Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!aero-c!nadel
From: schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu (Sam "Lord Byron" Choi)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: womyn...
Message-ID: <9103141217.aa27952@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 91 20:17:32 GMT
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In response to a number of post about my explanation of the use
of "womyn"...

I suppose this response just as typical as any:

>>If you don't buy this form of argument think about the example above.
    >>Yeats is a poet.  Is Stein a poet?  Poetess?  A woman poet?

>And using the "womyn" scenario, Yeats is a poet.  Stein is a womyn poet.
>I just don't understand how it helps here.  Please elaborate.

Well to tell you the truth, I don't really know.  For those of you who
want me to post the definitive word on the reason for this change, I
can't do it.

The points that I brought up in my post were more just points about
stuff related to the topic that might help someone unfamilar with
what's going on get a better grasp of it.  I certainly did not mean to
present it as a tight valid argument.  Think of it more as an inductive
approach.

About the point that the changing the spelling of a word does not
formally detach it from its entomological ancestry . . . I know this,
hell, I'm a language major.  My point is that when you see "womyn"
(as opposed to looking it up in the OED) you see right off that it's
different from the word "man."

Exactly what this change will do, I don't know.  Give it a few
generations, if it catches on maybe it will do something.  Maybe
it won't.  At any rate I think it's a worthy attempt, (although I must
confess that I haven't used it in any formal writing of my own).

Sam Choi
schoi@teri.bio.uci.edu
(boy disclaimers are boring)