discuss: Thread: On language usage [was: To or not to Wiki, a summary]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2005 at 10:36:23PM +0200, jdd wrote:
> Rick Moen wrote:
> >English is hopeless.  French is hopeless.  German is hopeless.  We
> >_could_ all switch to Turkish.  ;->
> >
> 
> greek? Latin?
> 

Well, it's a deep offtopic already... But maybe Lojban?

And, my 5 cents: in Ukrainian, there is no such stupidity as
sexist/non-sexist language; unless the content itself expresses a sexist
attitude, it's OK to use masculine gender as a "general substitute". No
one will make a fuss of it, even the most extreme feminists.

We also ROTFL hearing about all that "political correctness" stuff.
Unless the _content_ is offensive. There are major obstacles for the
freedom of speech, it comes out, in some countries -- you may say
whatever you want, but someone may sue you for a mere word you have
used to express your free thoughts.

Maybe this is what we should switch over to?..

Sorry for all that offtopic, I promise not to do it again...

-- 
X windows:  Power tools for Power Fools.

Quoting Yaroslav Fedevych ####@####.####

> And, my 5 cents: in Ukrainian, there is no such stupidity as
> sexist/non-sexist language; unless the content itself expresses a sexist
> attitude, it's OK to use masculine gender as a "general substitute".

That traditional assertion for English is heavily disputed; see Hofstadter's
"A Person Paper on Purity in Language" for why:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html


As long as we're adding language-specific notes, in the English
language, words can be gendered (e.g., actress); persons, by contrast,
can be spoken of in terms of either their sexes or their gender.  The
two latter concepts are _distinct_ -- and the wikipedia article
(predictably) flubs that distinction, using the (predictably) wrong word
for the covered concept.

That is:  One's sex is defined by reference to one's biological plumbing.
One's gender is defined by reference to psychological and sociological
role concepts, most commonly the gender concepts of "feminine" and
"masculine" (however those are construed locally).

People being denied access to housing/jobs/etc. is thus "sex
discrimination", _not_ the common erroneous usage "gender discrimination".
The latter would properly encompass such things as, e.g., a ban against
wearing of skirts imposed without regard to the wearer's sex.

Thus, also, the wikipedia article actually _ought_ to be entitled (and
speak of) "sex-neutral language", not "gender-neutral language" -- as the
former is its primary focus.  

That objection _was_ actually raised on the related discussion page, but 
not acted upon.  (The existing placement and wording appears to be an
unfortunate compromise, after prior wrangling.)