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From: jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Gender-specific neuter pronouns
Message-ID: <2285@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 28-Jan-85 11:16:22 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2285
Posted: Mon Jan 28 11:16:22 1985
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Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
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> Subject: Re: Gender-specific responses to s/he

> Note, however, that "homo" is the Latin noun for "human", and not for
> "male human".  English speakers tend to forget this vocabulary distinction,
> since our word "man" means both.  The Latin for "man" meaning "male human" is
> "vir".
> 			    Morris M. Keesan

Harrumph, harrumph. Then I'd expect that 'homo' would be of neuter gender, 
which Latin provides, but it's male. The "default sex" in Latin is male, just
as in every language I ever heard of. (If there are exceptions, does this
coincide with a less male-supremacist culture?)

But apparently contracts written in archaic French  refer to "personnes",
which is of course feminine in French. And then to keep the gender straight,
so to speak, the contract refers to these persons as "elles" [they, female]
later on. How would modern French handle this?
			--John Purbrick