Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: He, she, o altro?

Tratto dalla guida di PostgreSQL:
"When a hacker gains entry to a computer using a software bug in a
package, she gains the permissions of the user account under which the
service is run".
Perché mai è stato usato *she* ?
Mi sono sempre chiesto cosa andasse usato in questi casi. Spesso ho
trovato scritto "he", a volte ho trovato scritto "he/she" ed ora per la
prima volta trovo scritto "she" affiancato da un termine ("hacker") che
generalmente si addice più ai maschietti (cioè non è la prima volta che
trovo "she", ma altre volte era più "plausibile").
Io userei il doppio termine (qualcosa come "[s]he"), a meno che non ci
sia qualcosa di meglio.
Quelli di PostgreSQL volevano solo bilanciare un po' a favore delle
girls l'uso di quel termine, oppure c'è una qualche ragione linguistica?
Ciao, Maurizio
ps. io sapevo comunque che l'uso di "he" aveva finito per comprendere
sia uomini che donne e che quindi non fosse ritenuto "maschilista" - un
po' come "l'umanità" che in inglese se non erro si traduce (anche) con
"the men" (anche se a volte ho visto scritto "the men and the women").

 "the men" (anche se a volte ho visto scritto "the men and the women").
"L'uomo" in Italian.
Kiuhnm

 Kiuhnm
Ricapitolando, parli, tra l'altro, italiano, matematico e inglese.
Ciao ;-)
Maurizio

 Ricapitolando, parli, tra l'altro, italiano, matematico e inglese.
Yes, but only the first fluently :-)
Kiuhnm

 "the men" (anche se a volte ho visto scritto "the men and the women").
L'uso di he, man or mankind per includere le donne e' ormai ritenuto
sessista, almeno negli USA. Ma se comunque le usi in questo senso non
e' scorretto linguisticamente. Se usi he/she, e' brutto e poi comporta
una sfilza di his/her, him/her ecc. (es. he/ she can access his/her
computer and then take the disk with him/her, or he/she might ....)
Cinzia

 Perché mai è stato usato *she* ?
Ever since women burned their bras in the 60s, we've been more conscious of 
"sexism" (such as it is) in all walks of life, including language.
The use of "she" as a pronoun for an unidentified person (instead of the 
traditional [non-gender] "he")  is becoming more common, but the first few 
times I encountered it in writing, I stumbled over it, even to the point of 
re-reading the text, to see where I thought I must have missed the reference 
to a specific woman.
It's related to the "Over-PCing" (my word) of the States, if not the world. 
(Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: "The She Monster"!)
It's still acceptable to say "you guys" to a group of women, but that may 
soon change, too.
Here's how all-pervasive a man's paranoia can become. I was talking about old 
western movies with some women once, two of whom were lesbians. I mentioned 
the name "Tom Mix", an actor who played a cowboy in the '30s. Someone asked 
"Who's Tom Mix?" to which I replied "He was a famous western person."
?
The conversation went on a bit, and then I realized, and said aloud, "I 
suppose I *could* have said 'He was a famous *cowboy*.'"
They all laughed, and I did too, realizing just how subconsciously mindful 
(if that's not an oxymoron) I had become about sexism in language.
Another time I referred to myself as the "chairman" of a particular 
committee. One of the women I was speaking to "corrected" me by saying, 
"You're the 'chair*person*' of the committee."
I bristled, and corrected *her*: "I'm sorry if you haven't noticed, but I 
*am* a man."
And so it goes.
Frankly, I wish the neologism "shhe" would catch on. Pronounced "sha-HEE" it 
would be gender-neutral. Him/her would become "herm" and his/her would be 
"hisr" (hizzr).
Shhe was concerned about hisr reputation, something that could reflect badly 
on herm.
Amen.
-- 
Joey DoWop Dee
Remember: It is To Laugh.


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I would think it linguistically absurd in Italian to change my writing and
speech to ensure equal occurrences of  "colui" and "colei". It would be
equally absurd for me to change my English to ensure equal occurrences of
"he" and "she". "Mankind" refers to all of humanity, while "womankind"
refers only to half of humanity. Carry this to its illogical conclusion and
we'll end up with "il treno, la trena", "il mare, la mare", "il cielo, la
ciela". And we'll have to rewrite all of the old Latin texts. "Dea ex
machina?''.
We should be able to recognize that there is a difference between linguistic
gender and anatomical sexual descriptions, and not get the two confused.
Joe from Massachusetts


Because after so many centuries of "he", we have finally decided that
it was about time to include a "she" once in a while.  That's the only
reason.
bye
ari

 Perché mai è stato usato *she* ?
quote rosa 


 "They" is definitely the most popular personal pronoun for the concept of 
"someone" or in this case "a hacker". "She" is weird and aggressively 
feminist, whereas "he", the traditionally "correct" form until 70s/80s might 
be taken as excluding women; "he or she" is too heavy to use very often.
Chris Pain 


Typo
Occam 

 - Show quoted text -
He-ey Joe, whatcha doin' with that mouse in your hand?...
(I have used that one entirely too much on the Internet. Now I'll
stop).
But as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself...Your
analogies are not valid, I think. There is generally no psychological
influence to the gendering of nouns in Italian. Who cares if pettine
is masc. and spazzola is fem.? Whereas if man and mankind can stand
for humanity but not viceversa, there is a subtle but real suggestion
that men are the standard from which women are a deviation (and not an
entirely satisfactory one at that). Sort of an Adam's rib thing. This
would be substantiated by the poster above who said he (probably a
real he) was disoriented by finding the random she standing for
anyone. This is actually a widely-discussed topic. See gender-neutral
pronouns on Google.
Ciao a tutte ;-)
Cynthia

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The French like to impose certain restrictions on their language, and the
French Canadians also, to a lesser degree. The Académie Française has
invented the word "cédérom" to replace "cd-rom", because the latter
originated in English, and heaven forbid that French should be contaminated
by loans from English. In Québec, the word "hamburger" is considered an
unwelcome intrusion into the French language, and a great effort was made to
replace it with "hambourgeois", which I thought hilarious, but when I
actually saw it on menus in Québec, I was shocked. McDonalds never switched
to "hambourgeois" in Québec, but KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) had to change
its name to PFK (Poulet frit Kentucky) in Québec. Not even the Parisiens
have gone this far! I understand the Québecois fear of losing the French
language, and therefore much of their culture, but some Québecois refuse to
speak English at all, an attitude which I find very disconcerting. But then,
if all the Québecois spoke English, I woudn't have anywhere to practice my
French!
I still think there are better, more logical alternatives to random use of
he/she.
Tinkering with the language rather than letting it evolve is not something I
am fond of (shades of Italy in the 1930s).
Why is it important to eliminate certain words in English, e.g., actress
replaced by actor (does this mean both men and women can now vie for the
same parts?)? Does it make sense to eliminate giocatrice or attrice from the
Italian language?
I think that manipulating a language for the wrong reasons can only have a
deleterious effect on the language.
A great Italian poet and philosopher recognized many years ago where this
would inevitably lead..   ;>)
http://tinyurl.com/3co9c6
Joe from Massachusetts

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Hey Punk, where you goin' with that
flower in your hand?
Hey Punk, where you goin' with that
flower in your hand?
Well, I'm goin' up to Frisco to join a
psychedelic band.
I'm goin' up to Frisco to join a
psychedelic band.
(Frank Zappa, "Flower Punk")
Joe from Massachusetts