xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Aliza R. Panitz) (09/21/90)
There are three common nouns for females... Girls, Women, and Ladies. There are four common nouns for males... Boys, Guys, Men, and Gentlemen. (Many others exist, but they are hopelessly slangy.) The problem is not just one of mapping from four cases onto three, but also due to social trappings and trainings that do not recognize a valid niche for "Woman." Perhaps some of the propagation of the term "Lady" was encouraged by lower-class women who wanted to be treated better... I do not know. For a while, I was the only female member of a work team. One of the others [interesting how I declined to use a noun here] would address his e-mail memos to "Lady and Gentlemen:" Perfectly "correct and proper", but it always struck me wrong, since it was no longer the standard formula, but singled me out. I've been addressed as a guy, (and *not* in the sense of "one of the guys", which is derogatory in its own way), as in (on the phone) "Aliza? Great, you're just the guy I wanted to talk to." Unfortunately, I don't expect to see this become widespread. I have seen others refer to or address a group as "people." This salutation/appellation has many advantages, but is certainly awkward to get used to (i.e. "the people in the secretarial pool", "the people in the mail room", "the maintenance people.") When I write informal memos to my colleagues, I address them as "Folks." I don't expect to see this usage adopted widely, since it is pretty informal, but there is no doubt that it is gender neutral. Does anyone have a better suggestion? - - - - Aliza R. Panitz Obligatory Wasted Bandwidth xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov
leivian@dover.sps.mot.COM (Bob Leivian) (09/25/90)
In article <3461@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> xrarp@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov writes: >There are three common nouns for females... Girls, Women, and >Ladies. There are four common nouns for males... Boys, Guys, >Men, and Gentlemen. (Many others exist, but they are hopelessly >slangy.) The problem is not just one of mapping from four cases >onto three >When I write informal memos to my colleagues, I address them as >"Folks." I don't expect to see this usage adopted widely, since >it is pretty informal, but there is no doubt that it is gender >neutral. Does anyone have a better suggestion? The missing term is GAL, I always heard guys and gals when I was growing up. The problem is that this term is somehow not thought of as highly, and you are likely to draw a dirty look if you use GAL. So it now is creeping into use to use a sex-neutral GUY (go'in out with the guys, hey you guys), but I see nothing wrong with "us gals are going to the concert tonight" but some people are more sensitive. If you want a third term to be neutral such as FOLKS I think that is fine but sounds ackward. And where I grew up it meant older relatives. Bob L