Pedants' Paradise

[kernelbogey]

In her Guardian column today Zoe Williams wrote
Both papers have billionaire proprietors, one of whom’s daughter....
While I can see why she wrote this, surely this is wrong - or at least inelegant?
Wouldn't 'one of whose daughters...' have had the same meaning?

[Padraig]

... I seem to recall instances in French where the gender has changed over time - oddly, the male member le vit becoming la bite...

From memory, in Irish the word for girl - cailin is a male noun.

Though names of countries are usually feminine, one exception is Sasana - England - which is a male proper noun. (It might be because it ends on a broad vowel).

[vinteuil]

It's an interesting linguistic point. My feeling would be that the words 'masculine' and 'feminine' couldn't originally have been about gender as such - even though the concept existed in several linguistic families: Romance, Germanic &c. Why would a table be recognised as being female but a chair is male? I'm not sure where the grammatical nomenclature of masculine and feminine originated. It's not the kind of idea which seems rigid and preordained.

... I seem to recall instances in French where the gender has changed over time - oddly, the male member le vit becoming la bite...

[french frank]

I've heard steam loco drivers sayig 'you had to get to know the old lady and treat her right '.

But there you have the nub of the problem in the year 2024. The man in charge treating his locomotive in the same way that he 'treats' his woman? Rather different from the naval analogy regarding ships, 'she' being thought of as the protecting goddess of the crew.

[Serial_Apologist]

Perhaps the time has come to replace "chairman", "chairperson" or "chair" with a completely new word for the person in charge. "Chair" or "chairperson" have already gone halfway to that end - why not go the whole hog? After all, "CEO" has now become the acceptable abbreviation for any number of sins - sorry, for being the top company executive!

Why not "host"?

[smittims]

...not to mention fried fish!

I remember 'Hurricane Hattie' and others. I just wish it could be a number or a date.

I suppose the feminisation of machines came from the 'reationship' their male operators felt they had. I've heard steam loco drivers sayig 'you had to get to know the old lady and treat her right '.

[Old Grumpy]

A lot of organisations now use the term "Chair" rather than "Chairman" as a more obviously gender neutral term (mind you I used to work with a female Chairman who strongly objected to being referred to as an 'inanimate object") while some prefer "Chairperson".

I have noticed in team sports that a "player of the match" is now often preferred to the more alliterative "man of the match", although I have heard female commentators still using the term "man of the match" even when choosing the best player in an all woman match (possibly because that was the term they grew up hearing and the alliteration makes it an easier term to use and remember).

I am not a cricket follower but everyone holding the bat now seems to be a batter, perhaps a term which has rather unfortunate connotations - domestic abuse, Mars Bars etc

[oliver sudden]

I have noticed in team sports that a "player of the match" is now often preferred to the more alliterative "man of the match", although I have heard female commentators still using the term "man of the match" even when choosing the best player in an all woman match (possibly because that was the term they grew up hearing and the alliteration makes it an easier term to use and remember).

There’s a bit of work to do in general in terms of not having women’s sports perceived as the exception but at the same time avoiding absurdities such as one which made it to the Guardian a little while ago: a headline referring to 10.71” as the fastest 100m of the year followed by a bullet point referring to someone else running 9.92”.

[oliver sudden]

Why would a table be recognised as being female but a chair is male? I'm not sure where the grammatical nomenclature of masculine and feminine originated. It's not the kind of idea which seems rigid and preordained.

Indeed: la table, der Tisch. (Although: die Tafel.)

Le soleil, la lune. Die Sonne, der Mond.

(Or one of my favourites: un étage, die Etage.)

[LHC]

There was an interesting, if predictable, discussion on Woman's Hour yesterday about what they called 'gendered terms'. The given example was 'Dear Sirs' which apparently is still widely used in letters from a law practice, and they went on to discuss other such phrases.

While I agree that 'Dear Sirs' is outdated and should be discontinued, I did feel that they had forgotten the existence of Common Gender. 'Chairman' for instance, is a noun of common gender. It doesn't imply that the chairman is male. So it is quite correct to say 'Madam Chairman ' as well as 'Mr. Chairman'. I think a little edication in grammar would save a lot of argument and ill-feeling. Even the word 'man' has a common-gender application, as in 'The Ascent of Man'. In his famous TV series Jacob Bronowski clearly used it to mean the human race .

Two 'gendered terms' I should dearly love to see rendered exctinct are reference to ships as 'she' , and giving storms boys' names (e.g. 'Storm Peter') . I've always thought these ridiculous.

A lot of organisations now use the term "Chair" rather than "Chairman" as a more obviously gender neutral term (mind you I used to work with a female Chairman who strongly objected to being referred to as an 'inanimate object") while some prefer "Chairperson".

