Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hou5h.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5g!hou5h!mgh
From: mgh@hou5h.UUCP (Marcus Hand)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Subject: Re: Gender-specific neuter pronouns
Message-ID: <384@hou5h.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 15:05:24 EST
Article-I.D.: hou5h.384
Posted: Wed Jan 30 15:05:24 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 02:25:08 EST
References: <1285@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 16
Xref: watmath net.nlang:2500 net.women:4314

>> Something similar happened in French. In a few cases, the older nominative
>> and accusative cases of the same noun in Old French gave rise to two
>> separate nouns of Modern French. The nominative form of the word for
>> 'man' gave rise to the Modern French word for 'one' (generic person):
>> 
>> case	Latin 	->	Old French ->	Mod French	Mod French meaning
>> 
>> nom.	homo	->	om	->	on		one (the generic person)
>>--
>
>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
Hmmm, did you know that "many" is the Old English for the plural of "man"?