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From: pedersen@cartan.berkeley.edu (Sharon L. Pedersen)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Language formality
Message-ID: <1990Oct23.010201.21033@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 90 15:55:44 GMT
References: <1990Oct11.121502.353@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 27
Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <1990Oct11.121502.353@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> Dave Rodger <B39Y@vax5.cornell.cit.edu> writes:

[Commenting on a need for terms for males/females that are "formality
equivalent":]

> [...] the solution is
>(easier said that done) to come up with three words that could be
>universally accepted and start using them.  They would map to the
>informal male ('guy'), the informal female ('gal') and the informal
>group ('guys'.)  They should each be one syllable, and should be
>similar-sounding (I think.)

Fine, but as long as we're improving the language, let's not pretend
that male plurals ("guys") are the same as group words.  Your proposal
as given would have us using "man", "woman" and "men" as the formal
equivalents, and do I need to spell out that that's ridiculous?

Something like informal female ("gal"), informal male ("guy"), and
informal group (--> "FOLKS" <--) is what's wanted.

I second the observation that people's gender often doesn't need to be
specified.  Having noted with approval all the places that have
shifted to saying "Men and Women", I now usually wonder, "Why don't
they just say 'People'?"

--Sharon Pedersen
  pedersen@cartan.berkeley.edu   OR   ucbvax!cartan!pedersen