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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Now is the time for all good men...
Message-ID: <579@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 00:00:07 EDT
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Posted: Tue May 28 00:00:07 1985
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From: rob@osiris.UUCP (Robert St. Amant), Message-ID: <348@osiris.UUCP>:
>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

In _The_Cook_and_the_Carpenter (copyright 1973) June Arnold (the carpenter)
used 'na'.  'Nan' was the possesive, and 'naself' was used as well.  As a
preface to the book, the following appeared:

   Since the differences between men and women are so obvious to all,
   so impossible to confuse whether we are speaking of learned behavior
   or inherent characteristics, ordinary conversation or furious passion,
   work or intimate relationships, the author understands that it is no
   longer necessary to distinguish between men and women in this novel.
   I have therefore used one pronoun for both, trusting the reader to
   know which is which.

I must confess that, even tho I'm a raging feminist, and even tho I assumed
from the above statement that the author was as well, I nevertheless was
occasionally somewhat confused as to which was which.  Perhaps that's good
evidence in support of Cheryl's idea (although I'll take 'na' over 'man' any
day).

-- 

--JB                                          Life is just a bowl.