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From: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: sexist language/bad attitudes
Message-ID: <338@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Apr-85 12:44:26 EST
Article-I.D.: mtxinu.338
Posted: Fri Apr 12 12:44:26 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 03:17:29 EST
References: mhuxr.276, <824@druxo.UUCP> <269@mhuxr.UUCP> <825@druxo.UUCP>, <12080@watmath.UU <12716@brunix.UUCP> <5234@tekecs.UUCP>
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley, CA
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> > OK, we are all computer-oriented people, to some extent, or what are we
> > doing here? Permit me to quote a couple of well-known computer scientists:
> > 
> Oh, if we're all computer science types, and if a computer scientist says it's
> so, then we'll believe it? Give me a break.
> 
> I think the most compelling reasons for altering one's usage (something I'm
> not wild about) come from the individual experiences that I have read about
> (on the net, for instance) and not from the *opinions* of people who happen
> to be well-known computer scientists, or well-known anything else.
> 
> 	This exercise in anarchic populism brought to you by...
> 				Jeff Winslow

You're right about what the compelling reasons are for altering usage,
but before jumping on the report of those "opinions" you seem to
disdain so much, consider what the original posting was really about.

Rather than suggest that we should automatically believe these
suggestions because they were made by computer scientists, I suspect
that the original poster (whose name wasn't in Jeff's quote and
I dnd't see the original posting) was saying was that here are
comments on the subject from people whose thinking we may have
considered in other areas and may thereby respect.  It's also the case
that these comments were *not* related to the particular question
of sexist language (and the relationship of women to language in
general) but to the *general* relationship of language to the way
people think, which, in my mind at least, makes for an even stronger
case.

Why, also, do you challenge them as *opinions*?  I don't know the
particulars of these quotes, but there is a strong similarity
between the study of formal (e.g., programming) languages and
natural languages.  There are many prominent researchers who
have done fundamental research in both fields.  Noam Chomsky
leaps to mind as a prime example.  These quotes may be derived
from, and certainly agree with my limited knowledge of, studies
of natural language.

-- 
Ed Gould		    mt Xinu, 739 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
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