Sexist Words

[BabyRaptor]

vaguely remember extreme feminists making the news for calling the word manager sexist... it should be changed to personager

Personager? Seriously? That's just...I don't even know.

I'm trying to imagine being addressed as a "Personager." It's not working.

 

[Brandon237]

Political Correctness has gone too far, here we mostly worry about race... Damnit, it is not racist to point out what race someone is, it is only racist if you discriminate or judge them for it!

I refer to most things, games, cars, countries et cetera as she, only he if they are things that REALLY scream masculine...

 

[Jumping_Over_Fences]

I have recently noticed that they are trying to change the word "layman" to "layperson." I am strongly against this change.

 

[BaronUberstein]

At first I read this and I thought it said sexiest words.

reading it now, the thing that comes to mind is the who PC change about job positions typically held by men now being changed to person (even though I personally dont seem to see any of women in that particular profession).

Another thing i see it in is naming weapons (I know I have a sword I named faith), and cars (my old car was named victoria, my new one is named Elizabeth), and I get weird looks for both.

...
Sweden's is bigger.

http://satwcomic.com/art/geography-joke.jpg

...

But swedens is only visible when its gone. and what use is a member when you have to detach it for it be usable? especially since its always fighting with its biggest part?

Huh? Sweden was always in the picture, Norway was the country that left.

 

[emeraldrafael]

At first I read this and I thought it said sexiest words.

reading it now, the thing that comes to mind is the who PC change about job positions typically held by men now being changed to person (even though I personally dont seem to see any of women in that particular profession).

Another thing i see it in is naming weapons (I know I have a sword I named faith), and cars (my old car was named victoria, my new one is named Elizabeth), and I get weird looks for both.

...
Sweden's is bigger.

http://satwcomic.com/art/geography-joke.jpg

...

But swedens is only visible when its gone. and what use is a member when you have to detach it for it be usable? especially since its always fighting with its biggest part?

Huh? Sweden was always in the picture, Norway was the country that left.

*looks aroundi n a panic* Oh no, my weakness of geography has been revealed, but I must not let them know. quick, stun them with your wealth of medical knowledge

um.... DAMN!

...

Oka, my mistake. though I wonder how bad it would be to say that I honestly dont see a big enough difference to ever remember the two by their flags. I know the two flags, and I know they are the two countries, but i always mix up the flags.

 

[DaKiller]

http://satwcomic.com/art/geography-joke.jpg

..."snigger"?...

OT: I've gotten in trouble for using "sexist" words before but it isn't like she wasn't a mail lady dammit!

 

[Chemical Alia]

Most female variants of professions sound retarded anyway, so I'm all for gender neutral workplace titles. I like languages that don't need to specify gender for things like that, like Chinese for example. Even "he" and "she" are pronounced the same, and meaning is understood perfectly fine in context of what is being said.

 

[Mr.-3]

I feel gender neutral words are simply a distraction from real problems. Problems such as wages based on gender, race, height, & weight.

 

[enriel]

I've gotten pretty sick of the oversensitivity to words. I call things what I learned to call them. As long as both myself and the person with whom I am speaking both understand the what is being said and the context it is being said in, there should not be any problems.

If I talk about the mailman (even if it's a lady), people know what job I am referring to. I'm not saying mailman to be rude or degrade women in any way; it's just always been mailman as far as I am concerned.

Words only have as much power as you give them, so by choosing to try and change words because you think they're 'too hurtful' or whatever the reason, you're just being way too sensitive.

 

[Iron Mal]

I'll accept that a word is harmful and sexist as long as someone can take the time to come up with a good explanation as to why it is rather than just because 'it has man/woman in it!' (does this mean that the words man and woman are themselves inherantly sexist?).

Otherwise it tends to be the handy work of a few easily offended people (who sometimes have good, decent intentions) who don't quite have the right ideas as to how exactly they should help the issue.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I often wind up using gender neutral terms (like flight attendant, for example) because they tend to be more specific, and I generally prefer that.
Though certain gender neutral terms just don't quite sound right.
Anyone else remember the Woodsperson thing from Hey Arnold?
"Woodsperson? What the Heck is a Woodsperson?"
"We used to call them Woodsmen back where I come from, only that's Politically incorrect."

Man, How did that stick in my head word-for-word all these years..?

