Order of Kilopi
As I learned French grammar with regards to groups of people, any group of people which might include a man is grammatically masculine in French and referring to a group which includes a man using feminine gender would be an insult to that man.Originally Posted by caveman1917
Female-only groups are grammatically feminine.
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Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
To paraphrase, your right to be bothered by a conclusion based on a false premise isn't being challenged, your expectation that it be taken seriously is.
To be clear, i do understand why it bothers you, i just don't accept the premise your argument is based on.
You're stating that the usage of the term "man" for mixed groups is a representation of male dominance. You are then shown that an authoritative reference on the matter clearly shows that your interpretation is incorrect (it has not the primary meaning related to gender). Your response is "then that's bad reference-writing".
It's akin to someone making a claim in ATM, and when being shown a textbook stating his claim is incorrect to then reply with "that's just bad textbook-writing". Nobody would have a problem with dismissing this person's claims unless he gives evidence that his claim is indeed correct. Why would you have a problem with people dismissing yours?
Of the languages I know, English is the only one without an exclusive term for the human male, and it is also the only one where purportedly male dominance is reflected in the language. What are the odds? Isn't an alternative explanation more likely? Where the name for the species acquired a secondary meaning as the name for the male, that then got turned upside down?
Or at the very least, if you're insisting that it is a result of male dominance, would you not find it normal for people to need evidence for that claim, especially in light of authoritative references stating the opposite?
Order of Kilopi
The issue isn't with the grammatic gender of the word, but with the word for a group of males also being used as the word for a mixed group. What i'm saying is that it makes a lot more sense to turn it around, the word for a mixed group also being used as the word for a group of males.
Established Member
Gillian, I don't think anyone is attempting to deny that it bothers you or that we don't understand why. The question, at least for me, is how far you are willing to carry it. There are people who don't consider themselves male or female. There is now gender by genetics, gender by orientation, gender by physiology, and the list goes on. It's not that I don't care about all those people or think that they have value. It's that I simply don't care what they call themselves. If I interact with them, I'm going to refer to them as "people" or "humans", and to me that is synonomous with "man" or "mankind". Right now I'm spending twelve hours a day, six days a week, engineering a large steel tubing mill. When I get home I have my wife, family, pets, and garden to attend to. It may sound insensitive, but I simply don't have the time to learn what all groups of people are and what I should call them. Even if I did have time, I probably still wouldn't. It's not important enough to me and I don't really see why it matters. They are people the same as I am.
Homo Sapiens is Latin for "Wise Man". In this context, "man" is not only all humans, but every member of the genus "homo". That includes males and females. That is truely the meaning of the word "man". If you want to change that for women because you (perhaps rightfully so) feel slighted by that, what are you going to do for all the other groups who are neither? At what point are you going to stop drawing distinctions? This may seem like a reduction to absurdity, but I'm really being serious.
I'm not going to pretend that chauvanism is dead or that there are people who don't understand that "man" isn't only meant to be in reference to men. I'm not even going to pretend that chauvanism isn't still a widespread problem, because it is. But the language isn't going to change that. It is changing on its own. In the United States there are now more women graduating from college than what there are men. I work around union electricians, as well as many other craft workers, and I have seen a remarkable increase in the number of women doing traditionally male jobs in the last several years. Changing the language isn't going to change anything. Only time will do that.
A lot of my resistance to this specifically is also the fact that so often I see women conflating chauvanism and chivalry, and that really bothers me. I take pleasure from holding a door for my wife. I take pleasure in pulling out a chair for her. When we are travelling together, I pump the gas. I change the tire if we get a flat and I ask her to stay inside the car. When we dance, I lead. (I don't do a very good job of it, but I still do the leading anyway) I'm really not being a chauvanist by doing these things, nor am I trying to be traditionalist or anything like that. I'm just being considerate. But so often hearing that they are the same has trained my mind to automatically resist what you are saying. Women and men are equal, and should approach each other on equal footing. But too often a woman takes it as an affront when a man tries to do something for her. Even though we are equal, we are different and most men still want to feel masculine. And so when I sense an attack on masculinity I react negatively. The fact that I associate what you are saying with an attack on masculinity, whether you intended that or not, is enough to make me resist.
Seriously, most thinking men understand and use the real definition of "man", and not the colloquial meaning. We aren't trying to belittle you or any woman when we use it. I don't know why you perceive it as so, but I'm not a woman so I guess I can't. But I have suffered discrimination in my life. I do understand that. Generally, I consider the people who do that to be not worthy of my time.
Order of Kilopi
Referring to an anecdote related earlier by Paul Beardsley:
In this case i, and i think most of us, understand why it bothered this woman using the term "homosexual". However that doesn't mean that i'd take her argument seriously, since it was based on a false premise.
Likewise i, and again i think most of us, understand why it bothers you (Gillianren). But i also don't take your argument seriously, since it also seems based on a false premise. Saying "it shouldn't bother you because its premise is false" does not exclude understanding the reason why it bothers you in the first place. Your argument is being dismissed, not your genuine feeling of being bothered by something.
