[Ads-l] Berkeley and gender neutral words

[Mark Mandel]

Laurence is right, of course. My fingers make their own way across the
Swype virtual keyboard of my smartphone.

"Adventuress", though, is quite distinct from "adventurer". From the AHD, (
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Adventuress):

Adventuress
A woman who seeks social and financial advancement by unscrupulous means.
See Usage Note at -*ess*.

(https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=-ess)
Usage Note: When used in occupational terms like *waitress, stewardess, *and*
sculptress*, the feminine suffix -*ess* is sometimes considered sexist and
demeaning because it gratuitously calls attention to gender. With some
nouns, like *poetess* or *sculptress*, the feminine form may be taken to
imply that the task somehow differs when performed by a woman, or that it
is by default the realm of men. With others, such as *seamstress*, the
feminine form may be taken to suggest the occupation is characteristically
feminine. In some cases, such as *sculptor*, the term with masculine gender
has become effectively neuter, applying naturally to either sex. In other
cases, gender-neutral terms like *server* and *flight attendant* have been
created, finessing the problem of using an originally masculine noun to
refer to either sex. A few specialized examples persist in fields in which
the sex of the referent is relevant, sometimes for historical reasons,
including *chiefess* in anthropology, *goddess* in history and literature,
and *lioness* in biology. Other cases, like *webmistress*, represent arch
reclaimings of the -*ess* suffix, but these are whimsical or ironic
exceptions. · Many nouns ending in *-or* or *-er *are commonly used of
women now and should be considered standard. In our 1997 survey, 95 percent
of the Usage Panel approved *The gallery is exhibiting work of sculptor
Barbara Hepworth*, and in our 2016 survey, 88 percent accepted *Meryl
Streep was one of five actors to receive an Oscar nomination for leading
woman this year*. It should be noted tyear. It should be noted that 85
percent of the panelists also accepted a similar sentence with *actresses*,
indicating that in some cases, despite the prevalence of gender-neutral
terms like *actor*, the -*ess* form maintains its acceptability. However,
when discussing mixed-sex groups, *actors* is preferred over *actors and
actresses.* Ninety-three percent of the panelists accepted *Meryl Streep
was one of four actors presented with honorary doctorates yesterday,
together with Robert Duvall, Helen Mirren, and Javier Bardem*, whereas only
67 percent accepted a similar sentence with *actors and actresses *in place
of *actors*. See Usage Note at *man*.



MAM


On Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 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.”
>
> Mark’s finger meant “of” rather than “or”; the claim as it stands is
> rather too strong.  More seriously, I don’t get the argument to replace
> “heir”, which is parallel to “actor” and arguably also to “poet”.  By all
> means, let’s dump “heiress”, “adventuress”, “actress”, “sculptress”, or
> “poetess”, although it could be (and has been) argued that “actress”
> performs a service that the others don’t, at least until sex-neutral
> casting becomes universal; the tradeoff for sex specification may be deemed
> worth it.  “Waitress” is another case, and I grant we all have different
> cutoff points. (Mine is rather different from Jon’s, for example.)  But the
> fact that “heiress” can be plausibly argued to be sexist on the grounds
> that it marks sex of the referent when it’s irrelevant, I don’t see why
> that consideration should infect “heir”, which as noted below really is
> just ‘one who’, on grounds of both usage and etymology.
>
> LH
>
>

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