[net.nlang] PBS's 'Story of English'

ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (09/20/86)

Did anyone else watch Part 1 of "The Story of English" on PBS?  I found
it interesting that California is now the center of the English language, in
the sense of creating new words.  MacNeil talked about words coming into the
language from technology ("I'm in work mode"), surfers, Valley Girls, and gays.
In the latter category, he spent a few minutes talking about the word "gay"
itself, and also the "gay culture."  Very straight-forward (no pun intended)
and matter-of-fact; I was impressed that they included it.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					(201) 957-2070
				UUCP:	ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl
				ARPA:	mtgzy!ecl@topaz.rutgers.edu
				BITNET:	mtgzy.uucp!ecl@harvard.edu
Don't let your mind wander; it's too little to be let out alone.

beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (JB) (09/30/86)

[Love is a nose, so ya better not pick it...or something like that.]

In article <15817@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> kos@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP
(Joshua Kosman) writes:
>In article <1992@mtgzy.UUCP> ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) writes:
>>Did anyone else watch Part 1 of "The Story of English" on PBS?
>
>Actually, I found it fairly diffuse and not consistently interesting.
>BUT: what I thought was more than simply a matter of taste was the brief
>segment on feminist critiques of language. While discussing the feminist
>objections to words like "mankind" and so on, the accompanying film footage
>was of a women's self-defense class, in which we could hear instructions
>like "now: groin kick!" This is apparently what feminism is about: women
>teaching other women to kick men in the balls.

Could we also here instructions like "now: kick *him* in the groin", or
did you just decide that they were aiming at men?  If it had been a class
of men training, would you have assumed they too were anti-male because
they kicked to the groin?

A kick to the groin is:
a) a basic move in almost all martial arts (which, BTW, have been
   traditionally overwhelmingly male dominated sports);
b) an effective defensive tactic against an attacker of either gender; and
c) not the least bit relevant to "what feminism is about" (nor is it, for
   that matter, relevant to the feminization of language).
-- 

--JB  ((Just) Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth)

  All we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history.