Order of Kilopi
So you interact with them and thing they have value, but don't want the bother to learn what they prefer being called.
How is that consistent with considering them people? Unless you have a different definition of "people" than I have.
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Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
We have, specifically relating to the usage of the word "American" to refer to citizens of the United States vs. the entirity of the American continents.
In that case, though, the "PC" interpretation is to keep the word for the general and use something different for the specific.
Established Member
You claim that you're not dismissing her feelings, yet you'll make absolutely no effort to change the behavior that bothers her.
Wow. I came here to make a sarcastic post about how we had used logic and reason to determine that Gillian's feminine opinions were irrelevant, only to find that you had already made the same point. But you weren't joking.
Established Member
Because it's not important and it is divisive I've pointed this out before. It is absurd in the extreme to refer to myself as an Irish-German-maybe a little bit of Swedish four generations back on my father's side-American. I'm just an American. Period. If someone cares to ask further I will tell them but I'm certainly not going to be presumptuous enough to think it is of importance to anyone else
Similarly, I don't know the difference between an Ethiopian-American and a Kenyan-American. I don't know if someone is a woman, a transwoman, or a cross dresser, and it is none of my business. Maybe you have the time to find out all these little details before you can speak to someone or about someone but most people don't. It is precisely the highlighting of our differences like this that makes this such a divisive world. No one ever looks for common ground. We just walk around looking for ways we have been wronged.
Last edited by primummobile; 2012-Aug-29 at 11:50 AM. Reason: multiple typos
Established Member
That's the whole point of this thread and what we are arguing. Whether it is appropriate to take political correctness to extremes and where you draw the line. Changing the behavior is precisely what the discussion is about. Why would anyone change their behavior while arguinv that behavior is incorrect?
Order of Kilopi
I used to have the same attitude. But I've learned to put myself in the other person's shoes-- if you are someone who has been or is still being wronged by deliberately insulting language or worse, being reminded of it by someone else's cavalier attitude of "it doesn't matter to me, therefore it doesn't matter" is painful and unnecessary.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
It isn't important to other people that I am Irish. It doesn't mean anything. I'm not saying that we shouldn't care if someone is disabled or sick or something like that. I'm saying that people are inventing too many trivial distinctions that keep our differences in the foreground in an attempt to put our differences behind us and it is counterproductive. Whether or not anyone agrees with me isn't relevant . I don't see what is difficult about the point I am trying to make.
Established Member
Listen, I'm not saying we shouldn't respect others' differences. All I am saying is that when we soend too much time looking for and applying labels to our differences we lose sight of how we are not different
Order of Kilopi
Nothing difficult about it, I just think you're wrong. Seemingly casual indifference to other people's feelings about their place in the world is not the solution to predjudice.
EDIT: I'm not accusing you of indifference, but that's how that attitude would come across to a stranger.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
You are right, i will make no effort to change that behaviour (ie stop using the term "mankind" etc), nor do i see a reason to. Not because of the gender of the person making the argument, but because of the falsity of its premise. You might as well argue that one can't use the term "homosexual" anymore because someone believes it means "man sex". Or that one cannot use the term "niggardly" anymore because someone thinks it sounds a lot like a bad word they know.
She is apparently bothered by females being put in subordinate roles based on their gender (as am i btw) and perceives this quirk of the English language with the term "man" to be an instance of that. But it isn't an instance of that. So while i sympathise with her general argument (females are put in subordination wrt males), i can't sympathise with this specific example of it, because it isn't an example of it.
It has absolutely nothing to do with it being a "feminine" opinion, just with its objective truth-value.
Bad Post-Doc
Yes, but I also explained why it is bad reference-writing. The primary definition in a dictionary is the most frequently used definition, the definition which will cause a person to look up the word. The secondary definitions exist because words have more than one meaning; the definitions are generally in descending order of use. If the first definition given is not the most frequently used sense, especially by such a large margin, that is a badly written entry no matter what the word is. It's not as though there were several definitions which were used with about the same level of frequency. One is used far more often--and has been for centuries. It is the secondary definition. No matter what word, wouldn't you agree that the first definition should be the one most frequently used? Wouldn't you agree that not doing so is bad dictionary-writing?
What if it were an example of bad textbook-writing? Are you going to claim that such things never happen?It's akin to someone making a claim in ATM, and when being shown a textbook stating his claim is incorrect to then reply with "that's just bad textbook-writing". Nobody would have a problem with dismissing this person's claims unless he gives evidence that his claim is indeed correct. Why would you have a problem with people dismissing yours?
You might want to look into the etymology of "man." It did indeed start as a universal. Then, they stopped using the Old English word which meant "male human" and started using the generic to be applicable to specifically males. However, that, to me, indicates that to the people who codified the language--men--males were all that mattered. And in fact, the argument was held in my Spanish class in high school that it was completely unreasonable that the presence of one man in a group of every woman on Earth made the gender applied to that group male. We had a problem with that, too, but the problems in languages with distinct gender for words are much more complicated.Of the languages I know, English is the only one without an exclusive term for the human male, and it is also the only one where purportedly male dominance is reflected in the language. What are the odds? Isn't an alternative explanation more likely? Where the name for the species acquired a secondary meaning as the name for the male, that then got turned upside down?
