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From: rob@osiris.UUCP (Robert St. Amant)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Now is the time for all good men...
Message-ID: <348@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-May-85 16:09:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: osiris.348
Posted: Sat May 25 16:09:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 27-May-85 06:33:45 EDT
References: <742@oddjob.UUCP> <717@mtuxo.UUCP>
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 26

> > 
> > I was serious.  I really think that the generic term for a person should
> > be "man", and that the generic pronouns should be "he", "him" and "his".
> > . . .
> >                               Cheryl Stewart, BMOC
> 
> I am not a man.  My daughters are not, and never will be, men.  I do not
> want "manhood" and "manliness" upheld as standards we could only meet by
> denying what we are.

Of course, this is the problem.  The connotations that accompany the words
can't be just hacked off and ignored.  I think there _ought_ to be gender-
free singular words to replace "he" and "man," but so far there aren't.
In the meantime, I'm not going to say "To each his or her own," and "Someone
lost their pencil," because it's either awkward or it sounds wrong.  Prose
in advertising can be worded awkwardly--who cares?  But that kind of writing
isn't appropriate everywhere.

Has anyone come up with a substitution for "he" better than "s/he" or
"they?"  Or has the language stopped evolving?  I remember reading
a short story in which the author used the term "dight," which she found
in Middle English, because she thought the language needed a nonvulgar
transitive verb meaning "to fuck."  Not too successful, but imaginative,
at least.

				Rob St. Amant