Linux Google OS coming..

[Jack Kelly-3]

Greetings fellow sentients:

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 10:14 PM, Chris Smart<mail@...> wrote:
> 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.

You don't need to know the details, but I assure you it's complicated;
more so than the Tralfamadorian model of human reproduction. While our
genetic engineers are trying to simplify matters (inspired to a degree
by sentient apomicts), a breakthrough is still several megacycles
away.

> 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.

That is also the impression I get. Does anyone have any counter-examples?

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

Agreed, within reason, as you said below.

> 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.
^-- This.

This somewhere-in-the-vicinity-of-Betelgeusian is happy to expand the
generic term "guy" to cover sentients of any race.

(Okay, joke's over.)

-- Jack
--
linux mailing list
linux@...
https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux

[Paul Wayper]

On 14/07/09 21:17, Chris Smart 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.

Ahhhh, you think that "women" is a label for an "older" female and that
"younger" females object to being so labelled?  How quaintly patriarchal...
And how curiously in contrast to your inclusive comment of 'Pretty sure "guy"
is a unisex term these days'.

I really hope you don't think you were actually 'helping' with your 'women'
comment there...

Have fun,

Paul
--
linux mailing list
linux@...
https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux

[Francis Whittle-2]

On Tue, 2009-07-14 at 20:55 +1000, Jacinta Richardson wrote:
> 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.  ;)

Oddly enough this should only apply to "his" and "him" (and also "man"
if you want a noun).  The gender-neutral term covering the nominative
and accusative cases was "hit" in Old English (now the derived "it") – I
think a larger portion of the audience will take offence to being
referred to as "it" though.
Curiously I've never found any information about a neutral plural term
(like 'we' or 'they') except that "him" (I guess "them" is a derived
term) also applied here for all genders; I assume the language used the
masculine terms hiē (they) and hiera (their) were used in the mixed or
neutral case here.

On the other hand wermann and wifmann are very clearly distinguished,
and the neutral term is mann (from which man is derived).  A logical
modern equivalent to the masculine form is either weman or wereman (or
even herman), but for some unknown reason that didn't happen and now the
word "man" is broken.
We also have oddities such as not actually being able to refer to a male
spouse in one word with a gender-specific term – "Husband" is derived
from the words for house and dweller (and in itself may not necessarily
refer to a male, although it probably will).

> 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.

Others would argue that since Jesus the Nazarene already had a mother,
"father" made more sense.  Also it's easier to say than "omniscient
parental figure," presumably even in Hebrew (and you *have* to choose
one or the other in Latin).

> 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'm a big fan of just blurting out what comes into my head, but in
formal writing where the gender of the subject is indeterminate I'll
tend to stick with ‘they’ and derivative words ­– the doctor must ask
the patient if they have blah blah blah.
Not to mention that ‘he’ is not a language short cut.  In modern English
we don't have a singular neutral declension there, and therefore must
use the plural form in formal language.  In informal language you're
probably talking about a determinate object anyway.

> 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.

Ah, but "men" means the same as "persons" (or "people" depending on
context), especially when it's a suffix, so those aren't gender labels
as such as perceived as gender labels by some persons.  On the other
hand, it's like coding web sites for standards compliance – at some
point, someone's going to look at it with Internet Explorer 7 and see a
broken site.  Despite the fact that the problem only lies in their
browser being obsolete and stupid, they're going to complain.
Incidentally, so're the next forty thousand people who look at it with
IE7.  You can only win in these situations by dealing with what should
be a statistically irrelevant case.
The –(er)ess denomination was stupid to begin with.  Actor, waiter,
host, governor - none of these are gender-specific terms.  I guess out
of control segregationists just have nothing better to do with their
time.

Cheers,
Francis

--
linux mailing list
linux@...
https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux

[Neill Cox-4]

The problem is that in addition to their formal definition words carry  
connotation.

Also there is very little point in arguing about what words used to  
mean. It is a fact that some words are now perceived as having gender  
bias by most people. Arguing that they shouldn't does not change the  
fact that they do.  If we choose to use forms that are perceived to  
carry such bias then people may infer that we have such bias.

Regards,
Neill Cox

On 15/07/2009, at 3:52 AM, Francis James Whittle  
<fudje@...> wrote:

> On Tue, 2009-07-14 at 20:55 +1000, Jacinta Richardson wrote:
>> 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.  ;)
>
> Oddly enough this should only apply to "his" and "him" (and also "man"
> if you want a noun).  The gender-neutral term covering the nominative
> and accusative cases was "hit" in Old English (now the derived "it")
>  – I
> think a larger portion of the audience will take offence to being
> referred to as "it" though.
> Curiously I've never found any information about a neutral plural term
> (like 'we' or 'they') except that "him" (I guess "them" is a derived
> term) also applied here for all genders; I assume the language used  
> the
> masculine terms hiē (they) and hiera (their) were used in the mixed  
> or
> neutral case here.
>
> On the other hand wermann and wifmann are very clearly distinguished,
> and the neutral term is mann (from which man is derived).  A logical
> modern equivalent to the masculine form is either weman or wereman (or
> even herman), but for some unknown reason that didn't happen and now  
> the
> word "man" is broken.
> We also have oddities such as not actually being able to refer to a  
> male
> spouse in one word with a gender-specific term – "Husband" is deriv
> ed
> from the words for house and dweller (and in itself may not  
> necessarily
> refer to a male, although it probably will).
>
>> 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.
>
> Others would argue that since Jesus the Nazarene already had a mother,
> "father" made more sense.  Also it's easier to say than "omniscient
> parental figure," presumably even in Hebrew (and you *have* to choose
> one or the other in Latin).
>
>> 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'm a big fan of just blurting out what comes into my head, but in
> formal writing where the gender of the subject is indeterminate I'll
> tend to stick with ‘they’ and derivative words – the doctor  
> must ask
> the patient if they have blah blah blah.
> Not to mention that ‘he’ is not a language short cut.  In modern  
> English we don't have a singular neutral declension there, and there
> fore must
> use the plural form in formal language.  In informal language you're
> probably talking about a determinskyview10@... object  
> anyway.
>
>> 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.
>
> Ah, but "men" means the same as "persons" (or "people" depending on
> context), especially when it's a suffix, so those aren't gender labels
> as such as perceived as gender labels by some persons.  On the other
> hand, it's like coding web sites for standards compliance – at some
> point, someone's going to look at it with Internet Explorer 7 and  
> see a
> broken site.  Despite the fact that the problem only lies in their
> browser being obsolete and stupid, they're going to complain.
> Incidentally, so're the next forty thousand people who look at it with
> IE7.  You can only win in these situations by dealing with what should
> be a statistically irrelevant case.
> The –(er)ess denomination was stupid to begin with.  Actor, waiter,
> host, governor - none of these are gender-specific terms.  I guess out
> of control segregationists just have nothing better to do with their
> time.
>
> Cheers,
> Francis
>
> --
> linux mailing list
> linux@...
> https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux

--
linux mailing list
linux@...
https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux