Re: [DEB-USER] /he/ vs. /they/ (was Re: At peace with Debian)
On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 10:05:00PM -0700, Eric G. Miller wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 10:58:20PM -0500, Gary Turner wrote:
> > On Sun, 14 Jul 2002 19:01:30 -0700, Eric G. Miller wrote:
> >
> > >On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 05:24:39PM -0700, David Wright wrote:
> >
> > >> Guess what: no matter how much you agonized over it when you were young
> > >> first discovered feminism, you can't eliminate the "generic masculine"
> > >> construction in English without distracting your reader or being wrong.
> > >
> > >BTW, I never "agonized" over the matter and I knew about feminism well
> > >before I ever started thinking about non-sexist writing. So, you can
> > >leave your condescending tone at the door.
> >
> > I fail to see any sign of condescension there.
>
> Perhaps I read something that wasn't there; such is the nature of
> language. But, connect "agonized" + "young" + "feminism" = "wrong" and
> you might see some condescension. Add to it the presumption about how I
> might have come to think eliminating "he" as a generic pronoun is a good
> thing, and that the preceding message cited a reference supporting the
> use of "they" as singular, and you might see how I read it as
> condescending.
The truly amazing thing is that anyone would bother to attempt the
"de-sexing" of the language in the first place. Seems an example of
people trying to find something to be upset about, so they can hang an
"aggrieved" sign on themselves, and make another attempt at social
engineering.
The random use of he or she in writing should offend no one. And in
fact, I imagine if you take a survey of people (where the questions
don't provoke a programmed response), you'll find that most people
couldn't care less. Most people have far more important things to be
concerned about. They don't blow issues like this out of proportion to
the magnitude they actually occupy. And those who worry about this type
of thing have far too little to be concerned about.
Paul
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: