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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Perchild and other Stupidity
Message-ID: <244@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 09:01:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.244
Posted: Tue May 14 09:01:54 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 21:08:55 EDT
References: <385@ttidcc.UUCP> <305@mhuxr.UUCP> <327@h-sc1.UUCP> <367@mtxinu.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 55

>> There are plenty of words ending in "man" that have no good equivalent.
>> Such as "human".  (Oh, NOW I'm going to get flamed!  :-) )
>
>No flame here, but you're right.  We once had a great time evolving
>a friend's name:
>
>	Beckerman		sexist - "man"
>	Beckerperson		sexist - "son"
>	Beckerperchild		ageist - "child"
        ....

    Groan!! NO! She was not right! {Frankly, I think she was kidding...}
    
    Advocates of non-sexist language who say such foolish things
    are behaving as stupidly as their worst critics suggest.

    Or would you suggest, as your critics believe you propose, that 
    every word containing -man- -men- -son- be deleted from the
    vocabulary? 

    Why is `man' in a word like `repairman', etc. considered sexist? Because
    it REALLY DOES CONTAIN the word MAN. You can tell, because it has the
    prefix `repair', and its plural is `repairmen'. `Human' is not such
    a word. There is no such prefix as `hu-'; furthermore its plural is
    not `humen'. Apparently, it needs to be stated again -- human derives
    from Latin `homo', NOT English `man'.

    And please, leave `person' exactly as is -- it cannot possibly
    be derived from per+son. For the zillionth time, this word comes from
    Latin `persona', meaning `mask' -- `sona' is related to `sound' (NOT 
    `son') and combines with `per' to mean `that thru which one voice
    emanates'. Roman masks originally doubled as voice amplifiers...

    Furthermore, I believe that `person' and `human' are totally free
    from masculine associations. Check out the list below:

    a person's life		a human's life
    personal			humanism	
    personage			humane		
    personality			humanity	
    impersonal	

    Contrast the total lack of sex identification in the above with the 
    decidedly masculine connotations of:
    
    a man's life
    manly
    manlike
    mannish

    If you are opposed to sexist language, please note that `perchild' and 
    and its ilk the are the tools of your opponents used to ridicule
    your viewpoint.

-michael