Speaking of Titles....

[jakeOSX]

actually trainmen is a gender-neutral term. it is just not PC gender-neutral.

from dictionary.com:

Traditionally, many writers have used man and words derived from it to designate any or all of the human race regardless of sex. In fact, this is the oldest use of the word. In Old English the principal sense of man was "a human," and the words wer and wyf (or wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a male human" and "a female human" respectively. But in Middle English man displaced wer as the term for "a male human," while wyfman (which evolved into present-day woman) was retained for "a female human." Despite this change, man continued to carry its original sense of "a human" as well, resulting in an asymmetrical arrangement that many criticize as sexist.

-j

[Lorinda]

Thanks, Ed.

Mostly I was teasing, but I forgot to add an emoticon in my previous post to make that clear.

But I do appreciate the change.

Lorinda

[OPENSTEP]

No worries Wow, I didn't realize that trainman was gender neutral...interesting back story on the Old English origin of the words. I think sometimes the distinction I've seen is to capitalize Man to convey the sense of "human" as mentioned there. Dunno if that's just something I do or if it's something that standard.

ed

[Lorinda]

Thanks for the background, Jake. I didn't know all that.

Of course a lot of people don't hear it that way anymore. Where I live, at least, a "generic" police officer is often called a "policeman" by those not as aware of/uptight about gender language issues. But I don't know anyone who would say "She is a policeman" when talking about a female police officer.

But the arguments about the relationship between etymology and meaning can go on endlessly. Not just in terms of gender, either. I was taught to use etymological connections as part of Biblical exegesis. For example, the word for compassion in Hebrew is derived from the word for "womb." But now that approach is labeled a "fallacy" by many Biblical scholars and translators. Somehow I think the truth is somewhere in the middle....

In any event, the background you provided will help me hear things differently when I'm bothered by sexist language.

[jgd]

The same facts occur in French language too. I think that we must not see sexism everywhere. Eventually, IMO, the French language (spelling, syntax, etc.) is damaged by too much feminization and maybe it's the same in other languages. A little feminization is good but too much is… too much.

Jacqueline

[Baggypants]

I suggest we return "Councilperson" and "Trainperson" to their original gender and also add another two titles "Priestess" and "Old Woman at Zion" from the second movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234215/

[yoxi]

Sure - personally I think it would be more fun to have both genders represented and for both men and women to be getting both as they clock up the posts... I have no problems with androgyny

- padmavyuha

[Lorinda]

That works for me, too.

Lorinda

[jgd]

And if someone has an ambiguous username
(Ed: do/undo/do/undo… )

jgd

[Baggypants]

[Lorinda]

[OPENSTEP]

Priestess is a good one, I'll have to add that in. I guess we could have both Councilman and Councilwoman since there are women on the council. I thought I put Naiobi somewhere in the list but will need to check... The Oracle is also a female character (already in the list). There's also the Lady in Red, but I could see people taking that one the wrong way myself

Any other suggestions/comments? I tend to not publish the list to keep it as a surprise

ed

[Samwise]