ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (05/21/85)
>Uh, oh. Then we'd better get rid of the word "woman". It comes almost >directly from "wife (of) man", as if that's all that counts. >More seriously, I usually gauge these things by the image they confer >in my mind. "RepairMAN" seems sexist because I subconsiously think >of a man. Even though "woman" is derived as above, due to the evolution >of the language, it doesn't mean that anymore. That's not the case >with "repairman". -- RANeinast Seems you badly misinterpreted my last article, which focussed on words THAT ARE INTENDED AS GENERIC TERMS regardless of sex, such as the generic use of `-man' and `he'. `Woman' is simply not in this category, being a strictly female designator -- it is supposed to be `sexist' (as opposed to generic), and it seems to suit its purpose quite well. However, now that you bring it up, I recall some feminists, particularly in the 60's, who rejected `woman' for precisely the reason you mention though I believe very few people feel this way today. (BTW, `woperit' and similar curiosities first appeared at this time as well..). As you point out, `woman' derives from AngloSaxon `wifman(n)', an ancient compound whose parts are equivalent to the modern words `wife'+`man'. But this compound did not mean `wife of man'; instead, it was closer to `female human being' (check OED if it matters..) Furthermore, `woman' SEEMS to have left the world of obvious compounds like `repairman' and has now become a full-fledged word of its own. Several reasons come to mind, largely due to the affects of time and gradual phonetic change: 1. `Woman' no longer obviously breaks into prefix+root, unlike far more recent compounds such as repair+man. `Wo-' scarcely FEELS like a prefix, because it never appears elsewhere as a formative element. Compare with `repair-'. 2. In spite of the visual analogy with `man', `woman' is in a class of its own with respect to pronunciation: woman = "woom'n" vs fireman = "fire"+"man" women = "wimm'n" vs firemen = "fire"+"men" This quality is particularly important to young children, who are influenced by sounds rather than spelling. Old timers have heard this all before... -michael
ran@ho95b.UUCP (RANeinast) (05/23/85)
>>Uh, oh. Then we'd better get rid of the word "woman". It comes almost >>directly from "wife (of) man", as if that's all that counts. >>More seriously, I usually gauge these things by the image they confer >>in my mind. "RepairMAN" seems sexist because I subconsiously think >>of a man. Even though "woman" is derived as above, due to the evolution >>of the language, it doesn't mean that anymore. That's not the case >>with "repairman". -- RANeinast > Seems you badly misinterpreted my last article, which focussed on words > THAT ARE INTENDED AS GENERIC TERMS regardless of sex, such as the > generic use of `-man' and `he'. `Woman' is simply not in this category, > being a strictly female designator -- it is supposed to be `sexist' (as > opposed to generic), and it seems to suit its purpose quite well. No, you misinterpreted mine (Nyah, nyah, nyah <-intended jocularly; if we do this too long, we'll look like a pair of children: you did it!, no, you did, etc.). One of your points was that person->perchild was stupid (agreed) because the derivation of person (persona) had nothing sexist about it (and the -son had nothing to do with "son"). I was pointing out that even if the derivation WAS sexist, it was still stupid to change the root (e.g., "-man") if today's word is no longer sexist. What is important is *what the word means to people, today*. "Repairman" conjures up a picture of a male repairer only, so it's NOT stupid to change to a better word. > `Woman' no longer obviously breaks into prefix+root, unlike far > more recent compounds such as repair+man. `Wo-' scarcely FEELS > like a prefix, because it never appears elsewhere as a formative > element. Compare with `repair-'. This was the point I was trying to make, though obviously not with the sort of additional information you can add to it.. I think we're fighting the same battle here. I thought the "uh, oh" and the "more seriously" in my posting were sufficient to point out the whimsical nature of my presentation of the idea. -- ". . . and shun the frumious Bandersnatch." Robert Neinast (ihnp4!ho95b!ran) AT&T-Bell Labs