From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!leichter
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: "man" and non-sexist writing
Article-I.D.: yale-com.1402
Posted: Sun Apr 24 11:59:42 1983
Received: Mon Apr 25 22:19:38 1983
References: flairvax.116

In reply to Michael Ellis:

1.  In your list of the use of "man" in other languages, you miss the most
obvious use of the word in German "man", with a LOWER case "m", as contrasted
to "Man" with an upper case "m", is and indefinate pronoun meaning "one, they,
people, men" (Cassel's New Compact German Dictionary; it is unclear whether
"men" is to be taken as sex-free in this context, although I believe it is;
other German-English dictionaries don't include it as a synonym.)  I am not
in a position to comment on the use of the word in the other languages you list.

2.  If you are going to start quoting the OED, and choosing individual sentences
I will do the same.  The PRIMARY definition of "man" begins as follows:

	I 1.  A human being (irrespective of age and sex); = L. homo.  In OE,
		the prevailing sense.
		a.  In many OE instances, and in a few of later date, used
			explicitly as a designation equally applicable to
			either sex.  Obs.
		In OE, the words distinctive of sex were wer and wif, wepman
		and wifmann,

Support for both our positions is there, in an absolute sense; but...

3.  I am certainly not arguing that "repairman" is an OE word.  When one talks
about "derivation" of words, one means a couple of things.  Languages have
typical ways of forming compounds.  "wepman", "wifmann", and, yes, "woman"
and  "human" are instances of the construction <predicate>-man to mean "per-
sons (of either sex) of whom the predicate (construed broadly) is true."  The
formation of such words has been going on for a long time.  Consider some other
examples that happen to be old "yeoman" and "journeyman".  If you watch Startrek
does it ever strike you as odd that Janice Rand is "Yeoman Rand"?  If I were
to describe a woman as having done a "journeyman job", would that strike you
as inappropriate?  I doubt it, because in both these cases the particles "yeo"
and "journey" are either not English words or have no obvious relation to the
compound.  (In fact, "yeo" comes from "young"...)  Now, a word like "repairman"
is a recent coinage, and has an obvious relation to the word "repair".  This
seems to imply a derivation from the English words "repair" and "man", but in
fact the consistency of the word with the older style of formation is the argu-
ment for claiming it is, in fact, an example of it - Occam's Razor at work.

4.  In a sense, you are right to say that the original derivation is irrelevant,
and that we should look at current usage and understanding.  However, once you
do this logical debate has to stop.  Usage and understanding are varied.  The
fact is, "madam chairman" is a common phrase, widely understood; if I call a
company and ask for a "repairman" I'm really not astonished to have a woman
show up; but people DO certainly remark "how can you be a mailMAN" (to a woman
I knew who did that job one summer.)  I think people who insist on this kind of
misunderstanding of the language fall in one of two extreme camps:  Those who
are strongly FOR women's liberation and have a political ax to grind; and
those who are strongly AGAINST it, and have a political ax to grind.  Most
people couldn't care less.  My claim from the start has been that (a) the
first group has no right to "legislate" changes in the language, which belongs
to ALL of us; and (b) that the important issue is to EDUCATE the second group;
changing the language will have no effect on their preconceptions whatsoever.

As an illustration of why I refuse to say "well, the (a) people have their
hearts in the right place, why argue with them about a triviality":  If the
PERCEPTION of the hyper-perceptive is all that matters, must we also listen
to them if they decide that "person", because it happens to contain the sord
\\\word "son", is inherently male?  (If "per" caught on as a neuter pronoun, I
can see this happening before long.)  (BTW:  "person" is from the French, and
the "son" in it has nothing to do with the English word "son".)  If you really
want to tilt at windmills, why don't you object to the many English NAMES that
actually do imply sex - like "Donaldson" (= son of Donald), for example?  I
have yet to see ANYONE take up this issue (not that I'm complaining!)

As a final note:  I've noticed that just about all the writers complaining
about what I have to say have been men.  (Given the population of USENET users,
this is probably not that surprising.)  I would just like to suggest to you all
that you consider the fine line between support and condescension.

							-- Jerry
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