Linux Google OS coming..

[Hal Ashburner-2]

Brendan Jurd wrote:

> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich@...>:
>  
>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>    
>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>>      
>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>> circumstances it still means male.
>>    
>
> Maybe.  But have you got a better alternative?
>
> "People"?  Too formal.
> "Peeps"?  Retarded.
> "Folks"?  Old fashioned.
>
>  

I'd rather be mistaken for old fashioned than something else folks. :)

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[Jack Kelly-3]

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Brendan Jurd<direvus@...> wrote:

> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich@...>:
>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>
>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>> circumstances it still means male.
>
> Maybe.  But have you got a better alternative?
>
> "People"?  Too formal.
> "Peeps"?  Retarded.
> "Folks"?  Old fashioned.
> "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"?  Oops, male.
> "Dude"?  Often too informal and more male than "guy".
>
> My point is that when you're trying to use gender-neutral language,
> your options are limited.  It's very frustrating.  In today's
> environment of gender equality, it's natural to want to talk in a way
> that doesn't discriminate between male and female.  Especially as
> doing otherwise can get you into serious trouble.  But the language
> just isn't set up for that.  We have to make do with what we have.
> I'm in favour of just treating "guy" as neutral, and hoping that usage
> takes further hold.

Agreed.

I tend to use "guy" informally, and either "-human" as a suffix or
argue that "-man" is a shortening of "-human" (often ineffectively,
probably because I'm wrong ;-)).

Example: "sportshumans". (But not "sportsguys".)

Anything to stop the verbosity of e.g., "sports man or woman".

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[Eyal Lebedinsky]

People

We are way off topic here but...

What is the argument about? Last time I counted it was actually a fair bet
to assume 'male' on this list. Regardless of what some of you feel, this is
a fact. So I expect that whatever term we use most will read 'male' anyway.

In other forums the argument may be more relevant. An example where many of
us 'males' can get a feel of being on the other side of the fence: think
about reading company email (for me about 1500 employees, maybe 30 in the
southern hemisphere) talking about 'next spring'. It stands out, I would
rather this term was not used, but I will not go on the barricades to force
this. I actually got used to this 'dialect'. Same goes for most global
forums in my experience.

And to get a balanced (in a way) view of what people consider neutral, can
we have some of the *female people* (this sounds very odd to me) say what
*they* find acceptable and practical?

cheers
        Eyal

Jack Kelly wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Brendan Jurd<direvus@...> wrote:
>> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich@...>:
>>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>> Only in limited circumstances. �For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>>> circumstances it still means male.
>> Maybe. �But have you got a better alternative?
>>
>> "People"? �Too formal.
>> "Peeps"? �Retarded.
>> "Folks"? �Old fashioned.
>> "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"? �Oops, male.
>> "Dude"? �Often too informal and more male than "guy".
>>
>> My point is that when you're trying to use gender-neutral language,
>> your options are limited. �It's very frustrating. �In today's
>> environment of gender equality, it's natural to want to talk in a way
>> that doesn't discriminate between male and female. �Especially as
>> doing otherwise can get you into serious trouble. �But the language
>> just isn't set up for that. �We have to make do with what we have.
>> I'm in favour of just treating "guy" as neutral, and hoping that usage
>> takes further hold.
>
> Agreed.
>
> I tend to use "guy" informally, and either "-human" as a suffix or
> argue that "-man" is a shortening of "-human" (often ineffectively,
> probably because I'm wrong ;-)).
>
> Example: "sportshumans". (But not "sportsguys".)
>
> Anything to stop the verbosity of e.g., "sports man or woman".
>
> -- Jack

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[Daniel Pittman]

Brendan Jurd <direvus@...> writes:

> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich@...>:
>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>
>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>> circumstances it still means male.
>
> Maybe.  But have you got a better alternative?
>
> "People"?  Too formal.
> "Peeps"?  Retarded.
> "Folks"?  Old fashioned.

As others said, better old fashioned in some cases.

[...]

> My point is that when you're trying to use gender-neutral language, your
> options are limited.

I find I get on fairly well sticking to "can anyone", "they all", "y'all", and
other terms.  ...or names.  Names work wonders for addressing specific
conversation, and general comment without identifiers for a good deal of the
rest of it.

[...]

> I'm in favour of just treating "guy" as neutral, and hoping that usage takes
> further hold.

Good luck.  Generally, though, expect that to be a hard slog to get accepted,
because the starting point is quite so gender-specific.

Regards,
        Daniel

My favorite option, "you earthling skumsuckers!", never seemed to gain the
traction I felt it richly deserved.

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[Jim Croft]

> I find I get on fairly well sticking to "can anyone", "they all", "y'all", and
> other terms.  ...or names.  Names work wonders for addressing specific
> conversation, and general comment without identifiers for a good deal of the
> rest of it.

In the singular, 'you' has proven to be useful, even though I know
that they know that I know that they know that I can not remember
their name...

> "you earthling skumsuckers!", never seemed to gain the
> traction I felt it richly deserved.

