gm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Greg McGary) (06/06/89)
What follows is a paper my wife wrote in the fall of '88 for her
Women's Studies class at Duke U. In *my unbiased opinion* 8-), it is a
very interesting and well written paper (her professor thought so as
well!) It concerns the use of masculine pronouns in English to
denote persons of either sex. The conclusion of the paper is that the
`generic masculine' is hardly generic--its use tends to crowd women out
of the minds of English readers and listeners.
Anyway, I hereby offer it to the group as an item of interest...
--gm
The He/Man Headache
by Wendy K. Lowe
(c/o Greg McGary
gm@cs.duke.edu)
It is generally agreed that we can learn a lot about a culture simply by
studying its language. By doing so, we begin to understand its social
customs, mores, and attitudes. Within a given culture, changes in
social circumstances, attitudes etc. are often reflected in the
language, making language change an integral part of human history.
Ironically a major landmark in the history of English is the attempt in
the 18th century to inhibit the process of change. Two hundred and
fifty years after the advent of prescriptive grammars, we still look
upon grammarians as the authorities on usage and are reluctant to
formally challenge their rulings. Beginning in the early 1970's
however, feminists drew attention to what they felt was a gross error in
judgement on the part of these grammarians: the decision to prescribe
`he' as the only acceptable generic, singular pronoun, thereby
condemning the use of alternate forms such as `he or she' and singular
`they.' Feminists argue that `he' has never successfully adapted to its
generic role and should therefore be replaced. Traditionalists strongly
oppose such change insisting that it is destructive to the language and
semantically unnecessary. The result has been a series of debates over
the nature of language and its relation to sexism. When the arguments
are compared, feminists and other supporters of nonsexist language
appear to have the more defensible position.
The first argument involves each side's interpretation of the
prescriptive grammarian's role. The traditionalists represent a modern
version of the 18th century grammarian who hoped to play an influential
role in determining the future of English. Baugh and Cable describe the
prescriptive grammarian of this period as a man who
was not content to record fact; he pronounced judgment. It seems
to have been accepted as self-evident that of two alternate
forms of expression one must be wrong. As nature abhors a
vacuum, so the 18th century grammarians hated uncertainty...
Once a question had been decided, all instances of contrary
usage were unequivocally condemned [Bau78, p. 276].
The goal at that time was to establish a perfect, standard language.
The improved version was to be frozen, in an attempt to deny English the
natural tendency to change.
Modern traditionalists recognize that language cannot be permanently
frozen, yet they still oppose change on the grounds that it contributes
to the "decay" of the language. Examples of the modern traditionalist
attitude are given in articles by Wendy Martyna and Alleen Pace Nilsen.
Nilsen quotes Robert L. Spaeth, a dean at St. John's University who
insists that the proposed non-sexist "changes in English usage would do
considerable damage to the language." He accuses the National Council of
English Teachers of treating "the language like an innocent puppy
waiting to be neutered for the convenience of his human masters..."
[Nil87, p. 41]. William Buckly, Jr. also rejects change, complaining
that the use of `he or she' causes "distortions [which] ring in the ear"
[Mar83, p. 28]. Similarly, "the ugly and awkward `he or she' forms
offend the traditional eye" of writer Edward Devol [Mar83, p. 28]. Robin
Lakoff reinforces this argument when she states that the pronoun system
is fundamental to the language and too firmly embedded in people's
subconscious minds to be changed [Lak73, p. 75].
None of these arguments seems terribly convincing. For example, Spaeth
seems to have forgotten that language, unlike a puppy, is a tool used by
humans to communicate. It is difficult to sympathize with Buckley and
Devol as they are merely complaining about the unfamiliar, while Lakoff
's argument is plausible, but shortsighted.
