From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!trb
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Title: syntactic sugar
Article-I.D.: floyd.1477
Posted: Wed Apr 27 23:14:56 1983
Received: Thu Apr 28 05:09:13 1983
References: whuxlb.1085


I was going to ignore his article, but I was a little too riled by it
(George Entenman - unc!ge in net.nlang and net.women) to let it slide.
Fasten your shoulder harnesses, netnews isn't pretty, at least not this
bit.  I'm a little irritable lately, please bear with me and be a
little extra tolerant of my style...

I have nothing against George stating his points, I am against him
lashing out at me and I'm against him paraphrasing me if he doesn't
take the care to preserve my intent.  For example, from his article:

	Let me take as a small example my co-recreational volleyball
	team.  When we first began playing together three years ago,
	our coach referred to the female players as "girls."  They
	protested that they wanted to be called "women."  It doesn't
	matter if they are too young to be called "women." It doesn't
	matter if the A.T.'s in the world call such niceties "syntactic
	sugar."  What matters is what those women wish to be called.

If he meant "idiots," then why did he say "A.T.'s in the world?"
I won't even bother asking what "co-recreational" means.  I never
called such niceties "syntactic sugar."  I said:

	Another thought - language reform is just a lot of syntactic
	sugar.  It doesn't change people's attitudes.  You might be
	able to change the way I express myself, but to change the way
	I think is a whole nother matter.  In fact, if you did force me
	to conform to your ridiculous standards, I'd be more hateful of
	your ideals, not less.

The "syntactic sugar" business was part of a greater entity.  I
had a particular instance of language reform in mind, that was, using
language reform in counterpoint with attitude reform.  The
juxtaposition was important, and George didn't carry it into his
paraphrase.  He just abused my phrase to support his own point, while
poking at me.

There was a time in the recent past when people used racial slurs as
part of common English speech.  Until recently, when something looked
fishy, someone would say "There's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere."
I've heard ignorant people say (to my face)  "I was Jewed out of my
money" when they felt that they'd been had.  When we played handball in
New York City, we'd call a ball that hit a crack and took a bad bounce
a "Hindu."  Most people who use these expressions have no real
impressions of real Blacks, Jews or Hindus.  They come from ignorance
rather than hatred.  And the solution is not simply to threaten or
cajole them until they stop using the expressions, but rather to talk
sense about what's going on when they use the offensive expressions.

The main difference between my sentiment, which was primarily about
gratuitous nitpicking, and George's inaccurate paraphrase was that I was
talking about a situation where there was no easy and acceptable answer
(what are you going to use instead of he?) where George was talking
about a situation where there was an easy answer (what are you going to
use instead of Nigger?)

<<<<<
Sidelight-  I call Blacks Black, that's accepted.  At one time it was
considered derogatory to call Blacks Black.  There's no logical reason
that "Black" is acceptable.  It certainly isn't acceptable to call
Asians Yellow, or to call American Indians Redskins.  Btw, I don't like
the term Native Americans for American Indians, I'm a native American
(born in NYC).  I realize that American Indians isn't right either.
>>>>>

I don't like it when some stranger goes around using my name in phrases
like "it doesn't matter if the A.T.'s in the world..." because it's
demeaning.  Go ahead and attack my point of view, fine.  Just don't
be nasty to me personally.

George's final piece de resistance is this:

	Debray claims to "...have some feeling for the English
	language."  ALL that he has a (conscious) feeling for is
	syntax.  People who truely understand their language know more
	than syntax and good style.  They also understand such things
	as its tones, its dialects and its political uses.

Who is George to talking about what Debray truly understands?  What I
inferred from the above paragraph is that George figures that Debray is
foreign and probably doesn't have enough experience to know.  Some
nerve.

Oh, George had a P.S.-

	P.S. My coach now says "women" when referring to all of the
	women on the team, but he uses "girl" when saying such things
	as "We need a girl to set the ball."  No one complains.

The intention of this paragraph eluded me.

I understand that this note may be construed as being nasty to unc!ge.
I tried my best to address his points, and I realize that the odds are
that he isn't really a bad person.  Writing honest incisive netnews
isn't easy, specially when I have bugs up my ass.

	Andy Tannenbaum   Bell Labs  Whippany, NJ   (201) 386-6491