:5610 alt.usage.english:9587
From: meachem@acsu.buffalo.edu (The Meach)
Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Frosh (was Re: Sexist language (was...
Date: 16 Dec 92 10:53:48 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <BzBsyn.9IH@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar M. Mirashi) writes:

>     I feel pity for the poor, misguided, narrow-minded souls who let
>their mind be clouded by their prejudices, when interpreting language.
>
>   

It had to be done.
From: prater-ethan@yale.edu (Ethan Prater)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Sexist language
Date: 14 Dec 1992 15:27:52 -0500
Organization: Yale University Science & Engineering UNIX(tm), New Haven, CT 06520-2158
NNTP-Posting-Host: minerva.cis.yale.edu

In article <101955@netnews.upenn.edu> pezzillo@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Amy J. Pezzillo) writes:

>The only reason that "he" was ever
>accepted as denoting everyone was because males USED to be in charge.
>Well, no more baby. Women are waking up and realizing that we have a
>right to be included in those non-gender neutral terms.  So we're
>using TRULY gender neutral terms wherever possible, "she or he" where
>appropriate, and just plain old "she" once in a while to shake you all
>up.  And you know what?  I don't CARE if you don't like hearing it.  I
>never liked hearing about "forefathers" and "mankind" and
>"brotherhood" and feeling totally excluded by these terms either.

I'm not sure if this is a productive attitude. If the goal is to avoid
sexist language in general, then wouldn't it be better to use "truly"
gender neutral terms all the time, rather than "she" just to "shake you
all up"? (I'm not sure who "you all" is)

It seems to me that intentionally using female terms for everyone is just
as bad as using male terms. If the goal is to achieve language free of
sexism, why would one consciously use sexist language? Especially when
that person "doesn't care" what other people like to hear. To me that is
the whole problem in the first place -- someone uses sexist language
because he or she does not care how others feel. 

Is my idea somehow flawed? I'd like to hear what you people out on the net
have to say.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Ethan Evan Prater   | "I should sooner be governed by the first two thousand
                    |  names in the Boston telephone directory than by the
                    |  two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
prater@yale.edu     |                       -- William F. Buckley, Jr. --
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Newsgroups: soc.college,alt.usage.english
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: Sexist language
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 20:19:32 GMT

In article <Bz7nKp.7LM@rice.edu> conor@owlnet.rice.edu (Conor Frederick Prischmann) writes:
>In article <1992Dec13.032106.21567@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>>Simple?  Whaddaya mean, simple?  "Freshman" has only two syllables, while
>>>"First-Year Student" has four.  
>>
>>But "freshman student at the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1995"
>>has a couple of dozen or so syllables.  While "first-year" has two.
>>Gee, comparing apples and oranges is fun!
>
>What are you talking about??  "Freshman" and "First-Year Student" are
>equivilent terms.  

No.  "Freshman student" and "first-year student" are equivalent terms.
As are "freshman" and "first-year."

>"Freshman student at the university of Penn, class of 95"
>is not equivilent to either.  You are the one comparing apples and oranges.

Irony, this is Conor.  Conor, Irony.  I see you two haven't met yet.

>I guess "first-year" must have some other
>meaning for you.  For me, and the rest of the English speaking world, they
>mean exactly the same thing.

So what's the problem with using it then?  You seem to have a problem
about it, otherwise you wouldn't post.

>>>If words in the english language
>>>are which end in "-man" are generally used to describe humans of either
>>>gender, what is wrong with using them.  
>
>>But they're not, and only have been in recent years.
>
>I think you must be confused.  I guess I'll have to refer you to a book, by
>some guy called Webster.  It explains a lot about these sorts of things.

Webster's been dead for quite some time.  Don't feel bad, lots of people
are fooled by the dictionary producers into thinking that it's one guy
named Webster who produces dictionaries for each of the major publishers.

[irrelevant definition deleted]
>Sound familiar?

What does this have to do with the point I made?
-- 
ted frank                     | thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu 
standard disclaimers          | void where prohibited
the university of chicago law school, chicago, illinois 60637
Xref: sparky soc.college:5504 alt.usage.english:9467