From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhtsa!alice!npoiv!houxm!5941ux!machaids!hocda!spanky!ka
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: Genderless pronouns and non-sexist writing
Article-I.D.: spanky.282
Posted: Fri Apr 22 11:51:23 1983
Received: Mon Apr 25 06:11:58 1983
References: <1374@yale-com.UUCP>

I have to disagree with Rob's conclusion that because "language reflects,
amoung other things, the cultural and social mores of the society which
uses it," the language must be changed to reduce sexism.  Experts generally
agree that language is indeed a reflection of the society and *not* the
other way around.

Does the  word "repairman" really suggest a male because the sylable "man"
appears in the it?  It seems silly to suppose that people refuse to use the
word "repairman" to refer to a female, or that if a word is used to refer
to females as frequently as males the word could retain a masculine con-
notation is spite of common usage.  And as for the suggestion made in one
article to use the non-word "repairer" instead of the word "repairman," my
understanding is that "er" ending is masculine as in waiter/waitress.

The above polemic is directed against mass butchery of the language, not
against making any changes to the language to reduce sexism.  The addition
of a genderless pronoun to English does seem like a reasonable idea.  First,
the lack of such a pronoun is truly awkward.  Secondly, it involves adding
only two words to the language so I don't have to start ripping pages out
of my dictionary en mass.  Let's agree on a genderless pronoun and its pos-
sessive form so people who want to can start using it in their submissions
to the net.  Or, given the anarchic nature of the net, people can just start
using their favorite genderless pronoun with a note indicating what it means.
				Kenneth Almquist