Xref: utzoo news.admin:3102 misc.legal:5418 soc.women:12116
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!ucsd!nosc!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lll-tis!ames!umd5!mimsy!frabjous!nau
From: nau@frabjous (Dana Nau)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal,soc.women
Subject: Re: Proposed lawsuit
Keywords: Sexual, gender, discrimination,pronouns,language
Message-ID: <12641@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jul 88 23:12:17 GMT
References: <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <6278@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <12180@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1040@unccvax.UUCP> <23898@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> <792@isieng.UUCP> <23951@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Sender: nobody@mimsy.UUCP
Reply-To: nau@frabjous.UUCP (Dana Nau)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, College Pk., Md. 20742
Lines: 19

In article <23951@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> wlieberm@teknowledge-vaxc.UUCP (William Lieberman) writes:
<
<What I would like to know is, does anybody have any information on 
<suggested gender neutralizing in those languages where every noun
<has a gender?  For example, every single noun in the French language
<(am I not correct, oh Academie Francaise?), when singular, is
<either and only masculine or feminine (le or la) - NO EXCEPTIONS!
< ...
<What thoughts have been given (if any) to removing gender-related terms
<when both genders are referred to, in languages such as French?  (le/la 
<constructions - they look so tedious and boring)

In German, there's a grammatical rule that all diminutives (words ending in
-chen or -lein) have neuter gender.  Thus, "Frau" (woman) is feminine, but
"Fraeulein" (unmarried woman) and "Maedchen" (girl) are neuter!

Dana S. Nau				ARPA & CSNet:  nau@mimsy.umd.edu
Computer Sci. Dept., U. of Maryland	UUCP:  ...!{allegra,uunet}!mimsy!nau
College Park, MD 20742			Telephone:  (301) 454-7932