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From: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Grammar and Spelling on the Net
Message-ID: <323@meccts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 21:46:48 EST
Article-I.D.: meccts.323
Posted: Mon Mar 10 21:46:48 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 03:48:46 EST
References: <658@frog.UUCP> <62800002@ism780> <3403@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein)
Organization: MECC Technical Services, St.Paul, MN
Lines: 27
Summary: 

In article <3403@umcp-cs.UUCP> dsn@maryland.UUCP (Dana S. Nau) writes:

>...Strictly
>speaking, correct usage would probably be "If a person can't take the time
>to learn *his* own language ...," but I happen to agree with feminist
>arguments that such usage has unfortunate connotations.  In informal

Has anyone done any research showing that neuterizing a lanuage can
help prevent discrimination?  When I asked a liguistic professor this
question his response was that as far as he could tell there was no
correlation between gender use in a language and treatment of the 
sexes.  For example, Hungarian is a language that is completely
neuter.  (One word suffices for the pronouns he/she/it.)  So while
Hungary has a completely neuter language it has had a very restrictive
culture with few choices for women.  Chinese has several genders in
yet women again traditionally held very restrictive roles in this
culture.

Assuming this is correct, it would mean that feminists who are trying to
improve the treatment of women would be better off putting their
efforts elsewhere.  
-- 

Michael V. Stein
Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services

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