Re: usage [wasRE: photogravure veryOff topic]

Hi Jeff,
Languages change all the time- for my part, I found Spanish much more
accommodating as I could tell what the person was talking about- what sex
someone was and why some things are masculine and others, feminine.
Semantics is fascinating especially if one doesn't hear well (me). I
translated the Portuguese in Spanish and found it ok- but; not all words
translate exactly...
Susan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Sumner" <jdos2@mindspring.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 12:44 AM
Subject: Re: usage [wasRE: photogravure veryOff topic]

There are parts of Portuguese too that are completely correct when
spoken, but sound sexist as all get-out- Think of "A Garota de
Ipanema," where the first line is "Ohla que coisa mais linda, mais
cheia de graça" which of course translates to "(it- "he) looks at the
most beautiful thing, so full of grace..."
My Brazilian friends tell me it's not at all sexist- it's just how
things are expressed. My PORTUGUESE friends, (my female friends more-
so) tell me that it sounds as bad to them as I would expect for it to
be by my translation.

Latin languages are by their very nature sexist. They define a
masculine and feminine gender in arbitrary ways to nouns. It can take
some thought to not be insulting, on occasion. English is rather
freer. Hungarian, even more so- it can be difficult to describe some
ideas of thought that come naturally to an English speaker ("hers/
his") as EVERYTHING is "it."

JD
On Aug 19, 2005, at 3:05 AM, Tom Sobota wrote:

> Sorry, but I don't understand this. Romance languages make more
> differences between genders than English.
>
> So, for example, 'they' is translated in Spanish as 'ellos' (male)
> or 'ellas' (female). The same for portuguese 'elos' and 'elas'.
> 'We' in Spanish is 'nosotros' (male) and 'nosotras' (female).
> (However the Portuguese 'nós' and the Italian 'noi' is the same for
> both)
>
> In cases of mixed references, the male form is generally used.
> Nobody seems to be terribly upset about this...
>
> As far as I know, there isn't a "third person pronoun as a second
> person neutral gendered reference" , so something seems to be
> escaping me here.
>
> On the other hand, even in a relatively sexist society as is Spain,
> where I live, a woman simply doesn't change her maiden name just
> because she is married. No married woman would accept being called
> 'Mrs. Joe Smith' here.
>
> Even more: the colloquial 'hombre' (man) which in Spain means many
> things depending on pronunciation and context, is used even between
> two women talking to each other. Sort of a gender justice, isn't it?
>
> Tom
>
> At 03:35 19/08/2005, you wrote:
> -- snip --
>
>
>> ... in an article in Verbatum the magazine of philogists declared
>> that 'for the English language in the face of politically correct
>> usage complexities the third person pronoun will now be used as in
>> romanic languages as a second person neutral gendered reference.'
>>
>> In my kind of language, that means the word 'they' will now
>> replace thge idiotic 'he or she' in phrases of generalization. IE
>> The editors of the magazine had chosen my article, and they will
>> pay me with a checque. Instead of: The editors of the magazine had
>> chosen my article, and he or she will pay me with a check.
>>
>> So, you notice something?
>>
>> S. Shapiro
>>
>
>
>

Jeff Sumner
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44122
USA
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Received on Fri Aug 19 06:30:44 2005