rha@purdue.edu (Robert H. Averack) (07/29/88)
At the present time, I am writing a Requirements Specification for a
new software product. The spec is getting rather voluminous, and during
the course of making references to Users, I have been using the pronouns
"him" and "his" as generics.
My simple question is: is this acceptable? Will the appearance of
male pronouns as generic pronouns cause any undue discomfort for a reader?
If so, I will certainly take the time to re-edit the specs. If not,
I'll leave them as they are.
Thanks for any advice.
--
{yale!,decvax!,philabs!}bunker!rha
Bob Averack
Bunker Ramo, an Olivetti Company
Two Enterprise Drive - Shelton, Connecticut 06484 Mark Ethan Smith (07/31/88)
In article <12781@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> bunker!rha@purdue.edu (Robert H. Averack) writes: > At the present time, I am writing a Requirements Specification for a >new software product. The spec is getting rather voluminous, and during >the course of making references to Users, I have been using the pronouns >"him" and "his" as generics. > > My simple question is: is this acceptable? Will the appearance of >male pronouns as generic pronouns cause any undue discomfort for a reader? I once read a very witty response to a similar question. It appeared as a letter to the editor, sent in by a reader of the British _New Scientist_ magazine, and, as best I recall, went something like this: >>Athough we were taught that the word he embraces she, it has >>been the discomforting experience of many a woman, upon assuming >>to have been embraced by a particular he, to find that the he in >>question had no such intentions at all! Although the word he has traditionally been used as the generic, most men and women feel that it does not truly include women. Therefore, to save women the discomfort of having to worry about whether they are actually included or not, and to prevent men from becoming too comfortable with the assumption that they alone are referred to, it would be necessary to use both pronouns throughout. One way of avoiding this is to refer to the user, the engineer, the programmer, the computer operator, etc., but after a few times, brevity will require a return to pronouns. As far as I know, I am the first and only woman to insist on and prefer inclusive pronouns, while not renouncing my sex. Should this ever become more widespread, with enough women demanding inclusion for most women to begin to feel included, and for most men to agree that a generic he is not intended to exclude women, the need for gender specific pronouns in nongender related literature may cease. Feminists have used she as the generic, to see if men would feel included, and many did not. --Mark
marie@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Marie desJardins) (08/02/88)
In article <12781@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> bunker!rha@purdue.edu (Robert H. Averack) writes: >[...] during >the course of making references to Users, I have been using the pronouns >"him" and "his" as generics. > > My simple question is: is this acceptable? Will the appearance of >male pronouns as generic pronouns cause any undue discomfort for a reader? I am much more comfortable reading manuals that are obviously meant for both men and women. The use of male pronouns (while grammatically "correct") tends to create the image of a male user; this makes it more difficult for women to visualize using the system themselves. I am always appreciative of any attempt to make pronoun usage more inclusive. I suggest adopting any of the following strategies: 1. Use "he" and "she" alternately (switching with each example, i.e. referring to a given hypothetical user with consistent pronouns, but switching with each new user) 2. Use "she" everywhere 3. Use he/she 4. Use an invented pronoun, with a note at the beginning that you are following this usage (e.g. "mun" instead of "he", "him", "she" or "her"; "muns" instead of "his" or "hers") I find the first the best solution, as it creates an image of actual people (some of whom happen to be male, some of whom happen to be female) using the system. The second is sort of a "turnabout is fair play" solution; at least it shows an awareness that there *is* a gender-reference problem; at best it will make readers think. He/she is cumbersome, but if you are particularly uncomfortable using either of the first solutions, I find it preferable to "he" everywhere. 4. would be best, especially if there were an accepted neutral pronoun. You could always be a trend-setter! Marie desJardins
crm@cs.duke.edu (Charlie Martin) (08/02/88)
.... Feminists have used she as the generic, to see if men would feel included, and many did not. Since there is no linguistic tradition of using she as a generic, there had been no training in doing so, and I'm not surprised that men didn't. I see a fair number of alternating he and she documents nowadays, and find I'm no longer noticing -- I feel "included" by the she as well, now. (There's an old joke about being half woman on my mother's side that I'll forbear....) It would be a better experiment to arrange to have a collection of women read manuals with the generic masculine pronoun and see if they felt included. By preference, this should be with a population of women that hadn't already been corrupted by the Ms vs Miss and generic pronoun debate; we just get in our Wayback machine with a stack of surveys... where's that damned dog? Anyway, here's was Mary-Claire van Leunen says about the generic pronoun: My expository style relies heavily on the exemplary singular, and the construction "everybody ... his" therefore comes up frequently. This "his" is generic, not gendered. "His or her" becomes clumsy with repetition and suggests that "his" alone elsewhere is masculine, which it isn't. "Her" alone draws attention to itself and distracts from the topic at hand. "Their" solves the problem neatly but substitutes another. "Ter" is bolder than I am ready for. "One's" defeats the purpose of the construction, which is meant to be vivid and particular. "Its" is too harsh a joke. Rather than play hob with the language, we feminists might adopt the position of pitying men for being forced to share their pronouns around. -- A Handbook for Scholars, pp 4--5.
skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (08/03/88)
Here are a variety of responses to the following query: > At the present time, I am writing a Requirements Specification for a > new software product. The spec is getting rather voluminous, and during > the course of making references to Users, I have been using the pronouns > "him" and "his" as generics. I think that it is possible, and not incredibly difficult, to eliminate gender pronouns in writing. One method is heavy use of passive voice in the writing (which I don't reccomend, since that usually makes the writings painfully boring, even if they weren't that way to begin with). Another is to pretend that "their", "they", etc., are singular pronouns, which is probably acceptable in a technical document, although an English scholar would cringe at it. A third choice is to use "they", "their", etc., in their natural, plural habitat. This works fairly well. A final choice is to alternate between male and female gender pronouns as often as you can without creating illogical sentences like: "First, the user should insert the floppy into her computer's drive, then power on his computer." Used with care, this style works well, and adds variety. > If so, I will certainly take the time to re-edit the specs. If not, > I'll leave them as they are. I reccomend that you do re-edit them. There are a number of good books that tell how to avoid sexism in writing, but I don't know the references to them. I don't have the reference, but I'm sure someone here does. Steve Schonberger steve@raspail.uucp ...!uunet!rosevax!shamash!rapail!steve ========================================================================== There was a workshop at the "Women into Computing" conference where this issue came up. Basically the speaker, from the Open University - a British state-funded distance learning college - looked at the role of language in their Computer Course material. The outcomes were:- 1 "He" and "his" exclude half your audience. 2 "he/she" or "he or she" are ugly constructs and spoil the flow of the text. 3 Using he in some sections and she in others seems to be the most acceptable. Also remember to use she to describe senior staff, not just he. Hope that helps David England -- Dave uucp(Europe): ...!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!de uucp(Atlantic): ...!uunet!comp.lancs.ac.uk!de arpa/janet: de@comp.lancs.ac.uk "What an embezel ! What an ultra maroon !" ============================================================================ > My simple question is: is this acceptable? A simple answer: NO. A simple solution: ??????? As a former English teacher who now writes and documents software, I am keenly aware of the problem. I think that the masculine pronouns may no longer respectably parade about as "generics". Too many people take (proper) offense. But constantly saying she/he, his/hers is ugly and distracting. (Is it sexist to put his before hers? Should we count and balance his/hers, hers/his?). Inventing new gender-neutral pronouns has been tried and ignored or laughed to scorn. Usually, what I do is to replace all masculine "generics" with feminine pronouns, just to see if anyone notices (and as my contribution to gender affirmative action). If anyone complains, I just tell her (note the example!) that for the next 1,500 years feminine pronouns are to be considered generic in order to balance that last 1,500 years of English gender imbalance. (Just kidding!!!!!!?) Steve Price pacbell!pbhyf!rsp (415) 823-1951 ====================================================================== In a recent book I saw the following example. In a sentence (presumably the first such in the chapter) beginning, "First, a leader identifies himself..." the word "himself" is followed by an asterisk, leading the reader to this note at the bottom of the page: "Throughout this chapter, masculine pronouns denote a person of either sex." This allows all the convenience of traditional usage while indicating that one has thought about the matter or at least is aware that it is an issue. As for discomfort, I find the use of FEMININE generic pronouns disquieting. I can understand why people want to use a generic "she" but unless one is writing on language or on feminist topics, this usage is jarring. In fact, it's generally intended to be. To contravene conventional usage is sometimes useful and often thought-provoking, and should always be done carefully and appropriately. When I see a generic "she" I always think of a woman, and while there certainly are lots of female managers, programmers, writers, etc., if I don't need to know an individual's sex, having my attention drawn to it in, say, a book on programming only detracts from the author's purpose. It's one of those things that call attention to themselves, rather like bad grammar or spelling. As for "he or she," "his or her," etc., some of that is fine, but too much is awkward. And as for "s/he," if you can't say it, don't write it. It's one of those things like "and/or" that are closer to computer-manual format than to real English. --Marc Sacks ======================================================================= [Many good writers have used "they" as the indefinite singular-- Addison, Austen, Fielding, Chesterfield, Ruskin, and Scott, for example. Such grammarians as Alexander Bain (1879), Henry Sweet (1891), and, to a lesser extent, Jesperson (1922) support it as well. For more on this, see the chapter entitled "The Word That Failed" in Dennis Baron's _Grammar and Gender_.]
skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (08/04/88)
More responses on which pronouns to use in a computer document: In article <4410@dandelion.CI.COM> sacks@classroom.UUCP (Marc Sacks) writes: >As for discomfort, I find the use of FEMININE generic pronouns disquieting. I >can understand why people want to use a generic "she" but unless one is writing >on language or on feminist topics, this usage is jarring... >When I see a generic "she" I always think of a woman Exactly the way I feel when I see a generic "he." I always think of a man. (Why is "comp.women" getting distribution? The group "comp.society.women" is supposed to serve this purpose.) -- Carol Springs "Uncover the secrets of the Solar System and Data Resources/McGraw-Hill receive a FREE FM radio..."--Time-Life Books 24 Hartwell Avenue carols%drilex@bbn.com Lexington, MA 02173 {bbn, ames!ll-xn, harvard}!drilex!carols In article <12878@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> marie@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Marie desJardins) writes: }I suggest adopting any of the following strategies: } 1. Use "he" and "she" alternately (switching with } each example, i.e. referring to a given } hypothetical user with consistent pronouns, but } switching with each new user) I agree that this is the best workable solution, but would take it a bit farther to include a bit of the flavor of: } 2. Use "she" everywhere Choose the gender of your fictitious users by using the reverse of their usual gender in real society. If your user in real life would normally be a male, particularly if the user is more of a "power" person (i.e., a person in authority or with great technical knowledge), then make that user a "she". If the user is a secretary or a clerk/typist or some other female-ghetto job, make that user a "he". This is an idea from a non-sexist writing teacher in Texas named Harriet "something" (?Stoner?) I'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me her last name -- she had some very good down-to-earth useable tips on non-sexist writing and had that unique easy-to-read style that made me remember her first name rather than her last. I'd love to be that good a writer someday! Curtis Jackson -- moss!rcj 201-386-6409 (CORNET 232) ...![ att ulysses ucbvax allegra ]!moss!rcj ...![ att ucbvax akgua watmath ]!clyde!rcj In article <12901@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> crm@cs.duke.edu (Charlie Martin) writes: [About what Mary-Claire Van Leunen says in her book, *A Handbook for Scholars*, on the subject of generic pronouns.] Here is something that Mary-Claire wrote more recently (1985) on the same subject. She gave me permission to post it a few years ago, but that was to a different audience. Mary-Claire writes: I think that we already have sex-indifferent first- and second-person singular and plural personal pronouns and sex-indifferent third-person plural pronouns and sex-indifferent personal relative pronouns and sex-indifferent indefinite pronouns. I think that all this wonderful sex-indifference in our pronouns has not saved us from bad attitudes about men and women. I think that people who speak other languages with different patterns of sex-sensitivity and sex-indifference seem also to have bad attitudes about men and women. I doubt that introducing indifference into the third-person singular is likely to bring us immediate salvation from bad attitudes about men and women. On principle, I say "anybody: they" and "somebody: they" out loud in the hope that my doubt is ill-founded. I hope that using those constructions will help me form good attitudes about men and women. When I write I have a problem: In writing both about rhetoric and about computers I make extensive use of long examples. "The writer does so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." "The reader does so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." "The user does so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." To construct such examples, I need a pronoun that is both personal and strongly singular. My ear tells me that the "they" in "anybody: they" is only weakly singular. "The user takes their time" sounds weird to me. When the person in the example is doing something sensible and good, I can sometimes use the second person as my exemplary singular. "You are doing so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." Great. Unfortunately, this use of the second person precludes other uses in the same vicinity, and they are sometimes more pressing. I often need "you" imperative to the exclusion of "you" exemplary; I write very bossy stuff. When the person in the example is behaving foolishly or wrongly, courtesy forbids "you" exemplary. Throughout