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Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!sophie
From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Re: RE2:gender terms
Message-ID: <362@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Mar-85 13:53:43 EST
Article-I.D.: mnetor.362
Posted: Thu Mar 28 13:53:43 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Mar-85 16:54:30 EST
References: <12212@watmath.UUCP>
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> >  Languages are
> >not static either, they evolve with society.  Dictionaries are merely
> >representations of the state of languages and the underlying societies
> >supporting them.  As such, they are always behind the evolution of those
> >societies rather than ahead, just because it simply takes an enormous amount
> >of effort to record all those changes - if it didn't, or if languages were not
> >evolving, why would we be making such a fuss about the computerisation of the
> >OED?  -  Need I go on?
> >Sophie Quigley
> 
> 
> Well, I would like to add a bit of trivia to this matter.  Sophie is wrong when
> she states that they are ALWAYS behind the evolution... because, the OED is 
> being COMPUTERIZED, and as such will only be a few nano-seconds behind.  the  

Yes, but the OED is not computerised yet, so what I said still holds, and will
hold for quite a while.  Even when it will be computerised and the changes
will be easy to make, I am sure that they will not happen much faster because
the decision to make the change is what will be holding things up rather than
the actual change.

> University of Waterloo is the place for the massive change-over.  As to being 
> quite sexist,  that is the reason that the dictionaries give several meanings
> to words, but since there are FEMALE staff on the reasearch teams as well, I
> think that the dictionaries give a bit of a feminist view of a lot of words
> (about half).  well, what the goose is discrimanated against, so is the gander.

Give me a break!  first of all you seem to be under the impression that feminism
is the same as reverse discrimination, which is not true.  Making languages
non-sexist against women doesn't mean that they will be sexist against men.
Secondly, the presence of female staff on the research team doesn't necessarily
mean that they will be in a position to control what the contents of the
dictionary will be.  The fact that the database technology for the OED will be
modernised does not imply that the dictionaries themselves will be.  As far as
I can tell from what I have heard of the OED project, the decision-making
process will not be changed, and the power will still lie in the hands of a
few selected people.  (What would we have otherwise, a democratic dictionary?
an anarchist dictionary?)

> You don't have it all bad.
> 				A middle of the road male.

See above.  
I can't help but wonder why you did not sign your posting....  Since I am
from the University of Waterloo myself and I know who all the MFCF staff is
and probably all the MFCF staff know who I am, I can't help but come to the
conclusion that you are afraid that I (and other people at waterloo) will
find out that a person we believed to be a "middle of the road male" is
actually a bona fide sexist pig ("you don't have it all that bad" humph!).

Cheers.

-- 
Sophie Quigley
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie