ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (05/09/85)
>I beg to (vigorously) disagree. There are much less awkward, and more >descriptive expressions, such as "fire fighter", "letter carrier" or "police >officer", which are the *real* expressions for "fireman", "postman" or >"policeman". Such shorthand was acceptable when these ocupations were all >male. Now that this is no longer the case, they will pretty much stop >existing. >--Marcel Simon Your suggestion is reasonable for those professions and titles that are fortunate enough to have such widely accepted sex ambiguous titles as `fire fighter' and `police officer'. I am also in full agreement with your conclusion that all those awful sloppy and ambiguous words of the form xxx-man must go. But think of all the thousands of words that contain the suffix -`man' that have no other clear-cut name! Like `chairman'. Fortunately, this word has the ever-popular demasculized alternate `chairperson'. Many others are less fortunate, for example -- repairman, swordsman, journeyman, draftsman, doorman, sportsman, Scotsman, salesman -- as well as a crushing number of obscure job titles like brakeman, flagman... Now if you waste your time coming up with suitable replacements for these, you will have thoroughly missed my point, just as you entirely evaded the point of my last article by special-casing the examples and failing to confront the general problems they represent. What we need is a generally useful suffix to replace -man, not just for words that already exist, but also as a general replacement for an extremely prolific formative element in our language. ============================================================================ > "Fireperson" or other groaners *are* sloppy and ambiguous... Now to my experience, `fireman' is the most commonly used of the triplet fire-{man,person,fighter}. But if `fireperson' is sloppy and ambiguous, then surely `fireman' is the sloppiest and most ambiguous of all. Clearly a typing blunder here! Surely you meant: > "Fireman" or other groaners *are* sloppy and ambiguous... Otherwise, your article makes no sense at all. -michael
features@ihuxf.UUCP (M.A. Zeszutko) (05/13/85)
> But think of all the thousands of words that contain the suffix -`man' > that have no other clear-cut name! Like `chairman'. Fortunately, > this word has the ever-popular demasculized alternate `chairperson'. > > Many others are less fortunate, for example -- repairman, swordsman, > journeyman, draftsman, doorman, sportsman, Scotsman, salesman -- as well > as a crushing number of obscure job titles like brakeman, flagman... > > > What we need is a generally useful suffix to replace -man, not just for > words that already exist, but also as a general replacement for an > extremely prolific formative element in our language. > > -michael How about "operator"? Seems functional enough to me. (brake operator, flag operator, door operator, sales operator as examples) -- aMAZon @ AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL; ihnp4!ihuxf!features
mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON) (05/14/85)
> What we need is a generally useful suffix to replace -man, not just for > words that already exist, but also as a general replacement for an > extremely prolific formative element in our language. > > Michael Ellis > You have made a similar proposal before, in arguing for a singular 'they' as an orthogonal, one-for-one replacement for 'he'. I don't see it as supremely important that we scurry around the language purging it of words containing the sequence 'm'-'a'-'n'. Certainly a male fire fighter can safely be called a 'fireman'. Nonetheless the generic fire fighter is just that. 'Fireman' has usefulness, for example in an article that deals with a specific (male) fire fighter, and is thus likely to have many repetitions of that expression. The author of such an article would be looking for synonyms to 'fire fighter', and in *that* case, 'fireman' is a perfectly acceptable substitute. The point is that words ending in -man are *NOT* *inherently* sexist, only as they are used. If one uses them to refer to specifically male persons, their usage is legitimate. By and large, professions and crafts spent time and effort creating or rediscovering gender neutral titles, which are used when the generic professional is referred to. Marcel Simon