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Re: rewording to avoid sexist language on debian page



Selon Helen Faulkner <helen_ml_faulkner@yahoo.co.uk>:

>
> Could you please reword the sentence on the following webpage, to remove
> the implication that a debian user will always be male.
>
> http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals
>
> It's in the section titled Debian Tutorial.
>
> "    This manual is for a new Linux user, to help such a user get
> acquainted with Linux once he has installed it, or for a new Linux user
> on a system which someone else is administering. "
>

As to avoid any problem in the choice between "he or she" or "she or he", I
suggest rewording any occurence of "he" or "she" by "it" in the whole
documentation. It will also include without discrimination the robots and other
androids in the chain.

    Francois, speaking for Marvin.

PS: on a more serious tone, I'm not sure a rewording is the best idea, and could
lead to the opposite of the effect wanted. Perhaps I do not understand fully the
current wording implications as I'm not a native english speaker. If the current
wording is really strongly sexist, then discard this message. Was there a
discussion on debian-women@l.d.o about this?

--
Francois BOTTIN
--
    "How kind," the PFY sighs. "But where will I go?"
    "Somewhere where they know nothing about computing...
where they wouldn't know a RAM chip from a potato chip!"
    "But I don't want to visit Microsoft!" he whines.
              The BOFH 1998 - Simon Travaglia (bofh.ntk.net)



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