<font face="Default Sans Serif,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><div><br>As Greville Corbett pointed out to me (criticizing my decision to use the term to refer to referents with unknown or unspecified sex) the meaning of epicene was somewhat different in origin. It meant (if I remember right) more of dual gendered agreement pattern in Greek. <br><br>My response is that the Greek usage is not all that relevant, and in any case, I was just following others in using it that way. The problem with "gender-neutral" for me is that the issue is not really gender but sex reference. Gender in linguistics has quite a specific meaning referring to noun classes. There is no gender in English on that view because there are no noun classes. He, she and the other pronouns along with words like man, woman, boy, girl, waitress, and so on have sex reference. <br><br>In other social sciences gender refers to sex-related constructions of identity, and the use of the term in this case is misleading too. <br><br>Not that I'd go to great lengths to avoid "gender neutral" if it were common in the literature, but it wasn't then, and so, epicene it was. <br><div><br></div><font color="#990099">-----American Dialect Society <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU"><ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU></a> wrote: -----<br><br></font><blockquote style="padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left: 2px solid #000000; margin-right: 0px;">To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU">ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU</a><br>From: Paul Frank <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:paulfrank@POST.HARVARD.EDU"><paulfrank@POST.HARVARD.EDU></a><br>Sent by: American Dialect Society <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU"><ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU></a><br>Date: 11/09/2010 04:23PM<br>Subject: Re: Epicene avoidance?<br><br><font face="Courier New,Courier,monospace" size="3">---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------<br>Sender: American Dialect Society <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU"><ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU></a><br>Poster: Paul Frank <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:paulfrank@POST.HARVARD.EDU"><paulfrank@POST.HARVARD.EDU></a><br>Subject: Re: Epicene avoidance?<br>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Laurence Horn <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:laurence.horn@yale.edu"><laurence.horn@yale.edu></a> wrote:<br>> At 12:52 PM +0100 11/9/10, Paul Frank wrote:<br><br>>>The sentence "Applicants must have obtained his or her doctorate by<br>>>the date of taking up the post" is just silly. You're right that it's<br>>>bad editing or bad writing. There's nothing wrong with "they" here<br>>>even from a prescriptivist point of view. By the way, what's the<br>>>advantage of "epicene they" over "gender-neutral they"? "Epicene they"<br>>>gets 843 googlits; "gender-neutral they" 52,700. I'd heard of epicene<br>>>nouns in Spanish and other European languages. But "epicene they" is<br>>>new to me. It'll grow on me.<br>>><br>>>Paul<br>><br>> It's been in use in our circles for a while; cf. listmates Dennis<br>> Baron ("The Epicene Pronouns: A Chronology of the Word That Failed"<br>> at<br>> <a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm">http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm</a>,<br>> and various mentions in his books, esp. _Grammar and Gender_ (Yale U.<br>> Press, 1986), and in posts on Web of Language site) and Michael<br>> Newman (_Epicene Pronouns: The Linguistics of a Prescriptive<br>> Problem_.  New York: Garland, 1997.  In Garland Outstanding<br>> Dissertations in Linguistics series.)<br><br>And it's grown on me already. Thank you. Every time I post something<br>to this list I'm reminded of a Chinese saying: "to cast a brick to get<br>jade in return" (æ ›ç –å¼•çŽ‰). I cast bricks (uninformed opinions) at you and<br>you give me jade in (wisdom<br>and experience) in return.<br><br>Paul<br><br><br>Paul Frank<br>Translator<br>Chinese, German, French, Italian > English<br>Espace de l'Europe 16<br>Neuchâtel, Switzerland<br><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:paulfrank@bfs.admin.ch">paulfrank@bfs.admin.ch</a><br><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:paulfrank@post.harvard.edu">paulfrank@post.harvard.edu</a><br><br>------------------------------------------------------------<br>The American Dialect Society - <a href="http://www.americandialect.org">http://www.americandialect.org</a><br></font>
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