Modern linguistic liberals reflect the views of George Campbell who
stated in _Philosophy_of_Rhetoric_ (1776) that "it is the grammarians'
only business to note, collect, and methodise" the language. He
maintained that a rule derives its authority and value only from
people's conformity to it. [Bau78, p. 283]. The feminist argument,
concurrent with that of Campbell, focuses on the prescriptivists' lack
of concern for actual usage. Linguist T. G. Bever, for example, blames
"... grammarians [for having] reveled in the luxury of being able to
ignore why we say what we say, how we say it and how others understand
it" [Mac80a, p. 350]. Donald MacKay disapproves of prescriptivists'
"intuitive judgements" and suggests that "a usage should be
prescriptively recommended if and only if the benefits of the usage
outweigh the costs, where benefits facilitate communication and costs
make communication more difficult (relative to all other means of
expressing the same concept)" [Mac80a, p. 352]. He argues that "by
ignoring linguistic knowledge, prescriptivism has remained narrow,
uninformed, and unprincipled, following arbitrary, unconscious or poorly
formulated criteria and biases rather than general rules or principles."
In the same vein, Ann Bodine asserts that when the generic `he' was
established in favor of `he or she' and singular `they,' the decision
was not based on logic or ease of communication, but on the belief in
the intrinsic superiority of the male members of society [Bod75]. As we
will see later, many scholars feel that in this case, the alternatives
are far more desirable.
Arguing in favor of change, the linguistic liberals offer historical
perspective on the issue of evolution in language. Alma Graham,
executive editor of the _American_Heritage_Dictionary_ states that the
masculine generic is not an intrinsic, immutable element of English,
since its semantic function has already undergone significant change. In
Old English, prior to 1000 A. D., the word `man' was used exclusively in
the generic sense. The words `wif' and `wer,' were the sex specified
words for female and male respectively. Gradually, the word `man' was
expanded to include the concept of `wer.' Subsequently, the word `wer'
fell into disuse [Web86, p. 22]. Donald MacKay also argues against the
claim that pronouns are immutable by pointing to the adoption of the
third person pronouns `it,' `she,' and `they' as well as the elimination
of the second person pronouns `thee,' `thou,' `thine,' due to changes in
the class system [Mac83, p. 352].
The second point of contention in the battle over the generic masculine
is that of semantics. The question is, do these masculine terms
function as true generics, clearly understood by all parties? In other
words, do `he' and `man,' when not referring to specific males, really
mean `he or she' and `men and/or women' ? Naturally, traditionalists say
yes, while liberals say no.
Traditionalists have persistently offered the existence of the
prescription itself as support for their argument. In 1976, Frank M.
complained to "Dear Abby:" "I'm tired of the ignorance of those who
insist that the word `man' applies only to males. My dictionary has
several definitions, of which the first two are: 1) human being, person
... 2) the human race. So why don't we stop all this asinine change
of words?" [Mar83, pp. 27-28] In 1971, the Harvard linguistics faculty
echoed this sentiment in the Harvard Crimson, stating that the use of
the masculine as unmarked "is simply a feature of grammar, [so] there is
really no cause for anxiety or pronoun-envy on the part of those seeking
such changes" [Mar80, p. 70]. Anthony Burgess, also spoke for many
traditionalists when he maintained that his usage of the generic
masculine is neutral and charges that "women force chauvinistic sex onto
the word" [Bla78, p. 140].
Spurred on by these complaints, feminists have spearheaded the liberal
cause, by actively seeking real answers to this question of semantics
based on extensive research and practical studies. Many recent studies
have investigated whether `he' is an adequate, consistently used,
clearly understood generic term. If the masculine pronoun is indeed
inadequate, one might expect the following experimental results:
1. Speakers and writers will often use alternative constructions
to denote the third person singular unmarked form for humans
and animals.
2. Listeners and readers will incorrectly interpret a generic use
of the pronoun as specifically male.
Indeed, these results were obtained in studies by DeStefane, Kuhner &
Pepinsky, 1978; Eberhart, 1976; Hamilton, 1985; Hamilton & Henley, 1986;
Harrison, 1975; Harrison & Passero, 1975; Hyde, 1984; Kidd, 1971;
MacKay, 1980b; MacKay & Fulkerson, 1979; Martyna, 1978; Moulton,
Robinson & Elias, 1978; Schneider & Hacker, 1973, Shimanoff, 1977;
Silveira, 1980; and Wilkinson, 1978 [Hen87, p. 6].
