sdb@tekecs.UUCP (Steven Den Beste) (10/01/83)
Several people, by various means, have suggested "sharpshooter" as an alternative to "marksman". Unfortunately, the environment in which I encountered "marksmanship" was with reference to a person who was throwing knives, so "sharpshooter" dosn't apply. (It was in the rules for a fantasy role-playing game - no, I don't read survivalist magazines.) The phrase "Dagger Markmanship" was used as a section header for the rules on throwing daggers with extreme accuracy - and was referred to elsewhere in the text. So far, none of the discussion I have gotten would have satisfactorily handled this case. Honest - I am not trying to be incendiary, but I think that there are some cases in which it becomes a matter of diminishing returns to try to get the "man" out of the word - I think this may be one of them. I am still interested in hearing of alternatives! In general, I *do* try to write in a non-sexist fashion... Steve Den Beste
ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (10/08/83)
Stephen Samuel (alberta!stephen) notes:
P.S. Some of you may be suprised to learn that in the early 1900s
when Alberta tried to appoint its first female judge, the question
was taken all the way to the British House of Lords as to whether
the word "person" should include women.
(The answer -- "Why not?").
You may also be surprised to learn that the Supreme Court of Canada*
had ruled the OTHER WAY on the question!
*which is now the court of last appeal, but in those days you could go one
higher, to the British House of Lords -- fortunately.
Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc., Torontocourtney@hp-pcd.UUCP (10/08/83)
#R:tekecs:-22600:hp-pcd:19100021:000:140 hp-pcd!courtney Oct 7 12:38:00 1983 In response to Stephen: So the plural of "himan" would be "himen" which sounds like "hymen"... I don't think that will do... cl
stephen@alberta (10/10/83)
How about "Alderman Betty Hewes"? It is being used at the request
of the (obviously female) alderman because she didn't like the
alternatives.
I still prefer the Idea of returning the word 'man' to it's
generic format and inventing a work (like himan) to specify
a male <man>.
The rules that I came up with such a word are:
1) It must make the malenes obvious.
2) It should be a derivative of man (to compliment woman).
3) It should be short (path of least resistance)
The only words that I could come up with that followed the rule
were himan and heman.
Since he-man already has connotations which I don't like, himan
seems to be my primary choice.
Anybody have a better choice/set of rules?
The advantage of such an approach is that man already is assumed to
be generic ("What are you -- a man or a mouse?)
Stephen Samuel
(alberta!stephen)
P.S. Some of you may be suprised to learn that in the early 1900s
when Alberta tried to appoint it's first female judge, the question
was taken all the way to the British House of Lords as to whether
the word "person" should include women.
(The answer -- "Why not?").stephen@alberta (10/22/83)
Although himan and hymen may rhyme, himan comes from him-man and therefore the 'i' is soft. The phonetic difference is not unlike 'hick' and 'hike'. Since the words refer to two obviously different genders, context problems are likely to be rare (the worst case I can think of is "Himen don't have hymen." and even that is reasonably clear... Also, for those of you who are hell bent on PERSONifying the english language, consider the fact that you may be executing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Consider what fun the lawyers could have if "...all men were created equal." were interpreted as "...all HIMEN were created equal.". Although this may seem ludicrus now, it might not be as unlikely after a couple of generations of 'PERSONification'. As I said before, I think that removing the malenes from 'man' would be easier, and safer than removing the femaleness from it and 'himan' is the best tool I can come up with. Stephen Samuel (alberta!stephen)