In English, there is no such thing as true authority. There is no agency. The OED is fallible, and I think I demonstrated that, in this case, their chosen order makes no sense. Yes, there is the etymological history, but if that were all that mattered, the first definition in the OED for "nice" should be "foolish," and I somehow doubt (I don't have an OED) that it is.Or at the very least, if you're insisting that it is a result of male dominance, would you not find it normal for people to need evidence for that claim, especially in light of authoritative references stating the opposite?
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Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Established Member
What about:
-famille?
-troupe?
I doubt someone will get offended for being told they have a 'belle famille'.
Let's face it, in french, women have their own word for hero. How cool is that? Unfortunately, it's héroïne. Anywho, point is, there are so many exceptions either way where manly words can be feminine, and womanly words are masculine. Sometimes it helps to be specific, although most of the time it's generically built into the language.
Order of Kilopi
Exactly, you haven't been discriminated against in that way, so you don't know how it feels. It's trivial to you. It may seem annoying or even predjudicial to someone with a different experience.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
Ahem....St-Patrick's day anyone? Green leprechauns and green beer, how more blatant of a non PC interpretation of irish can you get?
Order of Kilopi
True. But go back 100 years and see how the Irish were treated then. The idea of all USAians celebrating an Irish holiday-- even a stereotypical one-- was actual progress compared to the prevailing attitudes of the time.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
Though if he is consistently doing that with everyone, he is by definition not prejudiced.
Order of Kilopi
I wasn't saying he is prejudiced. I was trying to point out that it's simply polite to consider the feelings of those who have been or are victims of predjudice.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
All right, considering how easily what I've been trying to say is misinterpreted as insult, I'm dropping out of this thread.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
No, that's why i said "unless he gives evidence that his claim is indeed correct". But even if we accept your correction, your argument doesn't go through, specifically because of the etymology.
So the use of the term "man" for a mixed group traces back directly to the universal. It can't be argued that the use of the universal for a mixed group is because a single male is "more" than all the females in that group. If it were the other way around, that they dropped the universal and started using the specific term for male for mixed groups, you'd have a point. But it wasn't. They dropped the male term and let the universal acquire a secondary meaning to that effect.You might want to look into the etymology of "man." It did indeed start as a universal. Then, they stopped using the Old English word which meant "male human" and started using the generic to be applicable to specifically males.
That may be true, i'm not privileged to the reasons they had for making that decision, so i couldn't tell. I'm not arguing they weren't misogynistic, for all i know they were. But i am arguing that the argument that the use of the term "man" for mixed groups has something to do with one male counting more than all females is faulty, since the term in that case is clearly the universal and always has been.However, that, to me, indicates that to the people who codified the language--men--males were all that mattered.
Yes, that is the argument made by Henrik earlier that also happens in French. I agree with that, it is indeed unreasonable. However this argument as to grammatic gender is a different argument than that of the use of "man" as a universal.And in fact, the argument was held in my Spanish class in high school that it was completely unreasonable that the presence of one man in a group of every woman on Earth made the gender applied to that group male.
Last edited by caveman1917; 2012-Aug-29 at 12:42 AM. Reason: spelling
Order of Kilopi
I hope it's not the result of my remark that he is then by definition not prejudiced, since i certainly didn't interpret it as an insult, nor did i mean to imply that you were saying he is prejudiced. I was responding more to your statement that it is not a solution for prejudice, in the sense that while it could be interpreted as being indifferent (by a stranger), it could also be interpreted as rejecting prejudice outright.
Senior Member
For someone that "seemed" pretty upset about this whole "PC" thing, the OP poster doesn't appear too interested in actually discussing it with others.
Just sayin'.
Established Member
I do believe a cow is a female bovine, as well as for other animals. It could possibly be insulting to bulls and steers when humans say, "Oh look, there's a bunch of cows.", when its more proper to say, "Oh look, there's a herd of cattle"
Bad Post-Doc
Compare and contrast with "nice," which has changed meanings several times in a shorter span of time. Even though the etymology started with "man" as an exact synonym for person, once the definition changed so that the primary (by any reasonable standard) definition included "male," it was no longer universal. Because its primary definition is "masculine," using it to mean "oh, and women, too" is offensive to women. Saying "no, it isn't" doesn't make it not true, even with etymology on your side. By that argument, I would be allowed to argue with everyone who called me "nice" and say it was really an insult.
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Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Order of Kilopi
This conversation reminds me of this essay by Douglas Hofstadter (which is conveniently available on the web, hopefully with permission). I'd encourage reading it; it may make you think differently about gender bias in language.
Conserve energy. Commute with the Hamiltonian.
Order of Kilopi
Yes, I know that's happened, and personally I don't think it's right to attack someone from using a word that can be offense in a totally different context. But does that mean you think it's acceptable to use the N word to refer to a black person?
As above, so below
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