my whole professional life until quite recently I had always used "he" exemplary. "The writer: he." "The secretary: he." Lately I have been experimenting with "she" exemplary. Because I like "you" exemplary when I can use it, my use of any third-person exemplary is going to have a slight bias in the direction of unfavorable examples. We shall see. * I have the fear that fiddling around with pronouns can take the place of working to improve real life. But I don't know how to improve real life very much, so perhaps I oughtn't mention it. ------- From usenet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Wed Aug 3 19:06:09 1988 Received: from arthur.cs.purdue.edu by violet.berkeley.edu (5.54 (CFC 4.22.3)/1.16.17l) id AA04608; Wed, 3 Aug 88 19:06:05 PDT Received: from ucbvax.berkeley.edu by arthur.cs.purdue.edu; (5.54/3.16) id AA09638; Wed, 3 Aug 88 21:07:17 EST Received: by ucbvax.berkeley.edu (5.59/1.28) id AA06821; Wed, 3 Aug 88 14:57:48 PDT To: comp-society-women@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Path: ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!dana From: dana@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Dana Bergen) Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Language in a Requirements Specification Message-Id: <25419@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 3 Aug 88 21:57:27 GMT References: <12900@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Reply-To: ernie.Berkeley.EDU!dana@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Dana Bergen) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 25 Status: RO I read a book recently in which the author stated at the beginning that he was using "he" as the generic human pronoun, for lack of a better solution, and that he trusted women would not feel excluded by this. My reaction to this was, "Well, okay, it's not my preferred solution but at least he's acknowledging the problem." BUT!! -- what I found was that when the person in question was a programmer (which was the case most of the time), the generic pronoun "he" was used, but when word processing applications were discussed and the person in question was a secretary, why, suddenly the generic pronoun was "she"!! For those who argue that "he" is genderless and includes women: how often do you see sentences like "Every nurse has his own stethescope"? Doesn't that sound just a little bit funny to you? My preference is for either alternating he and she (but being careful to avoid engineers as always he and secretaries as always she), or using they as a singular pronoun. Since the latter is already common usage in spoken English, I think it should become standard; unfortunately, it hasn't yet, and using it does open one up to criticism from grammar fanatics. Dana dana@ernie.berkeley.edu ucbvax!ernie!dana
farren@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Michael J. Farren) (08/09/88)
[Although the initial inquiry has long since been answered, there are still enough responses coming in which raise interesting issues that I thought I'd post some more. TR] ==================================================================== From: unisoft!gethen!farren@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Michael J. Farren) marie@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Marie desJardins) writes: >>Will the appearance of >>male pronouns as generic pronouns cause any undue discomfort for a reader? > >I suggest adopting any of the following strategies: [...] > 4. Use an invented pronoun, with a note at the > beginning that you are following this usage > (e.g. "mun" instead of "he", "him", "she" or "her"; > "muns" instead of "his" or "hers") Do NOT use this strategy if your desire is to create documentation which will be easily readable, without "undue discomfort to the reader". No matter how many disclaimers you put in the beginning, readers will still stumble over each and every occurence of the invented pronoun. While acceptable for casual writing, in more formal writing this is badly out of place. When and if someone comes up with a euphonious gender-neutral pronoun, and it becomes commonly used in casual communication, it may well become common enough to gain a foothold in the language, and thus become appropriate for more formal usage. Until then, though, all you will be doing is creating obstacles to communication, not facilitating it. "Ms." is a good example - at first used only within the feminist community, it slowly spread, because of its obvious similarity to "Mr." and "Mrs.", and its obvious use as a marital-status-neutral salutation. It took years before its use was accepted in more formal circumstances, such as newspapers. Personally, I would like to see a