willy (08/12/82)
In regard to all the controversy over the use of "he" or "she" or "he/she" in articles: Why not use the genderless "one"? (e.g., one sits down at the terminal and posts a silly news article.) "One" is not that hard to use, and does not imply any stereotypes. I do find the use of "he" or "she" sexist, and "he/she" rather unwieldy. Bill Banze ..morkcb!willy
death (08/13/82)
I understand that one might find "one should n 'his' x" sexist. But not very easily. I must admit that I am no longer current in language trends in foreign countries, but when I was studying French and German (both of which contain nouns with gender) I never heard cries for language reform because certain words were of the masculine gender rather than some neuter gender. Get rid of the Dative case, yes. Get rid of gender, no. I am not aware of any movement in France to establish a neuter gender for the pronoun 'on', nor a movement in Germany to make 'man' neuter rather than masculine. 'Kindelein' (little child) is neuter in German, as is 'Fraulein' (little girl). This to me does not imply any statement about the ancient Germans' ideas about gender identification as a function of age (especially considering that all -lein words are neuter). It just happens to be neuter. This 'sexism in language' cry I find particularly annoying. It seems to be a purely American problem (excessive un-called for silliness). It is "hardwired" in to the language from god-only-knows-how-many years of god-only-knows-how-many-languages; and frankly, there are a lot more important things to worry about regarding sexism (TV advertisements, job acceptances (!!), laws (!!!!)) than some linguistic usually-forgotten stupidity. Personally, I have always thought gender in a language was particularly silly, but that hasn't seemed to affect it much. ==DD