I dunno, moi, when the Apollo guys went the to moon “For All Mankind”, do you feel excluded?
Whoops, meant to bold but italicized by mistake.
The name of the song is God Bless the USA, not Proud to Be An American. A recent Reuters article even claimed there were two different Lee Greenwood songs, each with one of those titles.
I always thought that changes like this were more to: a) keep kids who’d sing the song from giggling and make jokes while singing it, and b) to keep from having to explain to kids who hear these jokes and don’t know what it means about the existence of homosexuals.
As opposed to fear of offending homosexuals, I mean.
IOW, it’s because kids are freakin’ immature. 
Is there any reason to think they didn’t have Greenwood’s permission to make the change? I mean, we’re talking about a network show, and a song that’s still under copyright. I kind of doubt they’d just screw around without asking.
The dreadful song chosen to replace God Save The Queen as our national anthem used to start
Australian sons let us rejoice
it now begins with
Australians all let us rejoice
it happens all the time and face it, have you listened to any dance tracks with sampling lately? There are much worse things that can be done to songs than changing a word to be more inclusive <shudder>.
“I can’t really manage to get worked up about this. Rewriting a lyric of a Lee Greenwood song is like trying to wash a turd.”
Best reply yet.
The “politically correct” sanitization of our language drives me nuts. And, ironically some not-so-savory regimes in history had their own version of language adjustments that we would visciously attack as as propoganda or brain washing. But I swear when this turd pops up on the radio, I’m hitting the tunner before I start puking. Really. This song actually makes me nauseous.
slight hijack, but HUH?
Giraffe: "When the song was written, only men were in the military.
Giraffe, did you mean to say that only men fought in combat when that song was written? Because women have been in the military for a loooooooooong Looooooooooong time.
Since way before Lee Greenwood was a twinkle in his grandaddy’s eye.
Statement: I was wrong about only men being in the military. I could argue that only recently have women been in the military in sizeable numbers (the military is currently 15% women, according to NPR last week), but it seems more efficient to just concede that I was smoking crack and having an episode.
‘men’ can mean ‘men and women’, no?
I hate that song, of course, like all good Americans.
But that line has always bugged me. If the writer is trying to be a patriot, surely he’s wanting to show his respect for all the soldiers.
If he’d written it right in the first place, we wouldn’t have to fix it now.
Everyone, please to easy on Lord Ashtar. He’s been upset ever since they tampered with the words of “To Anacreon in Heaven.”
Argh. "Everyone, please go easy …
This thing was doomed from the start.
Is there anyone out there who would have been offended if the song had not been changed? Is there anyone out there on the SDMB who would have felt that American Idol was ignoring the sacrifices made by the women who are risking their lives in Iraq? Wouldn’t it be a given that men and women were included?
BTW Giraffe, you have an interesting point. But I think that a love song where every “ooh Girl” was changed to an “ooh Boy” is something else entirely. I don’t believe the change on American Idol was meant to include. I think it was made to avoid bad publicity. YMMV.
Gah! I hate this argument!
Wouldn’t it be a given that men and women were included?
No. Quite honestly, when I’m included (I’m a chick, btw), I want to be literally included. When someone says, “Lord Ashtar, wanna have drinks?” I don’t want to have to wonder if the “moi” was implied or if I’m just not welcome. Which is what this use of “men” to sometimes mean “men and women” does.
To Bryan’s earlier point about “mankind,” I think I’ve kind of resolved that I think of this as “humankind” in all instances. Is it my favorite way to say things? No. Additionally, this across the board approach cannot be applied to “men.”
I guess I don’t see how it’s different. In both cases, you’re just changing the lyrics to be appropriate to who you’re singing the song to. Lee Greenwood wanted to sing it to the men in the military. The American Idol producers wanted it sung to everyone in the military. I think that’s nice. Changing pronouns is just not the same as changing lyrics to me. It’s not like they sang an Eminem song to the troops, changing all the “motherfuckers” to “kitten huggers”.
moi, I have no idea what religion you are. I must say, you strike me as the kind of person who would end grace with “a-woman.”
I think you should call the govenments of all countries who speak a Romance language. This would include Spanish, French, Portugese (I think) and Italian. If there is a group of people, and at least one of them is a man, they use the male plural pronoun. Perhaps you should make these countries aware that their languages are not policially correct.
As I said before, I don’t think they changed the lyrics to be more inclusive. I think they changed them to avoid bad publicity.
alexandra: “‘men’ can mean ‘men and women’, no?”
No!
Where you been? Minding things that really matter?
Tsk.
Shame on you.
… and change your name to ‘alexandrit’ already. Jeezus.