Re: style (was stylus)

Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Fri, 30 May 1997 11:25:32 -0400 (EDT)

Luis has, I note more in sorrow than in anger, perpetrated one of the more
annoying tricks of polite argument, or rather *several* in one breath --
not to mention having his wildly-off-the-mark say, then suggesting that
the discussion is over: reply off list!

Hmmmm. My powers of higher reasoning tell me that, since both the original
question and his "answer" were to the list, a reply to the list is in
order, especially since there may be non-English-as-a-first-language
readers who find the discussion of current usage relevant and useful.
Certainly I'd hate for them to get booby-trapped by Luis's reflexive
(albeit irrelevant) remarks, which I don't insist are *necessarily and
knowingly* "anti-feminist," but which certainly sound that way. They are
in any event a minority view and patently anti-modernist.

Whoever doesn't care to know more on the matter, DELETE Now.

First and most obvious, Luis answered a question other than the one asked.
The question Dave asked was will *people* mind if he says "he" for
everyone. Since I am well qualified to speak as one of the group "people"
I replied that, yes I do mind, and out of the kindness of my heart added
that most of the people whose speech and writing I encounter would mind. I
also made the easily verifiable point that very few people today who are
or wish to be *taken seriously* in the world of contemporary discourse
would use the male pronoun only to mean "people" in general.

And so, in case Dave was writing for publication, I observed that a person
using "he" for all might well be quoted with a "[sic]" after the pronoun,
an editor's way of pointing to an error and/or declaring her own
innocence.

An even more egregious error Luis makes is the false (indeed absurd)
analogy by which he compares the loaded issue of pronoun usage to such
relatively trivial and un-loaded peculiarities as spelling. The better
analogy would be to forms used to designate *people*, such as terms in and
out of vogue for what we now call "African-Americans." I daresay he
wouldn't presume to announce in that case, "opinions vary, and there's no
law that says any one word is better than any other, so I shall call them
[and here I use a somewhat perjorative term of my youth] 'darkies'
or'colored'".

There are of course even more offensive manners of speech, or have been,
but I trust the point is so obvious it needs no further laboring. There
are as well obsolete and/or unacceptable methods of address for gay
persons, women (wasn't "harlot" once in common usage?) men, and so forth,
to be used only when one wishes to offend.

But, equally obviously, *OF COURSE* there are rules of language, on every
level, from grammar to politesse. Luis's pretense that there aren't must
be due to one of his "blind" buttons having been pressed (as Luis,
something of a linguist himself, well knows.) Sorry about that.

One final point: Some (if not all) resistance to the forms I suggested as
possible alternatives is purely cultural/psychological. I well remember
the arguments against the term "Ms." when they first appeared in the New
York Times, that paper being one of the last, if not the last, journal to
adopt it. The argument was that the word was unesthetic.

Of course "missus" and "mister" are sublime.

Cheers,

Judy

On Fri, 30 May 1997, Luis Nadeau wrote:


> Dave, don't fret. Judy is not speaking for everybody on this list. There
> are lots of countries, cultures and at least two genders represented on
> this list and believe me, opinions vary. There is no law that says one
> method has to be used anymore than there is a law saying that "metre" is
> the right way to spell "meter" because this is what we use in Canada and
> this list is running off a Canadian listserver. "We", (well, many of us as
> I don't speak for everybody either) can also live with colour, color,
> liter, litre, favor, etc. This list is about Alt-photo, not "political
> correctness".
> ...
> >2. Some writers use only the female pronoun in all circumstances, on the
> >grounds that the male pronoun was used exclusively for so long, it's only
> >fair. (This is my least favorite option; I never thought two wrongs make a
> >right.)
>
> Fine. I wouldn't lose any sleep over that practice either as long as they
> don't try to impose it upon me.
>
> >3. In some conditions the "pronoun" can be written as "s/he", which I
> >think is pretty neat, but a lot of other people don't.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> No kidding! The understatement of the year. YUK!!! is how an American
> professor (PhD English) summed it up after a recent discussion on this
> topic on Book_Arts_list. While we're at it, why not combine she/he/it and
> shorten it to "sheheit" or even something shorter since anything goes with
> the English language? This said, I never objected to Judy using "s/he" even
> though I certainly have my own opinion about it. I have no right to tell
> her what to do anymore than she has the right to tell me what to do. People
> can use whatever they want as far as I'm concerned but if they come to tell
> me their way is the only way they'll have to justify their cultural
> superiority complex and I wish them good luck because they'll need it,
> whoever they are.
>
> This reminds me of a somewhat similar situation when a small group tried to
> influence the previous listowner (Steve) with their own view which they
> wanted to impose on the rest of us. Steve's reply, if I recall, was
> "Frankly, I'm Australian, and I don't give a damn".
>
> In other words, if you want to impose your own cultural bias, start your
> own list on your own server with your own rules.
>
> >4. If you change construction to the plural, "they" solves the problem.
> >In fact some folks "solve" the problem by saying "they" even with the
> >singular verb, but that is also grating..
>
> Ain't that pretty?
>
> I welcome further comments directly to me as it has very little to do with
> Alt-photo business.
>
> Luis Nadeau
> nadeaul@nbnet.nb.ca
> Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
>
>
>