From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!utah-cs!sask!firby
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Sexism and our poor English
Article-I.D.: sask.236
Posted: Fri Apr 29 20:48:41 1983
Received: Mon May  2 01:57:32 1983


    Once more this man/person thing rears its ugly head!  Aren't we all 
just more than a little tired of it?  Chairperson, spokesperson, personhole
cover...the absurdity accumulates.  The best example I can think of happened
recently here on campus, where there is an official ombudsman.  Needless to
say, the Women's Directorate was up in arms about that, and petitioned (not
to mention browbeat) the student's council to have the offending word changed
in official council literature to read (are you ready?) "ombudsperson".
Foolishly enough, the change was made, and lasted a full year before anyone
was bright enough to consult a dictionary and find that ombudsman comes from
a Scandinavian root, and the "man" ending has nothing to do with gender 
whatever.  Makes one think, doesn't it.

   As for pronouns, I believe it was Ursula LeGuin who wrote one entire 
story using "per" for all the pronouns.  It remains "per" in every case but
the possessive, when it becomes "pers", of course.

                                         yours manfully,

                                            joanne