The word "Man"

[Perfection]

Actually, I find people best.

"People" lacks the universality that mankind and humanity have.

Some words are clearly insults and should not be
unnecessarily used in polite company, but otherwise
people should use whatever commonly understood
words they like. Not doing that is a surrender.

A surrender to what?

 

[ummmm........]

It's no more or less sexist for an English speaker to use "man" to mean "humankind" than it is for a German speaker to use the gender specific pronouns for all the nouns of that language.

That said, I avoid its use because I know it will generate threads such as this. Which sucks, because sometimes you need a one syllable word for humanity to make your sentence flow . . .

 

[Kyriakos]

It doesnt matter; im sure that in a decade or two the main english word for man (human, meaning mankind) will be anthropos too

 

[cgannon64]

Using 'man' to mean 'mankind' is technically sexist, but it is nowhere near sexist in spirit. The only argument against it would be to say that literally and unconsciously sexist language can turn one into a conscious sexist, which is absurd.

Also, I should mention that is gramatically correct to use 'he' when the gender is unknown. Call me a sexist, but I'm saying 'he' instead of the ugly, ugly 'he/she'.

 

[Perfection]

Also, I should mention that is gramatically correct to use 'he' when the gender is unknown. Call me a sexist, but I'm saying 'he' instead of the ugly, ugly 'he/she'.

Perhaps, but with a bit of creativity you can usually avoid the situation althogether. Changing your subject to third-person plural or second person works almost all the time.

 

[JohnRM]

This is a continuation of a discussion that began in the Election for Minister of Science thread in the CivIV Demogame forum.
Short summary:
*Koonrad used the word "Man" as a synonyme for "humanity".
*I wrote that doing so was sexist.
*Everyone disagreed with me.
*Some people did however agree that parts of the English language might be sexist.
*There was also some general debate about political correctness.

Words can be interpreted many ways, but the only meant one way. "Mankind" or similar terms have been founded, based in sexism, but its use today, by most, is not.

 

[Hundegesicht]

A question for all of you who think referring to humanity as "man" is sexist: shouldn't we call it "huwymanity" then? How is "human" any less sexist than "man"?

 

[JohnRM]

Surely there are more pressing issues to be concerned about.

 

[ummmm........]

Surely there are more pressing issues to be concerned about.

If you believed that you wouldn't be here.

 

[Taliesin]

A question for all of you who think referring to humanity as "man" is sexist: shouldn't we call it "huwymanity" then? How is "human" any less sexist than "man"?

A good point, since guman ("yoo-mahn") was just a variation on man to the average Anglo-Saxon.

For the record, I prefer "man" to "humanity", and use the male pronoun for a person of indeterminate gender.

 

[DaveShack]

Perhaps, but with a bit of creativity you can usually avoid the situation althogether. Changing your subject to third-person plural or second person works almost all the time.

It's sad that English grammar is being butchered in this way because of PC. It is gramatically incorrect to take a 3rd person singular subject and then use either second person or a plural form to avoid using the correct pronoun for third person singular indeterminate gender. What you often end up with is either a completely awkward and grammatically incorrect dependent clause, or the politically correct but grammatically incorrect substitution of the female version of the pronoun.

The mail carrier tried to deliver the mail, but a large dog chased xxxx off the property.

What should be substituted for xxxx?

• them is incorrect, number does not match the subject
• her is incorrect, (by the formal language definition) because gender is not known
• it is incorrect, because a non personal pronoun may not be substituted for a personal subject
• mail carrier is just plain awkward, the whole point of having pronouns in the first place is to avoid having to repeat longer forms
• him is the correct usage -- like it or not, by the formal definition of English, this is the only pronoun which can correctly be used if the gender of the mail carrier is unknown
• him/her is a misguided attempt to avoid the implicit sexism. It's a shame that a few women who were so uncomfortable with their womanhood that they couldn't bear to be called "him" even by proxy could do this to the language.

As for man (generic) vsmankind vs humankind vs people, the advent of mass media will result in rapid linguistic change over the next few decades. Maybe we'll see yet another word substituted for these.

 

[Perfection]

It's sad that English grammar is being butchered in this way because of PC. It is gramatically incorrect to take a 3rd person singular subject and then use either second person or a plural form to avoid using the correct pronoun for third person singular indeterminate gender.

I don't advocate that. I advocate swapping out the 3rd person singular subject and putting in 3rd person plural subject or a second person subject instead.

Instead of saying "the user should use his keyboard", say "the users should use thier keyboards" or "you should use your keyboard".

It's both grammatically and politically correct!

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Instead of saying "the user should use his keyboard", say "the users should use thier keyboards" or "you should use your keyboard".

It's both grammatically and politically correct!

But stylistically it sucks....

Perfection, how would you re-write DaveShack's mail carrier sentence then ? Going for plural or 2nd person clearly won't work, and while you can reorganise the sentence to convey the same basic information, you'll end up (subtly) changing the message.

 

[The Last Conformist]

A question for all of you who think referring to humanity as "man" is sexist: shouldn't we call it "huwymanity" then? How is "human" any less sexist than "man"?

As the plural for "humans" indicates, "human" is not perceived as a compound containing "man". This even happens to be historically correct - it's "hum-", the same stem as in "humility", plus the adj-former "-an", as in "American".

 

[Che Guava]

I don't have much of a problem with people using 'man' to refer to humanity, but it's something I avoid myself in the hopes that some day soon we can rub out some of the little 'sexisms' in our language

A follow up question: how do people use the word 'guy'. I tend to use it as a unisex term (a group of males and females I'll refer to as 'guys'), but I have had some women take slight offense to the term when applied to them. Anyone else out there that uses 'guys' for m's and f's alike?

 

[thetrooper]

As for viewing American pop culture from a distance, I always thought that 'guys' is in fact a unisex term.

 

[Perfection]

But stylistically it sucks....

You think so?

Perfection, how would you re-write DaveShack's mail carrier sentence then ? Going for plural or 2nd person clearly won't work, and while you can reorganise the sentence to convey the same basic information,

In the rare case where third person singular of a person of unknown gender the workaround is often trickier and requiring of more creativity. Often it is dependant on authorial intent. One potential subsitution would be "the mail wasn't delivered because a large dog chased the carrier off the prperty"

you'll end up (subtly) changing the message.

Yeah, but who cares?

 

[classical_hero]

This discussion reminds of an episode of a cartoon. Basically all references to anything masculine was removed so a few things changed.
E.g. Hebrew became Webrew
Mailman became Personperson
And so on. That episode was quite funny. It was from the series called Duckman.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

@Perfection

Regards the style point, perhaps it depends on how formal your English education was ? (I don't know, I'm just putting forward a hypothesis.) Certainly my reaction to your initial suggestion was exactly the same as DaveShack's, and it feels yours is just a milder version of the "womyn" type of defacement of the language.

As regards who cares if the meaning changes, well, if I'm the reader or the author, I care. Saying "who cares" I think indicates that your desire to be non-sexist in your communication is greater than your desire to use all of the methods open to you to communicate as precisely as possible. Which is fine, but my priorities are different.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Now, what's wrong with "him/her" except it offends your sensibilities?