[Ads-l] Berkeley and gender neutral words

Sat Jul 20 20:13:08 UTC 2019

Is there any pre-craze empirical evidence that women in general found such
words demeaning, offensive, sexist, or the like?

Elizabeth I, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia Woolf, for example (as sensitive
to language as anybody), seem to have been fine with generic "he." Or did I
miss something?

Many of us will remember Ossie Davis's essay "The English Language is My
Enemy" (1966). Enmity was proven by the strongly negative connotations of
words like "black," which Davis thought encouraged white racism and
demeaned black people.

Within a few years, the polite term "Negro" was virtually ousted by the
supposedly more positive term "Black."

As for men being unqualified to criticize the feminist position on "-man"
and similar words (like "male" and "female"), that position assumes that
most women subscribe wholeheartedly to the feminist position.  (If asked -
particularly in the past - many would presumably express agreement and then
quickly forget about the issue.)  Not to mention that it's obviously a
sexist, ad hominem position in the first place.

 As for "master key," etc., "slaving over a hot stove" must be even more
offensive.

 JL

On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 10:38 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Jul 20, 2019, at 2:08 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> >> the religions most strongly associated with the word *priest* in the US
> > and
> >> (most? all?) other Anglophone societies restrict that function to males.
> >
> > True only of Catholicism.
>
> That was my point; Anglican/Episcopalian priests, whether male or female,
> have always been called priests, and have been around since the 1970s.  Cf.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women_in_the_Anglican_Communion
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 12:46 AM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> IMHO, *priestess* and *priest* are exactly parallel, but it happens that
> >> the religions most strongly associated with the word *priest* in the US
> and
> >> (most? all?) other Anglophone societies restrict that function to males.
> >>
> >> MAM
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 11:48 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> And “priestess” (=/= ‘female priest).  And then there’s
> >>> “governor”/“governess" and other asymmetrical pairs of that ilk.
> >>>
> >>>> On Jul 19, 2019, at 11:45 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> See also, "Huntress."
> >>>>
> >>>> Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>
> >>>>
> >>>> ________________________________
> >>>> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> >>> Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>>> Sent: Friday, July 19, 2019 6:16:23 PM
> >>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>>> Subject: Re: Berkeley and gender neutral words
> >>>>
> >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>>> Subject:      Re: Berkeley and gender neutral words
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>
> >>>> "Goddess" is somehow doing well.
> >>>>
> >>>> The neutrality craze is based in part on the elementary fallacy that a
> >>>> word's meaning is dictated by its etymology.  Another significant
> basis
> >>> is
> >>>> the a priori belief that speakers of English are as sensitive to
> nuance
> >>> as
> >>>> are a subset of people with Ph.Ds and must, in any case, be protected
> >>> from
> >>>> "-man" words, which are dangerously, irremediably sexist and malign.
> >>>>
> >>>> JL
> >>>>
> >>>> JL
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 8:42 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>> On Jul 19, 2019, at 8:01 PM, Mark Mandel <markamandel at GMAIL.COM>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> The Latin means "No one is an heir or a living person.=E2=80=9D
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Mark=E2=80=99s finger meant =E2=80=9Cof=E2=80=9D rather than
> >>> =E2=80=9Cor=
> >>>> =E2=80=9D; the claim as it stands is
> >>>>> rather too strong.  More seriously, I don=E2=80=99t get the argument
> >> to
> >>> r=
> >>>> eplace
> >>>>> =E2=80=9Cheir=E2=80=9D, which is parallel to =E2=80=9Cactor=E2=80=9D
> >>> and =
> >>>> arguably also to =E2=80=9Cpoet=E2=80=9D.  By all
> >>>>> means, let=E2=80=99s dump =E2=80=9Cheiress=E2=80=9D,
> >>> =E2=80=9Cadventuress=
> >>>> =E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Cactress=E2=80=9D, =E2=80=9Csculptress=E2=80=9D, or
> >>>>> =E2=80=9Cpoetess=E2=80=9D, although it could be (and has been) argued
> >>> tha=
> >>>> t =E2=80=9Cactress=E2=80=9D
> >>>>> performs a service that the others don=E2=80=99t, at least until
> >>> sex-neut=
> >>>> ral
> >>>>> casting becomes universal; the tradeoff for sex specification may be
> >>> deem=
> >>>> ed
> >>>>> worth it.  =E2=80=9CWaitress=E2=80=9D is another case, and I grant we
> >>> all=
> >>>> have different
> >>>>> cutoff points. (Mine is rather different from Jon=E2=80=99s, for
> >>> example.=
> >>>> )  But the
> >>>>> fact that =E2=80=9Cheiress=E2=80=9D can be plausibly argued to be
> >>> sexist =
> >>>> on the grounds
> >>>>> that it marks sex of the referent when it=E2=80=99s irrelevant, I
> >>> don=E2=
> >>>> =80=99t see why
> >>>>> that consideration should infect =E2=80=9Cheir=E2=80=9D, which as
> >> noted
> >>> b=
> >>>> elow really is
> >>>>> just =E2=80=98one who=E2=80=99, on grounds of both usage and
> >> etymology.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> LH
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 4:35 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> >>>>> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> The word [*heir*] is correctly applied to either a male or a
> female,
> >>>>>>> although,
> >>>>>>> in the latter sense, heiress n.   has been in general use since
> 17th
> >>>>>>> cent. In Law a person is not called an heir to any property until,
> >>>>>>> through the death of its possessor, he becomes entitled to it (
> >>>>>>> *nemo est heres viventis*).
> >>>>>>> [End excerpt]
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --=20
> >>>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> >>> truth."
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org