In her well known experiment in 1978, Martyna set out to discover
whether 40 Stanford students would consistently use the prescriptive
`he' to refer to antecedents of undetermined sex. Unaware of the
purpose of the experiment, the students were asked to complete 48
sentences, half written and half oral. The experimental sentence
fragments (those which were not fillers) contained antecedents that were
predominantly male related (engineer), female related (nurse) or neutral
(person). In the first two categories, the majority of responses
included `he' and `she' respectively, but in the third category,
alternatives such as `they,' `he or she' and repetition of the subject
were used. Martyna found that the use of these alternatives was
dependent on the student's sex, and whether the response was spoken or
written. Females, for example, were more likely to find a way around
using `he' in all three categories. Both males and females were more
likely to use alternatives in the written responses. In addition, the
most common written alternative used was `he or she' while the most
common spoken alternative was `they.' Surprisingly enough, the female
preference for alternative pronouns for sex indefinite antecedents was
not due to the students' attitudes toward the women's movement but
rather to the lack of visualization in response to subjects like
`people.' Only 10% of the females reported visualization in relation to
neutral subjects, while the among males the figure was 60%. All but one
of the males reported specifically male imagery. This lead Martyna to
conclude that when males use the generic `he,' they are thinking in
terms of the specific and are therefore less likely to substitute
alternatives [Mar78].
Alleen Pace Nilsen supports this conclusion, based on her work with
young children. She suggests that as children, boys and girls imagine
themselves, specifically male or female, in response to neutral
subjects. Boys, however, soon learn that they, as male, fit into a very
broad category encompassing everyone and everything that is not
explicitly female. Visualization in reference to anything not female,
especially when accompanied by the pronoun `he,' is therefore a natural
response. Girls, however, must somehow fit themselves into this
`he/man' category, a confusing concept which makes imagery less likely
by the time they reach college age [Mar78, p. 137].
The goal of a study conducted by Donald MacKay and David Fulkerson in
1979 was to determine whether the pronoun `he,' used generically, was
understood to include males and females, and the extent to which the
pronoun affected the interpretation of the antecedent. Ten men and ten
women attending UCLA listened to 32 tape-recorded sentences and were
asked to respond yes if the sentence could refer to one or more females,
and no if not. The 12 experimental sentences all included the generic
pronoun `he.' They differed in the nature of the antecedent:
predominantly male, female, or neutral. (i.e., "When a botanist is in
the field, he is usually working." "A nurse must frequently help his
patients get out of bed." "A bicyclist can bet that he is not safe from
dogs.") Twenty filler sentences were included which contained sex
specific pronouns. (i.e., "The old housekeeper cleaned her carpet before
sunrise.") If the students understood the `he' as modern traditionalists
would argue they should, the answer to the question "Could this
statement refer to females?" should have been yes in all 32 cases.
However, the error rate for the experimental sentences using the generic
`he' was 87%. 95% of the subjects made at least one error while 80% made
no correct responses at all. The error rate for filler sentences using
gender specific pronouns was only 2%. When questioned after the
experiment, the students demonstrated fairly accurate knowledge of the
male/female ratio in each of the referent classes mentioned. This ruled
out the possibility that students were excluding females to correspond
with real figures. It also demonstrated the power of the pronoun to
determine the nature of the antecedent, dominating the meaning of the
sentence. This study, as well as that of Martyna and numerous others
with similar findings suggest that "`he' deserves to live out its days
doing what it has always done best--referring to `he' and not `she'"
[Mar78, p. 138].
These studies have all been instrumental in demonstrating that the
pronoun `he' is not consistently used or understood as a generic, and
that when a generic is intended, more accurate alternatives are often
employed for the sake of clarity.
It is not surprising that these experiments exposed the inadequacy of
the masculine as generic, since it is nearly impossible for us to
imagine a sexless human being. Within our society, gender distinctions
are extremely important, and strongly influence the social ethos. The
importance of gender is seen in the extension of its influence to
animals, inanimate objects, and concepts.
After surveying children's literature in 1980, MacKay and Konishi
concluded in their paper "Personification and the Pronoun Problem," that
personified animals were usually referred to as `he' or as `she,' rather
than as it ; moreover, the gender of these animals was assigned to
conveniently correspond to sex role stereotypes: `he' animals were
typically chosen to represent types of animals that are larger,
stronger, and more active. Typically, the adjectives describing `he'
animals were strong, brave, wise, clever, mischievous, deceitful, angry,
furious, mighty, monstrous, wild, savage, while those assigned to `she'
animals were sweet, pretty, weak, passive, timid, foolish, poor.
