anton (07/08/82)
Let me refer to a passage in Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" where Mike quotes a legal passage that decrees the term 'man' to apply to both genders where applicable. (Sorry my copy is somewhere mid-Atlantic, so I can't give chapeter & verse). This is what 'man' **DOES** mean. Think of the Led Zepplin song, "Stairway To Heaven". A line in there goes... "..but she wants to make sure 'Cos you know sometimes words have two meanings." This is almost exactly the case; 'man' means both 'male' and 'member of mankind'. Purely as an aside, can anybody out there in netland think of a non-technical (any specialisation, theology, anthropology, Etrucscan coin collecting all included), non-proper noun English English word that DOESN'T have two meanings ? Other sub-cultures, American English, Pidgin English, Australian English... can be submitted, but please qualify your entry. I don't know enough of these to be able to judge, so can they go to the net, please. /anton aylward