What are your pet peeves re English usage?

Well I never saw it like that, Piff.

Man embraces woman, I always said.

Do you feel the same about "fellowship"? "The fellowship of the holy spirit...", that's a well-worn phrase which comes to mind. But we're not all fellows, strictly speaking. Or in a manner of speaking. Do we need to expand it to "fellowship and sistership"? :wink:

hi piffka thank you for your answer!!

i have seen it here, i do not find it now, but it says surrender monkey eating cheese.

eating cheese, that i understand. but surrender monkey, why is that???

surrender is give up??

sylvie b

Sylvie, it doesn't translate, and it's not that funny. Trust me.

Thanks, Sylvie. I'm not sure why people like to tease the French.

McTag -- We need fellows, but ... well... either it affects you or it doesn't. For my part, I notice it and am bothered by it.

I'll give you an example from a translation by Mitchel of the Dao De Jing and you'll see what I mean. Mitchel switches from male-centered to female-centered wording on different chapters:

http://www.edepot.com/tao4.html

Well, I don't really get it.

A woman can be a Master of Wine, I think. But probably not a Master of Foxhounds. She can be a past master, too. Can she be a Master of a university college? I think she can.

So, I think she should be content and happy to be included in a brotherhood.

(btw did you know there were two jazz big bands, where the The Brotherhood of Breath was followed by The Sisterhood of Spit?)

Two things about Miss Flyers' and Miss Virago's complaint. Although i've heard complaints from others on this (and there might be an example in this thread), i think people use the third person plural to avoid the he/she problem. "When someone gets to that point, they don't know what to do."--would be an example. Also, "No one should waste their time on these things."

The second is that i think we get habituated to form. I always think of ships as female. "When Flying Cloud made her maiden voyage, she set a new world record, New York to San Francisco." I understand that women must tire of a constant invariably male third person singular, so when it occurs to me, i do try to mix it up.

Finally, on a sillier note, when it comes to the "-hood" of a group of people, i prefer "bretheren and sisterns" . . . but that's just me, all over.

okseeyahbye

I know... I know, McTag. It is a small thing. Shouldn't have brought it up. For me who is always on the other end of things, having to say I know they're using the other sex but they mean me too... well... it is playing catch-up. There it is.

Setanta - I think ships are considered female because they are so difficult to handle, so sensitive and need to be constantly maintained. S'true.

I agree with you that the sometimes awkward use of the third person plural is a real attempt to de-sexify our language. For that, it should be applauded.

Sexism in English ain't nothin' compared to many other languages, Piff. There are languages in which it is literally impossible to render a noun -- any noun -- gender-neutral. Where no 'neuter' gender exists, everything is either masculine or feminine. And feminizing a usually masaculine noun -- e.g. 'directress' instead of 'director' -- seems to me to be even more sexist.

Hi Merry Andrew!

At least if all nouns are either male or female, then there is parity, but of course, not knowing another language, I am just guessing. I did used to think it was funny that certain German words were female and others male. I've a vague memory of table and chair as one cute pair.

I think it would be easier for me if there were some English nouns that were feminine yet meant to be inclusive. Can you think of any?

Off the top of my head, I can think of just one verb form in English which is inherently feminine but has come to be used in a general-neutral way. Mothering. It now seems to have a generalized meaning of being kind and solicitous and helpful. regardless of sex.

A bit of a stretch, but I'll take it, MA. I think I've heard you refer to yourself as mothering along your groups.... or maybe it was acting as a mother-hen. (??)

Not too many men are willing to say they are mothering when, of course, they can as easily say they are parenting.

Set,
Didn't Captain Lindemann of the Bismarck insist that the crew refer the ship as a "he" ?

Granted we are getting away from English here, but...

Garsh,
I was just gone a "spell", but you guys got in a whole "slew" of posts. And if anyone is wondring how I'm doing................. ..eh....."Fair To Middlin'"*



.....* (Did I hit the ground runnin' or what?. )

Cow, duck, goose . . . if any more occur to me, i'll mention them . . .

LTX, i've read that Bismark was referred to by the crew as "he" from the time she (heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . . can't help myself) came down the slip ways . . . i don't think it had anything to do with her last commander . . .

How about "Broad", or "Dame
, Pifka?

Pifka,
....Whaddaya' mean by inclusive?

Uh-h...Has anyone noticed that we've strayed from peeves, and wound up in colorful language?

I should have been more specific... inclusive nouns that are feminine but refer to humans, not animals. It might also be another example of our culture of raising malehoodness as best since those three creatures, though I personally like them, are considered among the least respected in the animal kingdom. When used to describe a human, they are insults.

A cow is fat and stupid, a duck waddles and is dumb, and a goose is old, gray and silly. Anyway, most anybody who lives near a farm knows that you don't say it is a field of cows unless they are truly all females. A field of cattle is the proper term that includes both bovine sexes.


For the single word Merry Andrew could think of, there really is a fine inclusive term -- Parenting.

There are wonderful concepts like brotherhood, mankind and fellowship which are positive in every facet and in reality are totally male. Women are included in a grudging way: "Okay, you can play as long as you think of yourself as male." (That's what I hear.) I recognize that humanity came from a Latin word meaning men... and I know that the Romans were some of the most sexist of the classical civilizations (bested only by the Greeks). Recall how long it took for women to get the vote in this country and that the reason they did is because some Southern senators thought their including suffrage on a bill would doom it... because NOBODY thought women were equal. (And they still don't.)

I'm just telling you what I hear and what many, many other women also hear when brotherhood, etc. is sung or praised. I try to rise above it and I don't often mention how much it grates on me.

Field of cattle actually means a non-descript field of bovines, as does kine. Then you have your bullocks (short form, bulls), your steers, your milch cows (as opposed to heifers, although personally, i'm not opposed to heifers) . . .

I find it hilarious that English-speakers refer to languages that lack a neuter as being "sexist," and this was often alleged in the late 1960's and early 1970's by feminists. In french, sein, which means breast, is masculine; barbre, which means beard, is feminine. There are lots and lots of examples in which there is no "intuitive" connection between an object and the gender of the noun which describes it. In more specific language, of course, as is the case in English, there are masculine and feminine versions of nouns. You have to watch out, though: chiot is French for puppy, and is masculine--but chiotte doesn't mean a female puppy, it means a "sh*tter;" minet means kitten and is a masculine noun, but minette is a term which can mean the equivalent of a "bobby-soxer," and is used in a verb form to mean a rather specific sexual act.