Children are constantly exposed to male lions that are courageous,
powerful, and clever, in contrast to female mice that are meek,
helpless, and hysterical. [Mac80b, pp. 149-155]
According to Julia Stanley, these stereotypical characterizations of
male and female with regard to non-human antecedents are longstanding.
Murray, in his English Grammar (1795) states that
Figuratively, in the English tongue, we commonly give the
masculine gender to nouns which are conspicuous for the
attributes of imparting or communicating, and which are by
nature strong and efficacious. Those, again, are made feminine
which are conspicuous for the attributes of containing or
bringing forth, or which are peculiarly beautiful or amiable.
Upon these principles the sun is always masculine, and the moon,
because the receptacle of the sun's light, is feminine... Time
is always masculine, on account of its mighty efficacy...
[Sta78, p. 803]
Separate but equal, however, was not at all the intention, as other
examples illustrate that men were believed to be obviously superior. As
early as 1553, Wilson advocated referring to a man before a woman in a
sentence such as "my father and mother..." since, due to "natural
order," "the worthier is preferred and set before. As a man is sette
[sic] before a woman" [Bod75, p. 134]. A century later, in 1646, Poole
stated, "The Masculine gender is more worthy than the Feminine" [Sta78,
p. 803]. In his Theory of Language (1788) James Beattie explains that
God is referred to as `he' because "the male being, according to our
ideas, is the nobler sex" [Sta78, p. 804]. Goold Brown, in the _Grammar_
_of_English_Grammars_ (1851) unequivocally states that "Those terms
which are equally applicable to both sexes ... should be called
masculine in parsing..." not for simplicity or as a formality, as
traditionalists claim, but because "in all languages, the masculine
gender is considered the most worthy..." [Sta78, p. 804].
By 1746, the first definitive rule sanctioning exclusive use of the
generic pronoun `he' occurred in the grammar book of Kirby: "The
masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both
Male and Female..." [Bod75, p. 135]. Stanley argues that inclusion of
females was often seen as unnecessary, since women were not considered
full citizens. Denied access to education, women were often illiterate,
and unlikely to contribute to the advancement of the society, other than
by bearing children. It is therefore not surprising that grammarian
John Fell, in his _An_Essay_Towards_English_Grammar_ (1784) could write
such a sentence as "Many wise and learned men have made use of our
language in communicating their sentiments to the world, concerning all
the important branches of science and art" [Sta78, p. 801]. It is clear
from these examples that in many cases, the generic `he' was actually
intended as specific.
Many modern examples suggest that the terms `man,' `he,' etc. still
imply male superiority. Men are often treated as more healthy or
normal, more representative of humanness, more worthy of attention, and
therefore more likely to be spoken to or about [Sil80, p. 167]. This
level of attention becomes obvious to school children whose school books
treat men and boys as subjects far more often than they do women and
girls. In spite of the fact that the population of women in the real
world is greater than that of men, a sample of school books from 1975
identified seven times as many men as women and twice as many boys as
girls. The use of the male pronoun is equally telling. Out of 940
examples of `he,' only 32 were used as generic [Gra75, p. 58]. This
statistic supports the argument that children are exposed far more often
to the specific use of `he' than to the generic. Therefore, when `he'
is actually intended as a generic, amid a profusion of specific usages,
it is likely to be misunderstood as specific. Jeanette Silveira cites
an amusing example from the writings of Erich Fromm illustrating the
tendency to equate `man' with `male:' "... man can do several things
that the animal cannot do ... his vital interests are not only life,
food, access to females, etc..." [Sil80, p. 169]. In this case, the term
`man' obviously does not include women--unless, of course, Fromm was
referring to lesbians. Evidently, the generic masculine is an inadequate
way of expressing the concept of male and female at the same time.
Clearly, an alternative to the generic masculine is necessary. The most
common spoken alternative to generic `he' is the singular `they.'
