🚀 go-pugleaf

levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:

> However, there are other terms that have been (or are in the process of
> being) scrapped because they have secondary, inappropriate meanings. For
> example, there's "obese," which implies that a fat person automatically
> has a medical problem, or "Jewess," which implies that the female in
> question isn't to be taken seriously. 

Excuse me?  "Obese" merely means "fat" -- which I'd certainly say *is*
a medical problem, given that being overweight is after all less
healthy than being !overweight.  

As for "Jewess," that merely denotes a female Jew; I see nothing in
there about anyone's worthiness of being taken seriously.  The "-ess"
suffix merely denotes the female of the group in question, just like
it does when appended to any other word.  It's a neutral descriptor,
not an implied value judgment.  It baffles me how anyone could ever
believe otherwise.  It's no more derogatory than "waitress" is.

You bring to mind the people who insist on "Asian" vice "Oriental"
because, so they say, the word "Oriental" has connotations of
stereotypes, bamboo letters, Charlie Chan, and a litany of other
things they consider unpleasant.  My position is that *I* don't
mean any of those things when I use the word, and what *I* mean is
what matters, given that I'm the speaker or writer employing the
word.  Contrary to popular belief of late, what counts is not what's
perceived but what's intended.  Insistence on the reverse is nothing
but a self-serving attempt to legitimize being a crybaby.

If there's any doubt as to what I mean when I use "Oriental," "Jewess,"
or any other word, all anyone has to do is ask me for clarification.
(And I fully expect that once I've explained myself and made it clear that
no offense was intended, that the questioner will do the honorable thing
and immediately retract his objection.)


> Then there are all those words which say that police and fire critters 
> always have a dick.

They imply nothing of the sort.  What they imply is that the police and
fire critters *in question* have dicks.  If there's a need to refer to
females with those jobs, the words "policewoman" and "firewoman" are
readily available.


> Bob Christ told me about the lady sheriff of Boulder Creek. This woman
> does a difficult job extremely well. She lays her life on the line in
> ways you or I couldn't even begin to imagine. I'd just as soon not
> use a word which implies she doesn't exist. 

She's a *policewoman.*  End of problem.  Do you feel that since animals
of both sexes are covered by the term "goose," the status of male geese
is somehow lessened by the existence of the term "gander?"  That's a
similar situation, albeit with the sexes reversed.

By the way, a perusal of the dictionary will reveal that the -man
suffix common to so many words derives from the Old English meaning
of "man," which meant simply "person."  


Geoff


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Geoff Miller			+ + + + + + + +        	    Sun Microsystems
geoffm@purplehaze.Eng.Sun.COM	+ + + + + + + +    Mountain View, California
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