Re: Political Correctness Re: Manmonth or Peoplemonth?

[Kevin McLauchlan <KMcLauchlan -at- CHRYSALIS-ITS -dot- COM>]

Not far away on the digest, I found posts about translation.
That it is considered relevant to this list suggests that many of
us must deal with having our work appear in other languages.
That is, what begins in English will very likely become French
and German and Dutch and many more.

Let us, then, take up the banner of political correctness and
go trounce those French.  They're really asking for it. They
assign non-gender-neutral status to every noun in their language,
and then they torture every adjective, etc. until it goes
along with this un-PC abomination!  And the Germans! Oh, God
(whoops! was I allowed to say that?), the Germans. They've got
THREE genders, built right into the language, and they STILL
refuse to neuter everything.  They're taunting us, I tell you!



Oh, by the way, my observation of the PC-language thing is
that the formerly-standard usage (man, mankind, he, him, etc.
for indeterminate or group designation) was not a problem to
anybody until a few vocal people decided to *make* it a problem
and then harangued us all until it became a fait-accompli.
Nobody was oppressed *by that aspect of the language* until
political types groped around and found something to make into
a lever and to mis-represent as representative of what they
were *really* (and legitimately) beefing about.  The whole PC
thing tends to attenuate and diminish the real problems it
tries to highlight.  By tying PC-ness of speech and written
word to the struggle against certain practices, the politicizers
have set up that same struggle to suffer, undeserved, the
backlash that (even now) is hitting PC-ness.

Twas ever thus.

I'd hate to see the english tech-writing industry become the
equivalent of the "Office de la langue francaise" in Quebec...
a laughing-stock.

I think I'll go out for a hambourgois, now.



PS:  My reaction to the evil "he, him" thing is to throw it in,
       unapologetically, now and then.  And other times, I
       use "she, her" just as unapologetically.  I try to not mix
       'em in the same paragraph, though.

PPS:  Any New Yorkers, on the list, who live or work on
       Peoplehattan Island?  Or should that be Staffhattan?


Kevin McLauchlan
kmclauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com    (aka  kevinmcl -at- netrover -dot- com)
Techy writer, duffer skydiver, full-time unrepentant chocoholic

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rebecca Stevenson [SMTP:rstevens -at- HUBDATA -dot- COM]
> Sent: Monday, April 26, 1999 3:53 PM
> Subject:      Re: Political Correctness Re: Manmonth or Peoplemonth?
>
> This is an issue of considerable contention right now in the English
> language. I understand that it is generally agreed that the "generic he"
> is in fact no such thing, as suggested by a number of linguistic studies
> (I can dig up references if anyone wants). There are still quite a few
> arguments going on over what to replace it with, of course.
>
        [snip]


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