However, traditionalists, grammar texts, educational institutions,
publishers, and most people's mothers still insist that the singular
`they' is grammatically incorrect. The acceptance of this alternative
has therefore become another battle in the generic `he' war. The
linguistic liberals argue that "someone left their sweater," should be
acceptable, for a number of reasons. One reason is that while `they'
disagrees with the antecedent in number, `he' disagrees in gender. Each
is incorrect by one count, yet `he' is at a further disadvantage as it
excludes the majority of the population [Bod75, p. 133]. A second reason
is that "despite almost two centuries of of vigorous attempts to analyze
and regulate it out of existence, singular `they' is alive and well"
[Bod75, p. 131]. A recent example of this widespread phenomenon was seen
in a membership invitation mailed from the Smithsonian Institution. It
stated, "If a friend wishes to become a member, please ask them to write
for information" [Kol86, p. 332] I recently overheard my younger sister
utter another (perhaps less elevated) example to one of her friends:
"Everyone says they like you." I realized that if she had said "everyone
says he likes you," I would have assumed that a group of people was
commenting about an admiring male. Other examples heard in the everyday
conversation of native speakers holding bachelors, masters, and doctoral
degrees include "Not one single child raised their hand," and "An
archeologist can copy only what they see." Just listening to people
speak is enough to convince most people that singular `they' is
extremely common.
According to Bodine, this "incorrect" use of `they' is not a modern
invention. She claims that, prior to the late 18th century, it was
widely used in both written and spoken English without opposition. She
refers to many examples cited by Poutsma, McKnight, and Visser; the
authors they cited include Austen, Thackeray, Mill, Scott, Dickens, and
Trollope. It was not until 1795 that L. Murray, a prescriptive
grammarian, condemned the use of the singular `they.' His Rule V reads:
"Pronouns must always agree with their antecedents in gender, number,
and person..." As a violation of this rule he cites the sentence: "Can
anyone, on their entrance into the world, be fully secure that they
shall not be deceived?" Following Murray's proscription of the singular
`they,' there was a "virtual explosion of condemnation of this usage"
[Bod75, p. 136]. Some grammarians dedicated several pages to this
problem.
In 1850, the issue seemed to be so important that the British Parliament
decreed that "in all acts words importing the masculine gender shall be
deemed and taken to include females..." [Bod75, p. 136]. Although
lawmakers insist that this language creates no injustice, Marguerite
Ritchie's survey of several hundred years of Canadian legal history
suggests that the Federal Interpretation Act (the Canadian version of
the British law cited above) has failed to prevent judges to exclude
women according to the social climate or their own biases. Questions of
exclusion have also arisen in United States courts with reference to
such issues as a scholarship fund set up for "worthy and ambitious young
men," and the legal notion of "a reasonable man" [Mar83, p. 32].
In spite of these grammatical rules and acts of parliament, convincing
people to stop using singular `they' has not been an easy task. In
1880, an American prescriptive grammarian, R. G. White, complained that
"their is very commonly misused with reference to a singular noun. Even
John Ruskin has written such a sentence as this: `But if a customer
wishes you to injure their foot or to disfigure it, you are to refuse
their pleasure' " [Bod75, p. 136]. White admits that there is no truly
appropriate pronoun to denote `he or she' but nonetheless insists that
"`his' is the representative pronoun, as mankind includes both men and
women." White further emphasizes the social bias when he reminds us that
the "man is the larger, the stronger, the more individually
important..." [Bod75, p. 137].
Although `they' has long been used as an alternative to the generic
masculine, it is only one of many suggestions. MacKay points out that
additional alternatives are necessary as the singular `they' cannot
simply be substituted for `he' in all instances. For example, the
sentence "If a scholar has no faith in their principles, how can they
succeed," is unclear [Mac80a, p. 355]. It is for this reason that many
professional organizations, publishers and journals have developed
guidelines which emphasize the flexibility of the language rather than
any one solution to the problem [Ric82, p. 263]. Many scholars have
suggested and used neologisms--among the numerous suggestions are shim,
thon, E, and tey. For many, a neologism is the only acceptable answer to
the pronoun problem. Realizing the difficulties involved in development
and implementation, however, these scholars usually advocate the use of
the many available alternatives in the interim [Mac83, p. 365].
