nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (03/28/85)
The most interesting work of writing I have seen on sexism in the English language is by Douglas Hofstadter (writing under the name William Satire) and is called "A Person Paper on Purity in Language". It can be found in his wonderful book "Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern". Hofstadter is strongly in favor of removing sexism from our language and writes about it in this paper using biting sarcasm. Included at the end of this message is an excerpt from the paper (included without permission -- I don't think Hofstadter would object). "Hey girl As I've always said I prefer your lips red Not what the good Lord made But what he intended" Doug Alan mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC P.S. Here is the excerpt from "A Person Paper on Purity in Language": It's high time someone blew the whistle on all the silly prattle about revamping our language to suit the purposes of certain political fanatics. You know what I am talking about -- those who accuse speakers of English of what they call "racism". This awkward neologism, constructed by analogy with the well-established term "sexism", does not sit well in the ears, if I may mix my metaphors. But let us grant that in our society there may be injustices here and there in the treatment of either race from time to time, and let us even grant these people their terms "racism" and "racist". How valid, however, are the claims of the self-proclaimed "black libbers", or "negrists" -- those who would radically change our language in order to "liberate" us poor dupes from its supposed racist bias? Most of the clamor, as you certainly know by now, revolves around the age-old usage of the noun "white" and words built from it, such as "chairwhite", "mailwhite", "repairwhite", "clergywhite", "middlewhite", "Frenchwhite", "forwhite", "whitepower", "whiteslaughter", "oneupswhiteship", "straw white", "whitehandle", and so on. The negrists claim that using the word "white", either in on its own or as a component, to talk about *all* the members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and reinforces racism. Therefore the libbers propose that we substitute "person" everywhere where "white" now occurs. Sensitive speakers of our secretary tongue of course find this preposterous. There is great beauty to a phrase such as "All whites are created equal." Our forebosses who framed the Declaration of Indepedence well understood the poetry of our language. Think how ugly it would be to say "All persons are created equal.", or "All whites and blacks are created equal." Besides, as any schoolwhitey can tell you, such phrases are redundant. In most contexts, it is self-evident when "white" is being used in an inclusive sense, in which case it subsumes members of the darker race just as much as fairskins. There is nothing denigrating to black people in being subsumed under the rubric "white" -- no more than under the rubric "person". After all, white is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow, including black. Used inclusively, the word "white" has no connotations whatsoever of race. Yet many people are hung up on this point. A prime example is Abraham Moses, one of the more vocal spokeswhites for making such a shift. For years, Niss Moses, autheroon of the well-known negrist tracts "A Handbook of Nonracist Writing" and "Words and Blacks", has had nothing better to do than go around the country making speeches advocating the downfall of "racist language" that ble objects to. But when you analyze bler objections, you find they all fall apart at the seams. Niss Moses says that words like "chairwhite" suggest to people -- most especially impressionable young whiteys and blackeys -- that all chairwhites belong to the white race. How absurd! It is quite obvious, for instance, that the chairwhite of the League of Black Voters is going to be a black, not a white. Nobody need think twice about it. As a matter of fact, the suffix "white" is usually not pronounced with a long "i" as in the noun "white", but like "wit", as in the terms "saleswhite", "freshwhite", "penwhiteship", "first basewhite", and so on. It's just a simple and useful component in building race-neutral words. But Niss Moses would have you sit up and start hollering "Racism!" In fact, Niss Moses sees evidence of racism under every stone. Ble has written a famous article, in which ble vehemently objects to the immortal and poetic words of the first white on the moon, Captain Nellie Strongarm. If you will recall, whis words were: "One small step for a white, a giant step for whitekind." This noble sentiment is anything but racist; it is simply a celebration of a glorious moment in the history of White. Another of Niss Moses's shrill objections is to the age-old differentiation of whites from blacks by the third-person pronouns "whe" and "ble". Ble promotes an absurd notion: that what we really need in English is a single pronoun covering *both* races. Numerous suggestions have been made, such as "pe", "tey", and others. These are all repugnant to the nature of the English language, as the average white in the street will testify, even if whe has no linguistic training whatsoever. Then there are the advocates of usages such as "whe or ble", "whis or bler", and so forth. This makes for monstrosities such has the sentence "When the next president takes office, whe or ble will have to choose whis or bler cabinet with great care, for whe or ble would not want to offend any minorities." Constrast this with the spare elegance of the normal way of putting it, and there is no question which way we ought to speak. There are, of course, some yapping black libbers who advocate writing "bl/whe" everywhere, which, aside from looking terrible, has no reasonable pronunciation. Shall be say "blooey" all the time when we simply mean "whe"? Who wants to sound like a white with a chronic sneeze? ... ... I would merely point out to the overzealous that there are some extravagant notions about language that should be recognized for what they are: cheap attempts to let dogmatic, narrow minds enforce their views on the speakers lucky enough to have inherited the richest, most beautiful and flexible language on earth, a language whose traditions run back through the centuries to such deathless poets as Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Walt Whitwhite, and so many others. Our language owes an incalculable debt to these whites for their clarity of vision and expression, and if the shallow minds of bandwagon-jumping negrists succeed in destroying this precious heritage for all whites of good will, that will be without any doubt, a truly female day in the history of Northern White.
barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry) (03/29/85)
BRAVO! A wonderful article. Thank you for sharing it with us. Numeous Social Psych studies have been run on sexist languague and its effect on the reader or listener regarding what type of person is pictured. It seems that both males and females picture men when "he" is used, and a generic being when "they" is used. Isn't this worth a bit of grating on the ears until we get used to it? I too was brought up with reading books that said "See Dick run, see Jane watch". It is a very tough thing to break out of. Maybe using non sexist languague is a step at a solution. Mikki Barry
zubbie@wlcrjs.UUCP (Jeanette Zobjeck) (04/03/85)
In article <3917@mit-eddie.UUCP> barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry) writes: >I too was brought up with reading books that said "See Dick run, see Jane >watch". It is a very tough thing to break out of. Maybe using non >sexist languague is a step at a solution. > >Mikki Barry It would perhaps be better if we eliminated pronouns from the language altogether. That way we would achieve several things: 1 Sexist lumping of society into the masculine gender 2 Haveing to try and use a plural as a singular word 3 the confusion in using they and them would not appear 4 There would never be any confusion as to A The gender refered to B The person refered to. Seems like I have heard some conversations go that way already . ......and the Barbara said that Jane said that George had been sleeping with Martha and Joe was going to kick Marks teeth in if it continued. I dont know though ..................... =============================================================================== From the mostly vacant environment of Jeanette L. Zobjeck (ihnp4!wlcrjs!zubbie) All opinions expressed may not even be my own. ===============================================================================