> Don't we have more serious problems than discussing various aspects
> of political correctness?
A zippy buzzword there. Maybe *you'd* like to be referred to with a
wrong-gender pronoun?
> This is grammatically correct. If there is one subscriber and the gender of
> that subscriber is not known, then "he," "she," or "he/she" are all correct
> options.
It is not *socially accepted* anymore. There is no reason to assume
an unseen person is male.
> As Miroslaw noted, let's hope that we really do have better things to
> discuss than this ...
It's an error in the Listserv software. It's germane.
> Aren't there complaints about presuming that the poor clueless newby
> is female?
...which is also a bad idea.
>>> Unfortunately, replacing "his" with "his/her" is a simple, but incomplete
>>> solution because it doesn't take reflectors, gateways, or group/role
>>> accounts (helpdesk, postmaster, root) into account.
>
> Er, the only suggestion I can offer here is the only one that I use for
> myself personally, when confronted with a gender-specific pronoun used in
> an impersonal sense.
>
> I just don't wrap so much of my self image up in what someone else
> impersonally used as a pronoun when writing a manual. And I save my anger
> for those who MEANT to insult me.
By that logic, no writing other than personal correspondence would
ever be subject to change or evolution, because everything else you
read wasn't *meant* to insult you. Assuming the reader is male is a
dangerous practice. (Or female.) There are rather limited
exceptions-- pregnancy, prostate cancer, that sort of thing.
> That is generally the case outside north America. I think this
> he/she issue is
> totally incomprehensible if English is not your native language.
Dubious. It can be easily explained.
> Most other
> languages have thousands of words affected by he/she issues, many don't
> even have a neutral gender to begin with, and you just say "he" when you
> don't know, or "she" if there is cause to believe that it is probably a she.
We are not discussing other languages.
> Imagine adding a whole new gender and declensions and everything
> to a language just for the case when you don't know a person's gender! Only a
> cross between a certified masochist and an utopic-anarchist would
> ever propose
> that!
Oh, stop. Gender in language is more complicated even than that. Try
learning a language with masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns (e.g.,
Russian), or a language with 14 noun classes (e.g., Swahili). English
is a piece o' cake on this count.
> So when we see Americans spend so much time arguing over the one word
> in their language that is not gender neutral, we get thoroughly
> confused, especially
> since the Brits and Aussies don't seem to do that, at least not to
> the same extent.
> We just don't think that he vs she is an issue at all in the war
> against sexism,
They speak the same language. "He" as a universal is just as wrong in
Australia, Britain, Canada, the Ivory Coast, or Antarctica.
> I was at a big gathering and saw a group of embroiderers, all women, sit
> down and start talking. One of them said "Hey, guys", and they all
> responded. If that doesn't mean that gender emphasis in language is dying,
> then I don't know what does.
No, this only proves that people still buy the idea that male=human.
What if the group were entirely male and the speaker said "Hey,
girls!" Would that show "that gender emphasis in language is dying"?
No. You'd be able to hear a pin drop.
"Guys" means males. Using it to address heterogeneous groups is a bit
rude. It's ridiculous when used to address an all-female group.
Look, you can't get around a basic fact: Assuming unseen readers are
male is wrong. There are many pleasant gender-neutral alternatives.
And BTW, these issues have been extensively tested by linguists and
sociologists. It's not hypothetical.
--
Joe Clark
[log in to unmask]
<http://www.interlog.com/~joeclark>
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