"like" avoidance/correction

[Wilson Gray]

True, Alison. But don't you miss the old days when "gender" had to do
only with grammar? I've even seen "gender" in its (relatively) new
American meaning used in Russian and transliterated as "gender," i.e.
using Cyrillic letters that, transliterated back into Latin letters,
read "gender." I would've expected the Russians to use "dzhendr,"
which yields, for all practical purposes, precisely the same
pronunciation as "gender" does in English. Unless, of course, you say
"jinduh," as I do.

-Wilson

On 4/27/07, sagehen <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "like" avoidance/correction
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >John Baker noted that:
> >>
> >>         MWDEU notes the hypercorrective tendency of some writers to
> >> avoid "like" even as a preposition.
> >
> >I wonder if people avoid "like" in some settings because it can also be a
> >verb.
> >
> >Complete the sentence: "Some people like me ..."
> >
> >a) feel strongly about the president.
> >b) and some don't.
> >
> >Of course, if I wanted a) I would have put a comma after "people" but this
> >distinction is lost in speech.
> >
> >"Like" may just be problematic, rather the way "sex" has been replaced by
> >"gender" even when the biological, not the bawdy, meaning of the former is
> >intended.
> >
> >Marc Sacks
> >msacks at theworld.com
>  ~~~~~~~~
> I think the distinction most people would make between "sex" & "gender" is
> not that one is biological & t'other bawdy, but that "sex" can be both
> biological & bawdy, while "gender" has more to do with identity,
> socialization & assigned roles.
> AM
>
> ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
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-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens
------
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                                           Rumanian proverb

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