As we have seen, even longstanding alternatives to sexist language are
met with considerable scorn. Yet this consistent and intense opposition
has not diminished the determination of those who support nonsexist
language, but has encouraged them to do further research and conduct
additional studies to prove their case. In doing so they have developed
several well supported arguments which seem far more convincing than the
Strident complaints of traditionalists.
References
[Bau78] Baugh, Albert C. & Thomans Cable. A History of the English
Language. Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey, third edition, 1978.
[Bla78] Blaubergs, Maija S. Changing the sexist language: The theory
behind the practice. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2:244-261, 1978.
[Bod75] Bodine, Ann. Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar: Singular
`they', sex-indefinite `he', and `he or she'. Language in Society,
4:129-146, 1975.
[Gra75] Graham, Alma. The making of a nonsexist dictionary. In et. al.
Barrie Thorne, editor, Language and Sex: Difference and
Dominance, pages 57-63. Newbury House Publishers, Inc., Rowley,
Massachusetts, 1975.
[Hen87] Henley, Nancy M. This new species that seeks a new language: On
sexism in language and language change. In Joyce Penfield, editor,
Women and Language in Transition, pages 3-23. New York State
University Press, New York, 1987.
[Kol86] Kolln, Martha. Solutions to the great he/she problem. In et. al.
Paul Eschholz, editor, Language Awareness, pages 332-334. St.
Martin's Press, New York, 1986.
[Lak73] Lakoff, Robin. Language and woman's place. Language in Society,
2:45-80, 1973.
[Mac79] MacKay, Donald G. & David C. Fulkerson. On the comprehension
and production of pronouns. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior, 18:661-673, 1979.
[Mac80a] MacKay, Donald G. On the goals, principles and procedures for
prescriptive grammar: Singular `they'. Language Society, 9(3):349-
367, December 1980.
[Mac80b] MacKay, Donald G. & Toshi Konishi. Personification and the
pronoun problem. Women's Studies International Quarterly,
3:149-163, 1980.
[Mac83] MacKay, Donald G. Prescriptive grammar and the pronoun
problem. In et. al. Barrie Thorne, editor, Language, Gender and
Society, pages 38-53. Newbury House Publishers, Inc., Rowley,
Massachusetts, 1983.
[Mar78] Martyna, Wendy. What does `he' mean?: Use of the generic
masculine. Journal of Communication, 28(1):131-138, Winter
1978.
[Mar80] Martyna, Wendy. The psychology of the generic masculine. In
et. al. Sally McConnell-Ginet, editor, Women and Language in
Literature and Society, pages 69-77. Praeger, New York, 1980.
[Mar83] Martyna, Wendy. Beyond the he/man approach: The case for
nonsesixt language. In et. al. Barrie Thorne, editor, Language,
Gender and Society, pages 22-35. Newbury House Publishers, Inc.,
Rowley, Massachusetts, 1983.
[Nil87] Nilsen, Alleen Pace. Guidelines against sexist language: A case
history. In Joyce Penfield, editor, Women and Language in
Transition, pages 37-45. State University of New York Press, New
York, 1987.
[Ran84] Randall, Phyllis R. The history of `they' as generic. Women and
Language, 8(2):52, Winter 1984.
[Ric82] Richmond, Virginia P. and Paula Dyba. The roots of sexual
stereotyping: The teacher as model. Communication Education,
31:263, October 1982.
[Sil80] Silveira, Jeanette. Generic masculine words and thinking.
Women's Studies International Quarterly, 3(2):165-178, 1980.
[Smi78] Smith, Dorothy E. A peculiar eclipsing: Women's exclusion from
man's culture. Women's Studies International Quarterly, 1:281-
295, 1978.
[Smi85] Smith, Philip M. Language, the Sexes and Society. Basil Blackwell
Inc., New York, 1985.
[Sta78] Stanley, Julia P. Sexist grammar. College English, 39(7):800-811,
March 1978.
[Web86] Webb, Lynne. Eliminating sexist language in the classroom.
Women's Studies in Communication, 9:21-29, Spring 1986.