Don't know why.  There seemed to be a whole bunch of similar beings
sucking vast amounts of congealing organic scum (sorry, pizza) at the
last CLUG meeting.

jim

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[matt andrews-3]

2009/7/11 Daniel Pittman <daniel@...>:

> Brendan Jurd <direvus@...> writes:
>> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich@...>:
>>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>>
>>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>>> circumstances it still means male.
>>
>> Maybe.  But have you got a better alternative?
>>
>> "People"?  Too formal.
>> "Peeps"?  Retarded.
>> "Folks"?  Old fashioned.
>
> As others said, better old fashioned in some cases.

Within CLUG, surely the obvious term is "geek".

For the wider population... hmmm... "cat"? "hoopy frood"?  "Muggle"?

Wait, I have an incoming on my neurimplant... OK, got it.  The
approved term is "citizen".
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[Lana Brindley]

2009/7/11 matt andrews <wantok@...>

> 2009/7/11 Daniel Pittman <daniel@...>:
> > Brendan Jurd <direvus@...> writes:
> >> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich@...>:
> >>> Chris Smart wrote:
> >>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
> >>>
> >>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot
> of
> >>> circumstances it still means male.
> >>
> >> Maybe.  But have you got a better alternative?
> >>
> >> "People"?  Too formal.
> >> "Peeps"?  Retarded.
> >> "Folks"?  Old fashioned.
> >
> > As others said, better old fashioned in some cases.
>
> Within CLUG, surely the obvious term is "geek".
>
> For the wider population... hmmm... "cat"? "hoopy frood"?  "Muggle"?
>
> Wait, I have an incoming on my neurimplant... OK, got it.  The
> approved term is "citizen".

My vote's with "hoopy frood" ... but only if they know where their towels
are.

I like the idea of "geek" as a non-gender specific term, though. It makes me
happy :)

And to cast my ideas in to the fray: what about "people", or just
"everyone"?

L

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to read reviews.
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[Jim Croft]

> My vote's with "hoopy frood" ... but only if they know where their towels
> are.

or 'droogs', depending out your disposition and outlook on the day...

jim

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[Neill Cox-4]

Absent pre-compiled updates it doesn't seem terribly useful to me either.

I can evaluate it for free, but I can't legally use it for free after that
evaluation.

In fact it seems that Red Hat's support rep uses the same definitions as
Chris:

Me: "So, essentially we can't run RHEL without a subscription?"
> Her: "If you actually run RHEL you have to have a valid subscription
> period. The machines will not die, but you will be in breach of using
> the agreement of the service. You will stop getting updates after this
> time, no security bug fixes and stuff, but once you renew the
> subscription, it will open again."
>

So at least two people on this list and one RH support rep seem to be using
the same definition of "run" :)

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:02 PM, James Polley <clug@...> wrote:

[SNIP]


> It's not true iff you define "run" as "be able to get pre-compiled
> updates".
> Only one person uses this definition - you.
>
> Under any sensible definition of "run", lana was correct.
>
>  <https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux>
>

Disclaimer:  I really like Red Hat as a company.  They got me started with
Linux and they contribute massively to the FOSS community.  I wish more
companies were as well behaved as them.
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[Alex Satrapa-2]

On 10/07/2009, at 23:32 , Jacinta Richardson wrote:

> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a  
> lot of
> circumstances it still means male.

The discussion of gender-neutral pronouns even has it's own Wikipedia  
page :)  The problem is much older than the "there are no sheilas on  
the intertubes" argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun

For the moment, I'll stick to using "he" as the gender neutral pronoun  
(along with man/men for the collective noun, as per "Firemen" and  
"policemen") mainly because I'm too lazy to invent a new pronoun.

As a fan of LambdaMOO, I'm keen on the idea of *e, *er and *eir as  
pronouns. Though I never could figure out how to pronounce the splat  
properly.

Alex



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[Lana Brindley]

2009/7/12 Alex Satrapa <grail@...>

>
>
> As a fan of LambdaMOO, I'm keen on the idea of *e, *er and *eir as
> pronouns. Though I never could figure out how to pronounce the splat
> properly.
>
> Alex
>

LambdaMOO? My goodness, I'm having flashbacks ... !

L



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to read reviews.
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[Paul Wayper]

On 11/07/09 10:21, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
>
> What is the argument about? Last time I counted it was actually a fair bet
> to assume 'male' on this list. Regardless of what some of you feel, this is
> a fact. So I expect that whatever term we use most will read 'male' anyway.

Yeah, great way to make any women readers feel welcome - assume they're male.

> And to get a balanced (in a way) view of what people consider neutral, can
> we have some of the *female people* (this sounds very odd to me) say what
> *they* find acceptable and practical?

I think they - Lana and Jacinta - did.  I think you'll find they're the ones
who said "guy" isn't a unisex term, starting this whole subtopic off.

And don't think it's just women who get annoyed at the assumption that there's
only one gender.  I get pissed off at it too, and a fair few other Open Source
geeks that I know as well.  And I'm tired of the circular nature of the
situation - "we never get any women on this list, so we can safely offend any
women that might think of joining".  Personally, I'd like people to stick to
gender neutral terms, even at the cost of being overly formal.

