Re: Gender neutral

Am 10 Jul 2006 09:30:53 -0700 schrieb UC:

mb wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
mb wrote:
Not here, but elsewhere. In fact, English has way, way less
interference of grammatical gender than a long list of different
tongues but surely it's the language that wastes the largest amount of
time, ink and saliva in the inane discussion of it.
[...]

But I think it's a political issue for English-speakers precisely
_because_ we don't have grammatical gender: our few feminine and
masculine forms do map to sex.

You got something there, but at a remove. It maps to sex only because
of the usual, total absence of thinking of us speakers. Where the
mapping is direct, as with mostly latinate words like actress / actor,
there is no major outcry.

You are mistaken. Feminists want NO marking of sex in language,
especially of occupations. 'Actor' is being used by some actresses.

Feminists in Germany want to have the separation. Because "Student"
(as most occupations) is grammatically masculine, they require the
usage of "Studentinnen und Studenten". The Joke goes "Liebe
Bürgermeisterinnen und Bürgermeister und Bürgerinnenmeister und
Bürgerinnenmeisterinnen".


Joachim
.

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