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From: greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Saying It Nicely (Or conversly, Sunny's way!)
Message-ID: <502@timeinc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Sep-85 21:03:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: timeinc.502
Posted: Sun Sep  1 21:03:11 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Sep-85 05:57:15 EDT
References: <130@decwrl.UUCP> <2722@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg)
Organization: Time Inc. (Edit Tech), New York
Lines: 48
Summary: 

In article <2722@sun.uucp> sunny@sun.uucp (Ms. Sunny Kirsten) writes:
>
>As previous discussions here have indicated, the terms "man", "he", and "his"
>are simultaneously representative of both men and women.  They are also
>simultaneously representative of both the whole collection and any subgroup
>thereof.

PLEASE! Let's not start *that* discussion again?

>
>I might as well take this opportunity to point out that the only reason I
>find it acceptable to tolerate the use of the gender unspecific generic term
>"men" or "he" to include the set of women, is that women are a superset 
>of men:

No.....no sexism in Sunny!  No little smiley guy.  Maybe she's kidding?
Nope. Doesn't look that way:

>
>All    "men" are capable of being computer programmers.
>Only "women" are capable of bearing children or suckling them.
>

Why, she's right!  And only men can fertilize the women.  Golly, does
that make us *almost* as good as women?  Well, I guess it depends how
you define women:

>That is, a "woman" is "womb" + "man" (abbreviated from wombman to woman),
>and a "she" is superset of "he" (the child nurturing addition to the generic).

And I always thought "women" was a contraction of "woe to man"! :-)

>
>Language constrains the concepts presentable AND THINKABLE:

What planet did you come from?  Certainly not Earth.....


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross M. Greenberg  @ Time Inc, New York 
              --------->{vax135 | ihnp4}!timeinc!greenber<---------

I highly doubt that Time Inc.  would make me their spokesperson.
---
"You must never run from something immortal. It attracts their attention."
	  -- The Last Unicorn