|
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 346 responses total. |
zook
|
|
response 125 of 346:
| 
Apr 1 03:42 UTC 1995 |
A couple of pet peeves: incorrect matching of pronouns to function:
He and I went to the store. The man listed the directions for him and me
(not for he and I!!!)
The other is incorrect usage of gender. When the gender is unknown or
"generic", the pronoun to use is the masculine (or alternatively, use a
masculine/feminine if one is concerned about being p.c.) For example,
the Congress is considering legislation to force every American to say
HIS Pledge of Allegiance before beginning school. (Not its, NOT their. For
the p.c.-minded "his/her" would be the correct usage). I positively hate
when people substitute "their" for "his", "them" for "him", etc in this
sort of situation!
|
scg
|
|
response 126 of 346:
|
Apr 1 04:47 UTC 1995 |
I'm one of those who is guilty of using they as a sex neutral singular
pronoun, and I will defend its use. while it may not be technicall y
proper, English does not come with a "correct" way of saying what people
often use "they" to say, other than the very awkward his/her. As long as
people know what's meant by it, what's the problem?
|
srw
|
|
response 127 of 346:
|
Apr 1 05:01 UTC 1995 |
English, like many languages comes with some baggage left from a time
when things were different. We have to do some surgery to the language
to remove that. The only thing wrong with what you propose, Steve,
is that it is bad grammar. Language usage changes (very slowly)
over time, and maybe one day English will have a grammatical way to
say things which is symmetrical in gender. Today's language does not.
Zook is right. The masculine form serves as a masculine and neuter form
in English. The feminine form cannot be used for neuter. The plural form
is a cop-out when used for a singular noun.A
I remember reading years ago of an attempt to invent neuter pronouns
for English. What was proposed was "tey" for he or she, "ter" for his or her,
and "ters" for his or hers. Of course this concept went nowhere, but
was it a bad idea? or was it just a bad choice of words?
|
popcorn
|
|
response 128 of 346:
|
Apr 1 05:22 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
|
nephi
|
|
response 129 of 346:
|
Apr 1 05:57 UTC 1995 |
(Or had an old English teacher that *insisted* that one
use the masculine.)
|
aruba
|
|
response 130 of 346:
|
Apr 1 06:02 UTC 1995 |
Yeah, I agree with steve, and I think steve is wrong.
|
nephi
|
|
response 131 of 346:
|
Apr 1 06:23 UTC 1995 |
(Oops.)
|
rcurl
|
|
response 132 of 346:
|
Apr 1 07:15 UTC 1995 |
"say things which is symmetrical in gender" should have been
say things that are symmetrical in gender
(Your pedantic grammar police....)
|
srw
|
|
response 133 of 346:
|
Apr 1 07:34 UTC 1995 |
See, Valerie? You can't escape the grammar police.
Seriously, I understand that you don't like being lumped, but it is
the language you speak.
You are entitled to disagree, but I have great disdain for engineered
changes to English to eradicate masculine forms used as neuter ones.
I think chairman and mailman are neuter terms. I am distressed by forms
like chairperson and mailperson. Mankind is a term that includes women,
not excludes. I think you are fighting the wrong enemy. I think you
should be fighting the prejudice that is out there rather than the
terminology that *seems* to be prejudiced. It really isn't. It's just
English's baggage.
I doubt many women will agree with me, but I've had my say, for
better or worse.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 134 of 346:
|
Apr 1 08:00 UTC 1995 |
Contrary to Steve's opinion, I don't have any problem with replacing a
word that comes to offend a significant subset of people with an
acceptable one that is also an equally valid English word. The word
"chair" is as good as "chairman"; "humankind" is as good as "mankind";
"mail carrier" is the same as "mailman".
None of these alternatives are "engineered". If a significant number of
people are offended by one usage, I have no problem with adopting the less
objectionable, but perfectly good English, equivalent. This type of change
has happened to a lot of words that were not inherently prejudicial, but
that were not preferred. A well known example is the shift from negro to
black.
|
gregc
|
|
response 135 of 346:
|
Apr 1 08:19 UTC 1995 |
I agree with Steve Weiss on this one. I think this fight against words
like mailman, mankind, chairman,etc,etc, is a waste of energy. There
are much better things to use ones energy on that will help the "cause"
rather than attempting to force language into a pattern that you
*think* it should be. Language is a very fickle thing, it changes by
itself and ussually resists engineered changes.
I've heard all the arguments about these words being subtle support
for a patriarchal society by reinforcing the concepts through the
language. I just don't buy it. I think those arguments confuse cause
and effect.