Have fun,

Paul
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[Jacinta Richardson-2]

Alex Satrapa wrote:

> On 10/07/2009, at 23:32 , Jacinta Richardson wrote:
>
>> Only in limited circumstances.  For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>> circumstances it still means male.
>
> The discussion of gender-neutral pronouns even has it's own Wikipedia
> page :)  The problem is much older than the "there are no sheilas on the
> intertubes" argument.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun

Good link.

> For the moment, I'll stick to using "he" as the gender neutral pronoun
> (along with man/men for the collective noun, as per "Firemen" and
> "policemen") mainly because I'm too lazy to invent a new pronoun.

Be aware that if you choose to use "he", "man" and "men" as gender neutral terms
that a very large portion of your audience will not see those terms as gender
neutral and will instead view you as being exclusionary.  I agree that they were
historically used as if gender neutral, but I think that has a lot more to do
with the relative positions of men and women historically, plus the gendered
nature of most European languages, than the correctness in doing so.  Words are
political beasts.  ;)

Many of the Christian clergy will tell you that when Jesus spoke of his "Father"
he was referring to a familial position of respect rather than making a specific
declaration of God's gender.  They will assert that we say He and His with
respect to God as a common language short hand without implying that God has a
gender.  Yet the vast majority of people view God as male because of our
language about Him and associated imagery.  To talk about God in a feminine
sense is (and has been for a few centuries) an unusual, almost rebellious thing
to do, verging on blasphemy to some.

I would rather redraft what I am writing a few times in order to make sure it
says what I mean, and to make sure that most people will understand it to mean
the same thing, than use language short-cuts that cause parts of my target
audience to feel excluded.  Not to miss that using "he" in a gender neutral
sense can lead to some very strange sentences:

        Before starting the procedure the doctor must ask the patient if he has
        any contra-indicating issues such as pregnancy, breast-feeding, high
        blood pressure or haemophilia.

I am very happy about how our language is changing to allow the titles in
professions to remove their gendered labels.  We have police officers, fire
fighters; instead of police men and fire men.  We have the meeting chair, rather
than chair man.  Many professions weren't labelled as such anyway: engineer,
baker, cleaner, soldier, doctor, nurse, teacher, physicist, researcher,
programmer.  Then there are the -ress professions:
        actor/actress    =>  actor
        waiter/waitress =>  serving staff
etc.  These are being worked around too.

All the best,

        J

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[Chris Smart-6]

2009/7/14 Paul Wayper <paulway@...>:
> Yeah, great way to make any women readers feel welcome - assume they're
> male.
>

I believe the opposite of "male" is "female". I don't think we should
be assuming that the only females on this list are women.

-c
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[Dale Shaw]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Chris Smart<mail@...> wrote:
>
> I don't think we should
> be assuming that the only females on this list are women.

Huh?

Even 'Bing' was no help to me.

(let's not get TOO carried away with political correctness.)

cheers,
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[Chris Smart-6]

2009/7/14 Dale Shaw <dale.shaw@...>:
>
> Huh?

Well for one, there might be girls on the list who would not
appreciate being labeled as older females.

-c
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[Dale Shaw]

Hi,

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Chris Smart<mail@...> wrote:
> 2009/7/14 Dale Shaw <dale.shaw@...>:
>>
>> Huh?
>
> Well for one, there might be girls on the list who would not
> appreciate being labeled as older females.

OK, I admit I didn't think of that scenario (not that I would lose any
sleep over that particular cyber faux pas), but Wikipedia kinda lets
me get away with it, and Wikipedia knows *everything*

If there are more, refer to previous comment re: political correctness.

cheers,
Dale
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[Sam Couter-2]

Chris Smart <mail@...> wrote:
> I believe the opposite of "male" is "female".

Somebody mentioned this before, but what about those who are not
distinctively male or female? Ambiguous genitalia is more common than
you might think. On earth at least, I'm not sure about Betelgeusians.
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[Chris Smart-6]

2009/7/14 Sam Couter <sam@...>:
> Somebody mentioned this before, but what about those who are not
> distinctively male or female? Ambiguous genitalia is more common than
> you might think. On earth at least, I'm not sure about Betelgeusians.

Without getting too stupid about it, I think the main point is that
no-one should go out of their way to be deliberately disrespectful to
anyone, for any reason. Having said that, I don't believe that anyone
has used male-centric language to deliberately alienate any females on
this list, either.

The list is everyone's. Male and female, young and old, and people
should be free to speak how they choose.

At the same time however, there needs to be some degree of
consideration for others. Perhaps, however, people should not get so
easily offended by socially understood meanings of words like "guys",
which in the informal means persons of either sex.

-c
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[Jim Croft]

you males and females can argue all you want.

we apomicts don't need either of you...

jim

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 9:54 PM, Sam Couter<sam@...> wrote:

> Chris Smart <mail@...> wrote:
>> I believe the opposite of "male" is "female".
>
> Somebody mentioned this before, but what about those who are not
> distinctively male or female? Ambiguous genitalia is more common than
> you might think. On earth at least, I'm not sure about Betelgeusians.
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