[clug] Google compared to latest Microsoft evilness

[Eyal Lebedinsky]

People

We are way off topic here but...

What is the argument about? Last time I counted it was actually a fair bet
to assume 'male' on this list. Regardless of what some of you feel, this is
a fact. So I expect that whatever term we use most will read 'male' anyway.

In other forums the argument may be more relevant. An example where many of
us 'males' can get a feel of being on the other side of the fence: think
about reading company email (for me about 1500 employees, maybe 30 in the
southern hemisphere) talking about 'next spring'. It stands out, I would
rather this term was not used, but I will not go on the barricades to force
this. I actually got used to this 'dialect'. Same goes for most global
forums in my experience.

And to get a balanced (in a way) view of what people consider neutral, can
we have some of the *female people* (this sounds very odd to me) say what
*they* find acceptable and practical?

cheers
	Eyal

Jack Kelly wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Brendan Jurd<direvus at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/7/10 Jacinta Richardson <jarich at perltraining.com.au>:
>>> Chris Smart wrote:
>>>> Pretty sure "guy" is a unisex term these days ;-)
>>> Only in limited circumstances. �For a lot of the population, in a lot of
>>> circumstances it still means male.
>> Maybe. �But have you got a better alternative?
>>
>> "People"? �Too formal.
>> "Peeps"? �Retarded.
>> "Folks"? �Old fashioned.
>> "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"? �Oops, male.
>> "Dude"? �Often too informal and more male than "guy".
>>
>> My point is that when you're trying to use gender-neutral language,
>> your options are limited. �It's very frustrating. �In today's
>> environment of gender equality, it's natural to want to talk in a way
>> that doesn't discriminate between male and female. �Especially as
>> doing otherwise can get you into serious trouble. �But the language
>> just isn't set up for that. �We have to make do with what we have.
>> I'm in favour of just treating "guy" as neutral, and hoping that usage
>> takes further hold.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> I tend to use "guy" informally, and either "-human" as a suffix or
> argue that "-man" is a shortening of "-human" (often ineffectively,
> probably because I'm wrong ;-)).
> 
> Example: "sportshumans". (But not "sportsguys".)
> 
> Anything to stop the verbosity of e.g., "sports man or woman".
> 
> -- Jack

-- 
Eyal Lebedinsky	(eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)