As far as I'm concerned chairman is *a* word, not two. It stands for
a single concept. Even the word "woman" contains the 3 letters m-a-n.
Although, I've even seen some of the more extremists groups calling
themselves "womyn".
The wrong battle is being fought here. They are fighting a symptom,
instead of attempting to find and fight the *cause*. I feel the same
about all forms of PC speech. It's the wrong fight. You don't fight
a leaky roof by buying more buckets to put in the rooms.
|
otterwmn
|
|
response 136 of 346:
|
Apr 1 09:31 UTC 1995 |
Hear! Hear!
|
rogue
|
|
response 137 of 346:
|
Apr 1 16:12 UTC 1995 |
#128: What should the French do? They use the plural of "il" when
referring to a group of males and females (humans, not
grasshoppers).
The French must be a bunch of sexist pigs.
#135: I think we should change the word "woman" to "woperson". We
don't want the three letters M-A-N or M-E-N to show up anywhere
in reference to females. "Women" should be changed to
"wopersons" or "wopeople".
While we're at that, "female" should be changed to "feperson".
If a feperson is killed a certain way, we should call it
"personslaughter" instead of "manslaughter" because "manslaughter"
is clearly a sexist word used by rich, white males to oppress
fepeople, homosexuals, and under-represented minorities.
Can we say, "Get a life"?
|
zook
|
|
response 138 of 346:
|
Apr 1 18:22 UTC 1995 |
Actually, rogue, French (and many other languages) have an entirely
different concept of gender. I know your response was in the spirit of
4/1, but I thought I would point out that to a frenchman (!) objects that
we as english-speakers (!) would consider inanimate/neuter have a specific
gender. I will give the examples in Spanish, since I know that better.
La mesa (feminine, = "table")
La cerveza (feminine, = "beer")
El cuarto (male, = "room")
El vino (male, = "wine")
And so on.
Does this mean all of these languages are inherently sexist? If so, English
pales in comparison.
|
popcorn
|
|
response 139 of 346:
|
Apr 1 19:34 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 140 of 346:
|
Apr 2 06:33 UTC 1995 |
The statements "Language is a very fickle thing, it changes by itself",
and "languages change on their own", are both incorrect statements.
Languages are not sentient - they are used by people. People change
languages. The changes come from how people use the language. Use the
language differently, and the language will change over time (or it won't,
depending on whether people adopt the changes or not). So, everyone, if
you want the language to change in the direction you wish, *keep using the
language that way*. It may not change, but it won't change if you don't!
(And, don't worry about the ridicule from the know-nothings.. ;->)
|
popcorn
|
|
response 141 of 346:
|
Apr 6 14:50 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
|
bjt
|
|
response 142 of 346:
|
Apr 6 15:13 UTC 1995 |
It bugs me when people say "I should of" (or would of, etc.) when
they mean "should've" which means "should have".
|
rcurl
|
|
response 143 of 346:
|
Apr 6 16:08 UTC 1995 |
Re #141. To jibe does also mean to agree. It is also spelled gibe. Jive
does *not* mean to agree, so you are properly bugged. However, "data"
is plural, so the "data don't jibe".
|
gregc
|
|
response 144 of 346:
|
Apr 7 05:57 UTC 1995 |
"the data" is singular. It refers to *a* quantum of information treated
as a whole.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 145 of 346:
|
Apr 7 07:01 UTC 1995 |
Thats a "datum". The data in #141 can only not jibe *among themselves*;
there is not other referent.
|
aruba
|
|
response 146 of 346:
|
Apr 7 07:44 UTC 1995 |
My dictionary (published in the 70s sometime) describes "data" as "plural but
singular or plural in in construction" and gives examples: <the data is
plentiful and easily available> and <comprehensive data on economic growth
have been published>.
|
gregc
|
|
response 147 of 346:
|
Apr 7 09:28 UTC 1995 |
I disagree Rane. A "datum" is a single point of information. "data" can
be plural in the context of referring to many datums, but "the data" is
singular in referring to a single set of related datums as a whole.
|
peacefrg
|
|
response 148 of 346:
|
Apr 7 13:39 UTC 1995 |
Speaking of grammer fhas anybody read shaman's plan in
Item #66. Supposedly he's an English teacher too. :)
|
zook
|
|
response 149 of 346:
|
Apr 7 18:13 UTC 1995 |
I think both Rane and GregC are correct. Datum is singular and data is plural.
However, with certain "class" words, you can refer to a group as a single
entity. For example, the media ARE giving President Clinton a hard time.
(All types of media are involved - radio, tv, etc). But, the media claims
the right of freedom of expression. (The information-bearing services, as a
whole, all claim this right).
|
