ariels@orca.UUCP (Ariel Shattan) (08/18/83)
I'm getting a bit tired of people confusing the MAN in manufacturing with
the generic MAN. These two terms have nothing to do with each other.
The MAN in "manufacturing" comes from the Greek MANOS, meaning "hand".
The generic MAN comes from Old English. Y'see, long ago, MAN meant an
adult human being, both Male and Female. The designation for a female
adult was WIFMAN, and for a male adult was CARLMAN (there was another
prefix, too, but I can't remember it). As women became less important
to the (male) community, the word for generic adult slowly became the
word for male adult.
[This happened just recently in China, the pictograph
for adult has become the one for male, and they've added one for female.
and I got THAT one from an article by Nicholas Hoffstader in the October
'82 Scientific American (the one with the snakes on the cover), one of
the best articles I've ever read on the English language and the Generic
Male (even though I didn't agree with the entire contents, he sure said it
well.)]
Sooo, over the years, WIFMAN evolved to WOMAN, and MAN retained its
generic adult meaning, as well as the (new) meaning, adult male.
Please do not interpret this all to mean that I propose we go back to the
original (does this mean correct? ask those who have so much trouble
with the idea of modifying the use of language today...) method of designating
male and female adults.
And, next time I see some nincompoop (which, by the way, comes from the Latin
non compus mentis) being cute and using "personufacturing" or
"individualufacturing", or whatever, I will proceed to sizzle said being
to a teeny weeny lump of charcoal.
If you're going to make trouble, at least know what you're talking
about.
'Nuf said.
Ariel Shattan
decvax!tektronix!tekecs!ariels
p.s. By the way, WENCH used to refer exclusively to a young male servant...ecn-ec:ecn-pc:ecn-ed:vu@pur-ee.UUCP (08/24/83)
The easiest way to help the word processor is that generic "man" is mostly used as suffix, while "man" for hand is mostly used as prefix. So the way to do is to add a blank to the end of all lines (easy with ed, hard with vi) (in case, say, chairman appears at the end of the line) and then change from "man " to "person ". Note that even when manufacture is broken at the end of line, it still is "man-" and not "man ". As a final touch, change all "woperson" back to "woman" (Why not back to "person" ? Because if [like it or not] a manual says "woman", then it is addressed only to women on staff and not to everybody.). Do the same thing for "men ", and then we're off. Hao-Nhien Vu.