Because, bowing respectfully to feminists everywhere, and in full support of their cause in practically all respects, and then stamping my little feet in shrill demanding, I want a good strong one-syllable Anglo-Saxon word for “persons”! Walt Disney, not too long ago, could make a nice phrase like “imagination in the hearts of men” – nothing else works there! Not even “folk”! Why should this be lost to us?!
I wasn’t aware that everybody had stopped.
I understand your position, but while you have poetry on your side, the feminists have logic. I suppose we could mount a campaign to use *weres *for the male of the species, but I’m not hopeful.
How about we don’t, because no matter how badly you want it, “men” isn’t inclusive. When I go back and read old ads where men meant “all y’all”, I get the feeling of "Come on down, all you men (and bring along the little lady and the children too).
Unless you want to give up “men” as meaning “multiple males” and only define it as “multiple people of unknown or mixed gender”, then no, although that could make the men’s room interesting.
No, we may not.
Yes, we may.
Southerners do it with Y’All. Disney’s phrase could work with the inclusive “all” “Imagination in the hearts of all.” I just think it means you need to be more creative when composing your group addresses. All is a good choice, as are we, and us. “Imagination in the hearts of us all” works pretty well. Also your mono-syllabic restriction seems arbitrary. Humanity, people, everyone, there are many group pronouns which work just fine if you’re willing to go multi-syllabic.
In short. No. Men has too much baggage and the benefits of going back don’t outweigh the drawbacks.
Enjoy,
Steven
How about using “she” for both males and females? Seems to be all-inclusive to me.
When I was in the Training Department and had to write more memos than I do know, I used to alternate “he” and “she.” Annoyed everybody but me, so I stopped.
You can do what you want. It’s your language.
In a conflict between poetry and logic, poetry should always come out on top. Besides as I understand the feminists don’t really have logic on their side, as the word “men” is from the pan-Germanic “man” meaning person, it’s just that in English the same word is used for male.
It may comfort you to know that the Russian and Persian and French words for “person” are also two-syllables, French having also shifted politically from hommes to personnes or peuple, and Persian having been “odam” for millenia. Russian is “lyudi” which is specifically separate from “muzhchini”, men.
If “man” includes women, then am I a man? I would venture that “man” only includes women when men are already included. But it does not always include women.
Moreover, I would venture that one reason “imagination in the hearts of men” sounds so nice is that it sounds old-fashioned. True, it’s also iambic pentameter. But these are iambic pentameter as well:
Generic version: Imagination in the hearts of all…
Socialist version: Imagination in the people’s hearts…
Feminist version: Imagination in a woman’s heart…
Detached version: Imagination in a person’s heart…
Anatomically incorrect version: Imagination in the human heart… (Though, doesn’t “Imagination in the human mind” sound nice?)
The fact that you have considered this shows that you are a considerate person.
But I think you could be more considerate and proactive if you considered less sexist alternatives, rather than insisting on a return to the past. I am in my thirties and take my writing style seriously. At times I have had to really consider how to make something sound elegant and also talk about men and women in equal terms. I have found with a little effort it is always possible, and my children will be able to do it effortlessly because that will be their native tongue.
Thanks!
I detest the PC bullshit, and don’t give a crap. I regularly use man/men as a generic. Though poking fun at people, I use ‘mailhuman’ or ‘posthominid’, ‘chairdude’ and ‘chairdudette’. Our personperson gets a giggle out of being called a posthominid actually.
While the etymologies of words are interesting and instructive, the fact that 1500 years ago, people said wer for man, wyf for woman, and man for person is irrelevant to the current case of man meaning male person.
Do you mean you would refer to the same person, in the same document, as both “he” and “she”? This is something I’ve liked the idea of; just start using “he” and "she gender neutrally. And using them interchangably in this way is a nice way to cement the gender neutrality.
That’s another thing, can we please abolish the word “may” and merge it into “can” already?!
Too ethnic. Sounds like a pre-WWII Italian immigrant, calling even inanimate objects/concepts (that are not even ships) “she”. Besides, I want a noun, not a pronoun.
I suppose the whole question is irrelevant in Danish? What word do you use as gender-inclusive term for “persons”? And does any feminist object to it?
Prostitute?
Actually, that sounds like something that would catch on, for all the wrong reasons.
I would suggest “Woman” since it includes both the male and the female…but since you seem to want a one syllable word that is powerful, I would suggest “Grunt”.
No, that would be stupid. But let’s say that I was writing a manual on how to do a given task and was referring to a hypothetical employee. In one paragraph I’d use he; in the next, she.
I eventually moved to the second person.
That seems unwise to me. I don’t wish to pretend that women and men are identical. And there are times when it’s fine to use one gender or the other. If you are actually writing about something which by definition excludes one gender – say, a manual on what a woman should expect in pregnancy – then pronouns referring to the pregnant person should be restricted to she and her.
And yes, I know all about Thomas Beatie. But Beatie and other transmen are such a tiny, tiny, tiny minority that I feel safe leaving them out.