good gender-neutral pronoun, but none of those proposed so far sound right. "hir", "pern", and the like are all much too dissimilar to standard English - they just clash in my asthetic sense. Until someone creates a word which "fits", I would recommend judicious use of the alternating "he" and "she" technique, along with more use of "their", in circumstances where its use is appropriate. -- Michael J. Farren | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just {ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}! | dogmatize it! Reflect on it and re-evaluate unisoft!gethen!farren | it. You may want to change your mind someday." gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame ======================================================================= From: R Fairbairns <rf%computer-lab.cambridge.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK> I'ld cast a vote for she/hers on the basis of affirmative action, balancing the last 1500 years, etc... However, analysis of the issue may perhaps prove illuminating. I think it's misleading to consider humanity as a whole when guessing reaction. For the present purpose, I think there are three classes of human: 1. The male supremacist (Who may be of either gender, of course.) They will either think "fancy, I didn't know that was a woman's job", or "it's those raving feminists at it again!". So what? They deserve to be stirred up. 2. The non-sexist woman. Probably won't notice at all... (I'm not really qualified to be sure, however.) 3. The non-sexist man Will be pulled up short, but will immediately realize what's going on (Mary- Claire van Leunen notwithstanding). I experienced this recently with an early draft of an OSI standard(!): no real problem. My objections to some of the alternatives offered: A. Invented words. We have too many invented words in computing as it is. If the language needs a genderless generic, it'll arise in due course. I don't believe (as a general rule) in trying that route for encouraging social change. (Incidentally, the word "mun", which somebody suggested, is an existing English dialect word at least twice over - once meaning "must" and once meaning "he/him"!) B. Plural pronouns for singular meaning I just find this confusing and ugly. So what if lots of good writers do this extraordinary thing? No doubt, if I were a Fielding or an Austen I could get away with it, but I'm not. Anyway, Austen spells `surprise' "surprize": who's going to justify the invasion of the `z's on that basis? Robin Fairbairns ^ | male of that ilk ========================================================================= Sarah Groves Hobart writes: In article <12781@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> bunker!rha@purdue.edu (Robert H. Averack) writes: >[...] during >the course of making references to Users, I have been using the pronouns >"him" and "his" as generics. > The solution I use is to make all references to generic people plural. In that way I can use the generic pronouns "they" and "their". Example: When the user types this command, he . . . When users type this command, they . . . I also support the use of "they" and "their" with singular precedents, but since there is some controversy about this method, I tend to avoid it in published papers. Not everyone can agree, can they? Sarah Groves Hobart -- {ihnp4,amdahl,sun}!pacbell!laticorp!sarah ========================================================================== From: well!slf@lll-crg.llnl.gov (Sharon Lynne Fisher) Regarding his and her: I'm an editor, and I run into this a lot. In many, many of the cases, it's possible to get rid of the hisness by rewriting the sentence a little. And no, you don' t always end up with the passive voice. Instead of "the user inserts his disk into his PC," what's wrong with "inserting *the* disk into *the* PC"? ===================================================================== Eugene Miya writes: Teresa Roberts devoted a page to this issue in her PhD thesis on text editors. (She justified the use of she in her thesis). I thought about posting, this, but a better idea came to me. Some years ago, I was researching Lorinda Cherry's Writer's Work Bench (WWB, not to be confused with the Documenter's Work Bench). Anyway I discovered the program sexist(1). We don't have WWB on any of our systems here at Ames, but fortunately I have access to it elsewhere. Are "man" pages copywritten? Sexist(1) had a reference document. [Well I suspended this letter and did wwbinfo and wwbaid, no man page]. I don't have the hardcopy WWB document in my office anymore. This is only a suggestion, the shell scripts sound a bit more strict about copyright. Hope this helps [may sell a few WWB systems...]. --eugene miya