-- Greg McGary
-- 10310 Main Street #354, Fairfax, Virginia 22030 voice: (703) 266-7249
-- {decvax,hplabs,seismo,mcnc}!duke!gm data: (703) 266-7258
-- gm@cs.duke.edurandolph@Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) (06/07/89)
Greg - Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting your wife's paper! It's very good to have a summary of references and a history of the emergence of the modern pronouns. I was fascinated -- I had no idea how recent the complete removal of the neuter pronouns was. These ideas of gender are ancient, yet apparently (if one can reliably extrapolate the linguistic evidence) only emerged into widespread use relatively recently. I speculate this emerged as part of the widespread sexualization of temperament, where it came to be believed that there was a "masculine" and a "feminine" personality. This opens up another question . . . I speculate that medieval Anglo-Saxons conceptualized masculine and feminine differently from us. I wonder what their ideas were? Anyone know? ++Randolph Fritz sun!randolph || randolph@sun.com "The problem is *not* to resist falling in love. The problem is to fall in love and be the wiser thereby . . ." -- Mary Catherine Bateson, "Daddy, Can a Scientist Be Wise?"
lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.EDU (Greg Lee) (06/17/89)
From article <14647@duke.cs.duke.edu>, by gm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Greg McGary): " What follows is a paper my wife wrote in the fall of '88 for her " Women's Studies class at Duke U. In *my unbiased opinion* 8-), it is a " very interesting and well written paper (her professor thought so as " well!) It's a very good paper. I have a couple of minor reservations ... One might get the impression from all the references to grammar and grammarians that there is some principle or theory of grammar that somehow bears on this issue between the "liberals" and "conservatives". But there isn't. From a linguist's perspective, aside from the facts of usage themselves, it's just prejudice battling prejudice. I don't think it's a very good idea to refer to `they' ever as a singular pronoun, since when it is subject, its verb would never display singular agreement. Similarly, I can't think of a good reason to characterize `he' in any use as a generic rather than a masculine pronoun, once we have noticed that pronouns do not always agree in gender and number with their antecedents or referents. (But since English verbs do not display grammatical agreement in gender, it's harder to say than it is in the case of number.) Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
bevans@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Mathemagician) (06/19/89)
In article <18083@paris.ics.uci.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.EDU writes: >From article <14647@duke.cs.duke.edu>, by gm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Greg McGary): >" What follows is a paper my wife wrote in the fall of '88 for her >" Women's Studies class at Duke U. In *my unbiased opinion* 8-), it is a >" very interesting and well written paper (her professor thought so as >" well!) > >It's a very good paper. I have a couple of minor reservations ... I agree with you on both accounts. First one is a quibble: The moon, as far as I know, was considered feminine long before there was any stereotype added to it for "reflecting the light of the stronger sun." That is, the moon was thought to shine with its own light. In at least one culture (Ancient Grecian, specifically), the moon was ruled by a goddess. This seems to me more of a reason for the feminization of the moon. We can get into bits that the stereotype of "weaker = feminine," but Artemis was hardly considered a "weak" woman (she killed a man who dared to look at her nude body.) I won't mention the phrase, "The Man in the Moon." Another is sort of a quibble. I got the impression that her paper was on sexism in the language. Yet, I also got the impression, from all of the examples she gave, that it was PEOPLE who were sexist and not the language. That is, given the grammarians defining of the language, and it's kinda strict concerning the use of the word "he," there really shouldn't be any problems using "he" to mean a generic person since context tells you the meaning. I will not deny that people often take this to mean a male gender (even though they may consciously know that it is gender inspecific, they attribute a gender to the person when visualizing him), but I will say that I think this points to a "problem" with the people, not the language. And it is just this problem that requires a change in the language. That is, peole are a bit confused by the use of "he" in a generic sense. The language, in and of itself, isn't sexist. It is the people who are using it in a sexist manner. >I don't think it's a very good idea to refer to `they' ever as a >singular pronoun, since when it is subject, its verb would never display >singular agreement. We have this situation right now with the pronoun "you" and we do rather nicely with it. Granted, many people qualify the plural "you" to "you all." However, I think most people would understand a singular "they" from context. In fact, it is only the third person, singular pronouns that take a separate form of the verb in the present indicative (with some exceptions like "to be"). Brian Evans |"Momma told me to never kiss a girl on the first bevans at tesla.unm.edu | date...But that's OK...I don't kiss girls."