rdu (07/08/82)
How can we get such a drab response from a member of the
linguistically oppressed majority?
"i dont have any strong feelings on the matter..."
Sadly, this is just another of the personifold personifestations
of the control our sexist language exerts on us. A truly
lapersontable phenopersonon: a normally argupersontative
woperson whipped into submission.
Alas/Alad! This is indeed a sad compersontary on our depersonted
society and on the fundapersontal cultural fragpersontation
caused by gendervolent megalopersoniacs who have persondated our
nopersonclature over thousands of years.
There is only one solution: an personcott of such inhupersone words.
Inevitably, some will charge we are persongling the Royal Person's English.
"Ah," they will depersond, "where is the euphony, the ropersonce?"
What a pile of personure!
Do they think words are invented for ornapersontation?
-- M. Raabe (pur-ee!rdu)rdu (07/08/82)
My previous submission is, in part, an homage (a femage?) to
a college friend of mine.
She became editor of the paper (the first woman ever to do so)
while I was a sophomore reporter. She was (probably still is) an
ardent feminist, convinced the English language is pregnant with
sex-bias and virilent with maledictions and dysfemisms such as
"chairman." At the same time she was (probably still is) a good
journalist. We respected her, but we also liked her, so we called
her the Editrix-in-Chief.
One of her first projects was to rewrite the paper's dated
stylebook so it would be more in tune with the new Language of
Equality. Our committee's discussions centered on resolving
the issue of "chairman," since it was a tortured term. The
only guideline was that different terms for men and women (e.g.,
"chairwoman") were unacceptable; gender information ought to
be completely irrelevant and could only fuel prejudices.
We had bright people on the staff in those days. One of them
suggested that everywhere the suffix "-man" appeared, we should
substitute the sexless pronoun "one." Thus "chairman" would
become "chair-one" (the hyphen presumably necessary to make the
pronunciation clear). The advantage here was once the slightly
odd sound of the reformed words had been worn away through
familiarity, they would be no harder to say, or to listen to,
than the originals.
We thrilled to our vision: finally, linguistic justice in a
single, bold stroke! Why hadn't anyone thought of it before?
News-ones would broadcast it. Gentle-ones would applaud it.
Congress-ones might even enact it. (Here an alternate plural
form was suggested: "congressfolk.")
There was only one dissenting voice. A pragmatist. "Why use
'-one' when not even '-man' is necessary? It's perfectly
obvious that 'the chair of the committee' is not a piece of
furniture." While that point might be debatable in some
committees, we were impressed by the sheer economy of the
notion. Moreover, it was upheld by the most prolific and
inventive speakers and writers of English, the Elizabethans:
...And this weake and idle theame,
No moore yielding but a dreame,
Gentles, doe not reprehend.
Suddenly, our imaginations whisked us to a brand new world where
gangsters would have henches, you could get your faucet fixed by
a handy or your mail delivered by a post (if s/he wasn't bitten
by your dober pinscher), and cows would ride horses.
For some reason, the boss demurred; she favored "chairperson."
Like all militants she felt society ought to do penance, in this
case through the incantation of cacophonous tongue-twisters, for
several millenia of oppression.
Of course, I pointed out to her, "chairperson" will not do.
You're going to offend chairperdaughters nationwide.
This was an unexpected spanner in the works. She floundered for
an answer, then fell silent.
"I've got it," someone spoke up. "Chairperchild!"
Our denunciation was vehement. "AGEIST!" we shouted in unison.
After a tense moment, the chagrined speaker attempted to save
face: "What about 'chairperhu...'" Realizing his mistake only
too late, he almost croaked the final "'...man.'"
Fortunately, there was a math major among us. "I was taught,"
he said, "that upon encountering an irrational problem, the best
thing to do is to construct an infinite series." He went to a
blackboard. "We could continue to push that last syllable off
to the right until it is virtually insignificant, like so:
chairperhuperhuperhuperhuperhuperhu...."
He dusted the chalk from his hands. "But that's going to take
forever to say," someone objected. "It'll look like we broke
our typesetting machine."
"Well," said Einstein, "we can use a vinculum, like they do to
show the repeating part of a decimal fraction." With that, he
erased most of what he had written, drew a small line and said,
"There's your word."
_____
chairperhu
We were awe-struck.
"I don't think the typesetter will handle that line, Chief,"
said the Production Manager after a long silence.
"So we'll drop it for convenience," said the Editrix. She
erased the line. "Please alter your stylebooks accordingly."
As we stared at the board, we knew we had done something special.
We had fulfilled our calling as news-perhus: we had become
completely unbiased. We strode victoriously from the room.
We never won the Pulitzer Prize, but at least we slept nights.
-- Mark Raabe (pur-ee!rdu)