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From: bsc@wuphys.UUCP (Bryan Coughlan)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Non-sexist language (historical)
Message-ID: <290@wuphys.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Jun-85 16:14:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: wuphys.290
Posted: Fri Jun 14 16:14:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 09:16:15 EDT
References: <11267@brl-tgr.ARPA> among others
Distribution: net
Organization: Physics Dept., Washington Univ. in St. Louis
Lines: 67
Xref: watmath net.women:5834 net.nlang:3175

<A very ineffective pickup line.>

     I've seen alot of discussion recently on
the problem of what word to use to refer to
a person of unknown gender. There are several
word pairs which have this problem, among them:

1) man-woman
2) she-he
3) him-her
4) his-her
5) hers-his

#1 seems to have an agreeable solution: person.
The others however are not quite so obvious.

So far, the proposed solutions to #2 have been:

Solution          Comment
a) he -------- conjures up male image
b) she ------- conjures up female image
c) it(?) ----- conjures up non-human image
d) he or she - messy
e) s/he ------ O.K. for writing, but how do you
               pronounce it?


As you can see by my comments, I don't think any
of those solutions is the way to go.  Instead,
I think a new word is in order.  The problem is,
new words have a hard time getting accepted for
normal use.  I think the reason behind that is
the lack of planning when inventing the word.

What do we want in a new word?

Well, it should not conjure up any innappropriate
images, for one (he, she, and it are out!).  Also,
it should be easy to substitute in for the word
he or the word she in a sentence.  This would be
best accomplished if the word were a one-syllable
word, probably with some similarity to the words
in the word pair.  This would mean that it would
take the least amount of effort to use the word
in place of he or she.

My nomination ?  Zhe.
(The zh is pronounced like the z in azure)

Example:
If a person saw an automobile accident, 
what should zhe do?

Of course, the strange spelling and pronunciation
of this word could cause acceptance problems.  If 
anybody can come up with a better word, I would
welcome the suggestion.  Also,  suggestions for
new words for other problem word pairs are
welcome.  Comments anyone ?

[ These are MY opinions ! ]

-- 
Bryan S. Coughlan            "... No one will tell me what all this is about 
Wash. U. Physics Department			- but -
St. Louis, MO 63130			I WILL FIND OUT !!! " 
ihnp4!wuphys!bsc 		- Moribund the Burgermeister