I remember that episode! *drifts into nostalgia*

Anyways, you got reprimanded for referring to a country as "she"? Why the hell is it called "America, the Beautiful" then? Are they saying America is a beautiful guy? And what about ships? They are always referred to in the feminine. Even if you called the ship "it", what do you call the first voyage? That's right...the "maiden voyage", a feminine term.

Sorry, that just bugs me. They didn't call the Stephen King book "Christopher", now did they?

 

[smearyllama]

You know what a sexist word is?
Wench.
But it wouldn't be if there were a male equivalent, right?
That's why Knave exists.
See?
We just need to balance everything out by being increasingly sexist towards each side.

 

[zehydra]

Language is a funny thing, and an awesome thing to study. I wish I could be like an expert on this and tell you all about why languages come up with sexist language (German does as well, get this: the German word for girl, Maedchen, literally means "Little maid").

I've also taken Japanese, and they have their own fair share of sexist language, like one of the words for wife: 家内 (pronounced Kanai = Ka + nigh) The first symbol, with the sound "Ka", means House or Home, and the second symbol "Nai", means Inside, or within.

So in japanese, one common word for wife is "Within the house".

Fun fun fun

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

You know what a sexist word is?
Wench.
But it wouldn't be if there were a male equivalent, right?
That's why Knave exists.
See?
We just need to balance everything out by being increasingly sexist towards each side.

But a wench is only a woman who pours the ale in a tavern. Or a woman who drinks a lot of ale...

 

[smearyllama]

You know what a sexist word is?
Wench.
But it wouldn't be if there were a male equivalent, right?
That's why Knave exists.
See?
We just need to balance everything out by being increasingly sexist towards each side.

But a wench is only a woman who pours the ale in a tavern. Or a woman who drinks a lot of ale...

A Game of Thrones, right?
You are a funny man.
It's really just one example, though.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

You know what a sexist word is?
Wench.
But it wouldn't be if there were a male equivalent, right?
That's why Knave exists.
See?
We just need to balance everything out by being increasingly sexist towards each side.

But a wench is only a woman who pours the ale in a tavern. Or a woman who drinks a lot of ale...

A Game of Thrones, right?
You are a funny man.
It's really just one example, though.

Dragon Age: Origins, actually.

 

[Paragon Fury]

People need to understand that language does this not to be sexist, but because it is important to be able to tell men/women simply at a glance, hence different words for different genders.

 

[Dogstile]

Here in Britain, while they try to make us politically correct, most people simply still don't give a shit.

Hell, even the teachers back in college would outwardly try to be politically correct and later on throughout the year would get tired of faking it and go back to how they actually talked. Its a waste of time and the only people who get offended are oversensitive.

In my not so humble opinion, because I'm going to assume i'm right. It'll be easier to go to sleep that way. Goodnight escapist.

 

[natural20]

We all have seen the not-so-subtle shift in the English language towards a more neutered approach to words, specifically, nouns. Equestrian instead of horseman; hero for both hero and heroine; flight attendants instead of steward or stewardess and etc. Although I'm not debating the merits of this change, am just asking if you guys use the gender neutral articles, nouns, and pronouns, or not?


Recently, I got reprimanded in class for using "she" when referring to a country.
Also, I've been told that this phenomenon is a lot less common in other countries than in USA.

Interestingly enough, a lot of languages have genders for most nouns. French, Spanish, and Italian have masculine and feminine versions of most jobs and all countries; German and Greek also have a neuter gender. As a language teacher, I can totally get behind you calling a country "She"; after all, the French and Spanish have feminine names for their proud nations.

In France, when Segolene Royale was running for president, the Academie (which is in charge of "standardizing" language) declared official feminine versions of president, doctor, and several other jobs as a matter of not political, but grammatical correctness. Fun fact!

 

[VladG]

Well, first off this anti-sexist vocabulary shift is more obvious in the US because A) they have a lot of cultural guild to wash off, B) English tends to attach the "-man" suffix to a profession to create the noun describing the person practicing said profession from back when "sexism" didn't really exist (sexism is valid when considering things such as "gender equality, women's rights and so on. Back then everyone knew they didn't exist, hence no sexism). Other languages do this less often if at all, so the problem doesn't exist.

That being said, I think this approach is nothing more than a weak attempt to paint over the issue without actually addressing it. Changing vocabulary won't change mentality.