LL-L "Gender" 2008.03.21 (09) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 21 March 2008 - Volume 09
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From: orville crane <manbythewater at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Gender" 2008.03.21 (02) [E]

Kindness goes a long way, especially with someone who makes an error in
grammar. I ask myself, can I understand this person? Since I am not this
person's language teacher, I don't make a big deal about their mistakes. I
don't want to make the person feel any less, because they make grammatical
mistakes.

Language is like music. Unless you are tone deaf, you will eventually be
true to the melody.
Tom +
man by the water

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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Gender" 2008.03.21 (02) [E]

Ron wrote: "The greatest problem seems to be this "collective gender"
thing…"

You can say THAT again!  I've run across this kind of thing time and again.
 Here in the USA we have taken a sort of over-zealous stance in this regard.
 In an effort to avoid sexist statements, we've developed some almost
tortured ways of handling it.  I kind of envy the simplicity of Spanish and
Portuguese in this regard.

I develop training material for the staff in our Tele-Centers.  That means I
do a lot of writing.  We've tried to come up with good ways of handling this
problem, but I don't think we've completely succeeded.

When I want to write an instruction for what to tell one of our Unemployment
Insurance claimants, I have to work creatively with it.  Let's say I want to
tell our Customer Service Reps that the claimant should do something
specific.  I will write, "If the claimant cannot provide [possessive
pronoun] documents, then [subject pronoun] must request duplicates."  What
do I put in the space for the pronouns?  Spanish would say use the masculine
pronouns, and everyone will know it includes both genders.  Well, not in the
USA.  None of the solutions provide a satisfactory (IMO) outcome.  I can
try:

A. If the claimant cannot provide his or her documents, then he or she must
request duplicates.

B. If the claimant cannot provide the documents, then s/he must request
duplicates.

C. If claimants cannot provide their documents, then they must request
duplicates.

D. Alternate using he in one sentence and she in another.  But, that sounds
awkward.

E. Use he in one paragraph and she in another.  Better, but still awkward.

F. Alternate using he in one document and she in another.  But, that runs
the risk of appearing sexist anyway.

G. Make up a new non-gender pronoun like "le."

So far, option C has ruled the day, but it still doesn't solve the problem.
Mark Brooks

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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Gender" 2008.03.21 (02) [E]

 Hey Ron, Elsie, Ivison, All:

Subject: LL-L "Orthography"

Dear Maria Elsie Zinsser,

Ivison, you wrote: I'm really sorry I'd written "dear sirs". I did want to
sound sexist.
Next time I'll pay attention to it. As my first language is Portuguese I
didn't notice it, because to me the word "sirs" refers to ladies and
gentlemen. But thanks for your comments. You're right.
Dear Ivison, I hope your open invitation applies to me also. If so, allow me
please to point out that, in good English, collective honourifics &
collective nouns expressed in the masculine sense are not necessarily gender
specific.

To this day we can say, "Men rate Gunston Great!" & include women also in
that category *& *only offend the anti-tobacco lobby (I am a non-smoker). It
was deemed necessary over two hundred years ago to specify this point in
British Law, & it is still a legal joke to quote some otherwise banal judge
declaring to a jurist who may perhaps have seemed rather vague in this
matter, "Are you not aware, Sir, that since 1881 'man' embraces 'woman'? In
Victorian circles this sort of chaff was held to be fraitfulleh raceh,
y'know.

It is only social engineers whom I hold in little respect (they nearly
keldered Afrikaans) who are unwilling to let this little fact go, that when
I talk of dogs, I see no need to make equal reference to the bitches.

It is, if only in limited cases, so much better in the Taal. When we refer
to something applying to the community of Man as a whole, we say "mens", but
when the point applies only to a male of the species, we say "man", or
"mansmese"as opposed to "vroumense". Even so a little juggling is usually in
order. As a sex we are just different enough for it to be a relevant or at
least a pertinent consideration.Vive la difference!

Yrs,
Mark
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