Warp wrote:
>   I'm sorry, but to my ear "she" explicitly states that we are talking
> about a female, while "he", when in proper context, doesn't necessarily
> do so.

	What your ear hears is not the only factor to consider.

-- 
Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?


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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Stephen wrote:
> I think that I'm a feminist as I believe in the doctrine advocating social,
> political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. I'm not offended
> nor is my wife who could never be described as anything other than a feminist.
> What you are saying is trivial and a smokescreen making it more important to do
> little rather than actually treat women as if they had the same rights as men. 

	I'm not sure to what extent Tim was joking/exaggerating, but what seems
trivial to you may not be so. It has often been argued that language and
choice of words does often dictate people's perceptions, and that at
times changing them has changed those perceptions over a matter of
decades. I haven't studied it in detail, but I'm not sure the argument
is without merit. It may well be that the very argument about the choice
of words makes more people aware of the issues and that's what effects
change - not the actual change in wording.

	Either way, seems like a win/win situation. As I said, I see no harm in
either adding a third person pronoun that is gender neutral (has the
shift from using "humanity" instead of "mankind", or "businessperson"
instead of "businessman" damaged anything?), or allowing both he and she
to be used as a gender neutral pronoun of someone whose gender is not
specified.

	I've seen "she" used frequently by people (some were women, and then I
stopped bothering to check) in this regard. I don't know if it was
naturally or with this in mind, but it didn't at all seem awkward except
the first two times or so.

	Languages are dynamic, and I'm rarely sympathetic to those who want to
keep them static for the sake of being static.

-- 
Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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> 	I've seen "she" used frequently by people (some were women, and then I
> stopped bothering to check) in this regard. I don't know if it was
> naturally or with this in mind, but it didn't at all seem awkward except
> the first two times or so.

Gettext manual uses 'he' to refer to the programmer and 'she' to refer 
to the translator, just so they can conveniently use pronouns instead of 
repeating "the translator" over and over again. But they make it clear 
it's not racism:

"In this manual, we use 'he' when speaking of the programmer or 
maintainer, 'she' when speaking of the translator, and 'they' when 
speaking of the installers or end users of the translated program. This 
is only a convenience for clarifying the documentation. It is absolutely 
not meant to imply that some roles are more appropriate to males or 
females. Besides, as you might guess, GNU gettext is meant to be useful 
for people using computers, whatever their sex, race, religion or 
nationality!"

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Rune <aut### [at] runevisioncom> wrote:
> >  1) Use the established gender-neutral pronoun "he" which has been used
> > in that role for a long time. Forget *why* it was chosen as the generic
> > pronoun hundreds of years ago. That's not relevant today.

> 4) Use either "he" or "she" as a gender-neutral pronoun; whichever one you 
> prefer, as long as it is used consistently within the text.

  What's the difference (except that "she" sound weird)?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> (has the
> shift from using "humanity" instead of "mankind", or "businessperson"
> instead of "businessman" damaged anything?)

  The latter sounds to me like ridiculously PC hypercorrection. A totally
abstract construct, not a natural developement of the language.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
> Gettext manual uses 'he' to refer to the programmer and 'she' to refer 
> to the translator, just so they can conveniently use pronouns instead of 
> repeating "the translator" over and over again. But they make it clear 
> it's not racism:

  I can't even begin to imagine how using "he" or "she" could be seen
as *racism*.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:02:19 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Rune <aut### [at] runevisioncom> wrote:
>> >  1) Use the established gender-neutral pronoun "he" which has been
>> >  used
>> > in that role for a long time. Forget *why* it was chosen as the
>> > generic pronoun hundreds of years ago. That's not relevant today.
> 
>> 4) Use either "he" or "she" as a gender-neutral pronoun; whichever one
>> you prefer, as long as it is used consistently within the text.
> 
>   What's the difference (except that "she" sound weird)?

Doesn't sound weird to me.  And there's not much of a difference, really, 
except that in a male-dominated society using the masculine pronoun as a 
neuter pronoun does reinforce masculine "superiority".

There's nothing wrong with having a little sensitivity for your audience.

Jim

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On 8 Feb 2008 13:06:28 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>  English lacks a gender-neutral pronoun for people

Well put, I for one won't argue with that.

Regards
	Stephen

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Warp wrote:
> Rune wrote:
>> >  1) Use the established gender-neutral pronoun "he" which has been used
>> > in that role for a long time. Forget *why* it was chosen as the generic
>> > pronoun hundreds of years ago. That's not relevant today.
>
>> 4) Use either "he" or "she" as a gender-neutral pronoun; whichever one 
>> you
>> prefer, as long as it is used consistently within the text.
>
>  What's the difference (except that "she" sound weird)?

Lots of people think there is a difference, otherwise we wouldn't be having 
this discussion at all. Hence, there *is* a difference in how many people 
relate to the words. Also, I don't think it sounds weird. Conversely, I 
think the sentence below with "he" sounds very weird:

"Readers of women's magazines are not known to be very loyal. If a reader 
finds that his favourite magazine have gotten pricier than it used to be, he 
will often tend to buy a different one instead."

Although both men and women can read woman's magazines, the sentence come 
across as very misleading when using "he", since it sounds like we are 
talking about the minority that is the male readers.

Rune
-- 
http://runevision.com

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

>>     I've seen "she" used frequently by people (some were women, and
>> then I
>> stopped bothering to check) in this regard. I don't know if it was
>> naturally or with this in mind, but it didn't at all seem awkward except
>> the first two times or so.
> 
> Gettext manual uses 'he' to refer to the programmer and 'she' to refer
> to the translator, just so they can conveniently use pronouns instead of
> repeating "the translator" over and over again. But they make it clear
> it's not racism:

	Which is perfectly satisfactory to all who complain...

-- 
Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have a "S" in it?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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