Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 20:47:33 -0500 From: "David S. Jackson" <deepbsd@earthlink.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: OT: Is the beastie masculine or feminine? (Was: Re: The BSD daemon) Message-ID: <20020105204733.A11011@sylvester.dsj.net> In-Reply-To: <200201052057.g05KvJi56360@lurza.secnetix.de>; from olli@secnetix.de on Sat, Jan 05, 2002 at 09:57:19PM %2B0100 References: <200201051947.g05JlX602925@fac13.ds.psu.edu> <200201052057.g05KvJi56360@lurza.secnetix.de>
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On Sat, Jan 05, 2002 at 09:57:19PM +0100 Oliver Fromme <olli@secnetix.de> wrote: > dochawk@psu.edu wrote: > > But in English, "his" does not denote gender, unless indicated > > otherwise by context (whereas "her" always indicates gender). > > I think you're wrong. I learned at school: "his" == male, > "her" == female, "its" == neuter. When you don't know the > gender of a person, you simply write "his or her". There is a gender known as "common gender" that can be used for instances where masculinity or femininity is either unknown or unimportant. For example, "The reader may trust his imagination." A reader may be a man or a woman, yet historically, "his" covered both bases. Old English used to be "inflected", meaning, partly, that noun suffixes indicated person, gender, number, and case. Today, English no longer is inflected, and rarely is a noun masculine, feminine or neuter now. (Exceptions are ram, ewe, man, woman, father, mother, son, daughter, and so on.) But pronouns are still troublesome. Common gender pronouns have historically been biased toward the masculine gender. This gender bias implicit in our language has brought no end of criticism from feminists and those who decry sexism. So new usages have gained popularity, such as "The reader may trust his or her imagination." Even "The reader may trust his/r imagination" or "When the student finishes the exam, s/he shall place it on the teacher's desk." Other curious inventions have appeared in order to avoid offense. I'm not sure anyone has closed the book on these trouble spots in the language. It's a minefield no matter which side you start from. Some vestigial examples of gender still exist, which we inexplicably can't seem to let go of: "The ship sailed gracfully into her slip." "The moon shed her light." "America defended her liberty." > At least that's how you should do it in order to be > respectful and "politically correct". Here's where different standards of usage appear. You might say to a coworker, "A manager must be honest in his or her conduct." But, if you were talking to your biker buddies, you might say, "A biker should park his hog where ever he wants," when in truth, Harley-Davidson ranks have swelled with woman riders. Or, "A hacker needs to comment his code." You'd better look around the room before you finish that sentence. In short, you follow different standards of usage based on audience and on how accountable you have to be. Ah, what a pleasant diversion... :-) -- David S. Jackson dsj@dsj.net =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Showing up is 80% of life. -- Woody Allen To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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