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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: May 26 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11250
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| Posted: July 26 2019 at 12:03am | IP Logged | 1
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A thought popped into my head...does France or Canada
etc have similar idiocy? With "La" and "Le"?
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Neil Lindholm
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: January 12 2005
Location: China
Posts: 4940
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| Posted: July 26 2019 at 12:34am | IP Logged | 2
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When I was at the University of Victoria, the school sports teams were called the "Vikings" and the "Vikettes". There was a push to change the names since Vikettes was disliked by the usual vocal few, so it was decided to call all of the sports teams "Vikes", which is a nothing word and admitted as such. When I asked some of the female basketball team members (who had pushed for the name change) the obvious question "Why not call the female teams 'Valkyries'"?, I was met with blank stares. The stupid name "Vikes" is still being used.
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Neil Lindholm
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: January 12 2005
Location: China
Posts: 4940
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| Posted: July 26 2019 at 12:35am | IP Logged | 3
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Just thinking that they need to replace "seminars" with "ovulars" as well.
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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: October 25 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1650
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| Posted: July 26 2019 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | 4
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Jeffrey Rice wrote:
| Calling a "Copper" would be confusing! |
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Or calling a "bobby" in London and having a female police officer turn up instead.. "Oi! You're not a bobby, you're a bobbette!"
As Shakespeare once wrote "What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet", to which the immortal Bart Simpson quipped "Not if you called 'em stench blossoms", and Homer added "Or crapweeds". The point being that loaded words and names do have the power to induce prejudice.
There's no need to go mental changing every word to be gender neutral, but at the same time, some words and phrases are clearly inappropriate today. For example, in Australia, female bartenders are still often referred to as "barmaids", and supermarket cashiers are widely known as "checkout chicks". Does their gender really need to be highlighted when referring to their job?
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: March 17 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15806
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| Posted: July 26 2019 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | 5
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Barmaid is inappropriate? I take your point that there is no pressing need for highlighting the gender, but I struggle to see Barmaid vs Barman as conceptually any more inappropriate than he vs she.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: May 26 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11250
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 12:32am | IP Logged | 6
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There are a few Roberta`s about Kouresh! Plus, i`m not
sure the term "Bobby" is as popular as it once was in
the U.K. (Cops and Pigs seem to be used most)
Referring once again to the use of "guys" which nobody
seems to get wound up about...i caught a U.K. quiz show
on Wednesday afternoon, and the host(ess?) Davina McCall
constantly referred to the two female contestants as
"You guys" and "guys", which really irritated me!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: May 11 2005
Posts: 132311
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 4:11am | IP Logged | 7
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As Shakespeare once wrote "What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet", to which the immortal Bart Simpson quipped "Not if you called 'em stench blossoms", and Homer added "Or crapweeds". The point being that loaded words and names do have the power to induce prejudice. ••• Only if we let them. As I’ve mentioned before, the power of words shifts across time and geography. When I was a child in England, back around the middle of the 20th Century, it was a long standing practice to use the “n-word” as a name for black cats and dogs, while the derogatory term for people of sub-Saharan African extraction was “black”. That I must disguise the word to which I refer points to a sea change, too. Not long ago the Black community had nearly succeeded in defanging the word by making it their own. I’m still not sure how or why the word became weaponized again.
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Doug Centers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: February 17 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 5477
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 5:06am | IP Logged | 8
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"Checkout chicks"? Now that, I have not heard before.
As for "you guys", I've often told the story, when I lived "down south" getting strange looks from females when using that phrase. "Y'all" would be the proper phrasing there.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: May 11 2005
Posts: 132311
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 5:40am | IP Logged | 9
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Some years ago, I read, the OED accepted "guys" as a plural form for a mixed gender group.Of course, Rita Moreno had been using it that way for decades on SESAME STREET.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: July 28 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 30901
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 6:40am | IP Logged | 10
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THE ELECTRIC COMPANY
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: May 11 2005
Posts: 132311
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 6:49am | IP Logged | 11
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I stand corrected!
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: May 26 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11250
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| Posted: July 27 2019 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | 12
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Will they have to re-name that famous Marlon Brando film
"Guys and Guys"?
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