Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!skyler From: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Language in a Requirements Specification Message-ID: <12982@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 3 Aug 88 21:57:27 GMT References: <12900@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 171 Approved: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu More responses on which pronouns to use in a computer document: In article <4410@dandelion.CI.COM> sacks@classroom.UUCP (Marc Sacks) writes: >As for discomfort, I find the use of FEMININE generic pronouns disquieting. I >can understand why people want to use a generic "she" but unless one is writing >on language or on feminist topics, this usage is jarring... >When I see a generic "she" I always think of a woman Exactly the way I feel when I see a generic "he." I always think of a man. (Why is "comp.women" getting distribution? The group "comp.society.women" is supposed to serve this purpose.) -- Carol Springs "Uncover the secrets of the Solar System and Data Resources/McGraw-Hill receive a FREE FM radio..."--Time-Life Books 24 Hartwell Avenue carols%drilex@bbn.com Lexington, MA 02173 {bbn, ames!ll-xn, harvard}!drilex!carols In article <12878@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> marie@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Marie desJardins) writes: }I suggest adopting any of the following strategies: } 1. Use "he" and "she" alternately (switching with } each example, i.e. referring to a given } hypothetical user with consistent pronouns, but } switching with each new user) I agree that this is the best workable solution, but would take it a bit farther to include a bit of the flavor of: } 2. Use "she" everywhere Choose the gender of your fictitious users by using the reverse of their usual gender in real society. If your user in real life would normally be a male, particularly if the user is more of a "power" person (i.e., a person in authority or with great technical knowledge), then make that user a "she". If the user is a secretary or a clerk/typist or some other female-ghetto job, make that user a "he". This is an idea from a non-sexist writing teacher in Texas named Harriet "something" (?Stoner?) I'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me her last name -- she had some very good down-to-earth useable tips on non-sexist writing and had that unique easy-to-read style that made me remember her first name rather than her last. I'd love to be that good a writer someday! Curtis Jackson -- moss!rcj 201-386-6409 (CORNET 232) ...![ att ulysses ucbvax allegra ]!moss!rcj ...![ att ucbvax akgua watmath ]!clyde!rcj In article <12901@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> crm@cs.duke.edu (Charlie Martin) writes: [About what Mary-Claire Van Leunen says in her book, *A Handbook for Scholars*, on the subject of generic pronouns.] Here is something that Mary-Claire wrote more recently (1985) on the same subject. She gave me permission to post it a few years ago, but that was to a different audience. Mary-Claire writes: I think that we already have sex-indifferent first- and second-person singular and plural personal pronouns and sex-indifferent third-person plural pronouns and sex-indifferent personal relative pronouns and sex-indifferent indefinite pronouns. I think that all this wonderful sex-indifference in our pronouns has not saved us from bad attitudes about men and women. I think that people who speak other languages with different patterns of sex-sensitivity and sex-indifference seem also to have bad attitudes about men and women. I doubt that introducing indifference into the third-person singular is likely to bring us immediate salvation from bad attitudes about men and women. On principle, I say "anybody: they" and "somebody: they" out loud in the hope that my doubt is ill-founded. I hope that using those constructions will help me form good attitudes about men and women. When I write I have a problem: In writing both about rhetoric and about computers I make extensive use of long examples. "The writer does so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." "The reader does so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." "The user does so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." To construct such examples, I need a pronoun that is both personal and strongly singular. My ear tells me that the "they" in "anybody: they" is only weakly singular. "The user takes their time" sounds weird to me. When the person in the example is doing something sensible and good, I can sometimes use the second person as my exemplary singular. "You are doing so-and-so and so-and-so and such-and-such and such-and-such." Great. Unfortunately, this use of the second person precludes other uses in the same vicinity, and they are sometimes more pressing. I often need "you" imperative to the exclusion of "you" exemplary; I write very bossy stuff. When the person in the example is behaving foolishly or wrongly, courtesy forbids "you" exemplary. Throughout my whole professional life until quite recently I had always used "he" exemplary. "The writer: he." "The secretary: he." Lately I have been experimenting with "she" exemplary. Because I like "you" exemplary when I can use it, my use of any third-person exemplary is going to have a slight bias in the direction of unfavorable examples. We shall see. * I have the fear that fiddling around with pronouns can take the place of working to improve real life. But I don't know how to improve real life very much, so perhaps I oughtn't mention it. ------- From usenet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Wed Aug 3 19:06:09 1988 Received: from arthur.cs.purdue.edu by violet.berkeley.edu (5.54 (CFC 4.22.3)/1.16.17l) id AA04608; Wed, 3 Aug 88 19:06:05 PDT Received: from ucbvax.berkeley.edu by arthur.cs.purdue.edu; (5.54/3.16) id AA09638; Wed, 3 Aug 88 21:07:17 EST Received: by ucbvax.berkeley.edu (5.59/1.28) id AA06821; Wed, 3 Aug 88 14:57:48 PDT To: comp-society-women@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Path: ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!dana From: dana@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Dana Bergen) Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Language in a Requirements Specification Message-Id: <25419@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 3 Aug 88 21:57:27 GMT References: <12900@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Reply-To: ernie.Berkeley.EDU!dana@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Dana Bergen) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 25 Status: RO I read a book recently in which the author stated at the beginning that he was using "he" as the generic human pronoun, for lack of a better solution, and that he trusted women would not feel excluded by this. My reaction to this was, "Well, okay, it's not my preferred solution but at least he's acknowledging the problem." BUT!! -- what I found was that when the person in question was a programmer (which was the case most of the time), the generic pronoun "he" was used, but when word processing applications were discussed and the person in question was a secretary, why, suddenly the generic pronoun was "she"!! For those who argue that "he" is genderless and includes women: how often do you see sentences like "Every nurse has his own stethescope"? Doesn't that sound just a little bit funny to you? My preference is for either alternating he and she (but being careful to avoid engineers as always he and secretaries as always she), or using they as a singular pronoun. Since the latter is already common usage in spoken English, I think it should become standard; unfortunately, it hasn't yet, and using it does open one up to criticism from grammar fanatics. Dana dana@ernie.berkeley.edu ucbvax!ernie!dana