laura (05/11/83)
Everybody read this quite carefully. Some of you wont like it, but you are the folks that probably need to see this most. THERE IS NO WAY THAT YOU CAN AVOID OFFENDING PEOPLE WITH WHAT OR HOW YOU SAY THINGS UNLESS YOU SAY ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Period. This is not a solvable situation. No one will ever be able to come up with a free society in which nobody can be offended. If tommorrow I go and complain that DEC DZs are much crummier than Able DHs, plus incredibly more expensive, I run the risk of offending whoever was involved in designing DEC DZs. This is a very simple technical matter, and I end up offending people. If George Entenman, (unc!ge) submits any more articles slurring Andy Tannenbaum it is going to offend Andy, his friends, and perhaps others. If Entenman decides that what he is going to say is worth giving offense then he is perfectly free to do so. (We of course are free to tell him what we think of it). If Entenman was reading what he was typing he would notice the howling illogic of what he wrote. His conclusion seemed to signify that anyone who really understood the English language would avoid offending people because he would understand the "political connotations" (his words, not mine) of what he was saying. I dont know about the "political connotations", but I am positive that if I single out one person for abuse, even justified abuse, then I am going to offend him. I am probably offending Entenman now. Some of us have discovered this strange fact about the world. It is useless, therefore to make decisions on whether you will offend people or not. If you were in Georgia before the civil war and mentioned that Blacks (or Negros, or niggers) were not animals you would offend people. If you mentioned the same fact about Jews in Nazi Germany, you would offend people as well. Clearly, offending people is *not* a great reason to base your decisions on. If a million "feminists" (now what do *you* mean by that term?) decide that they are offended by the English language then they can remain offended. If the DEC designers are offended by my opinion of DZs, they can remain offended as well. The mere fact that they are offended does not amount to very much. If it can be conclusively proven that the absence of a separate neuter pronoun *makes* people discriminate against women, then there is a good reason to change the language. I dont believe that this can be done. I dont think that all the JAP jokes in the world are going to make me hate Jews in general or my Jewish friends in particular, either. Until you can prove that the current English language determines sexism (not just makes it possible for certain already-prejudiced individuals to express their prejudice) there is no reason to change the language. Remember that in changing the language now, on such flimsy grounds, offends those of us capable of seeing how flimsy the grounds are. It also offends me to see "they" (a plural neuter pronoun, subjective case) when for case agreement "he" (a singular neuter pronoun, subjective case) is required. Endless use of the passive mood and the word "one" not to mention the abomination "s/he" also offends me. See. Even if you modify the language in order to satisfy those who dislike the current state of English, you will offend others. Forget about offense. There are better reasons to make a decision. Laura Creighton p.s. If this article surprised you, reconsider "government by lobby", how some sociologists describe the current form of Democracy in North America, and Western Europe.