I have noticed in team sports that a "player of the match" is now often preferred to the more alliterative "man of the match", although I have heard female commentators still using the term "man of the match" even when choosing the best player in an all woman match (possibly because that was the term they grew up hearing and the alliteration makes it an easier term to use and remember).

[french frank]

I’ve no idea where that bit of the language is going to go!

It's an interesting linguistic point. My feeling would be that the words 'masculine' and 'feminine' couldn't originally have been about gender as such - even though the concept existed in several linguistic families: Romance, Germanic &c. Why would a table be recognised as being female but a chair is male? I'm not sure where the grammatical nomenclature of masculine and feminine originated. It's not the kind of idea which seems rigid and preordained.

[oddoneout]

There was an interesting, if predictable, discussion on Woman's Hour yesterday about what they called 'gendered terms'. The given example was 'Dear Sirs' which apparently is still widely used in letters from a law practice, and they went on to discuss other such phrases.

While I agree that 'Dear Sirs' is outdated and should be discontinued, I did feel that they had forgotten the existence of Common Gender. 'Chairman' for instance, is a noun of common gender. It doesn't imply that the chairman is male. So it is quite correct to say 'Madam Chairman ' as well as 'Mr. Chairman'. I think a little edication in grammar would save a lot of argument and ill-feeling. Even the word 'man' has a common-gender application, as in 'The Ascent of Man'. In his famous TV series Jacob Bronowski clearly used it to mean the human race .

Two 'gendered terms' I should dearly love to see rendered exctinct are reference to ships as 'she' , and giving storms boys' names (e.g. 'Storm Peter') . I've always thought these ridiculous.

Trouble is, those who - erm -"feel strongly" about the matter, don't want any mention of man, full stop, so the technical argument isn't accepted.

Apparently hurricanes had female names in the USA for 25 years from 1953.

[oliver sudden]

There was an interesting, if predictable, discussion on Woman's Hour yesterday about what they called 'gendered terms'. The given example was 'Dear Sirs' which apparently is still widely used in letters from a law practice, and they went on to discuss other such phrases.

While I agree that 'Dear Sirs' is outdated and should be discontinued, I did feel that they had forgotten the existence of Common Gender. 'Chairman' for instance, is a noun of common gender. It doesn't imply that the chairman is male. So it is quite correct to say 'Madam Chairman ' as well as 'Mr. Chairman'. I think a little edication in grammar would save a lot of argument and ill-feeling. Even the word 'man' has a common-gender application, as in 'The Ascent of Man'. In his famous TV series Jacob Bronowski clearly used it to mean the human race .

Two 'gendered terms' I should dearly love to see rendered exctinct are reference to ships as 'she' , and giving storms boys' names (e.g. 'Storm Peter') . I've always thought these ridiculous.

German is in a horrible mess in this regard. Not only is every noun about someone who does something gendered, but since gender also affects articles and adjectives and sometimes declensions you can’t just plug in the gender-neutral version of a word without turning the sentence into a flowchart. (The gender-neutral version of ‘clarinettist’ is ‘Klarinettist:in’, for example. But the accusative is Klarinettisten in the masculine form and Klarinettistin in the feminine…and that’s before you even think about catering for non-binary folks.) I’ve no idea where that bit of the language is going to go!

[french frank]

Two 'gendered terms' I should dearly love to see rendered exctinct are reference to ships as 'she' , and giving storms boys' names (e.g. 'Storm Peter') . I've always thought these ridiculous.

Your wish is their command: storm names for 2024-2025 include Mavis, Poppy, Tilly and Vivienne (my middle name coincidentally, same spelling); and Otje apparently a girl's name. Plus, dubiously, Kayleigh and Izzy (Isabel or Islwyn?)

"Another tradition is to consider ships as female, referring to them as ‘she’. Although it may sound strange referring to an inanimate object as ‘she’, this tradition relates to the idea of a female figure such as a mother or goddess guiding and protecting a ship and crew. [...] Interestingly, Captain Ernst Lindemann of the German battleship Bismarck referred to his ship as ‘he’, in view of its awesome power. In popular parlance, the tradition of naming ships ‘she’ has now become less common. It's worth noting that the shipping industry newspaper, Lloyd's Register of Shipping, now calls ships ‘it’."

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-do-ships-have-a-gender

[smittims]

There was an interesting, if predictable, discussion on Woman's Hour yesterday about what they called 'gendered terms'. The given example was 'Dear Sirs' which apparently is still widely used in letters from a law practice, and they went on to discuss other such phrases.

While I agree that 'Dear Sirs' is outdated and should be discontinued, I did feel that they had forgotten the existence of Common Gender. 'Chairman' for instance, is a noun of common gender. It doesn't imply that the chairman is male. So it is quite correct to say 'Madam Chairman ' as well as 'Mr. Chairman'. I think a little edication in grammar would save a lot of argument and ill-feeling. Even the word 'man' has a common-gender application, as in 'The Ascent of Man'. In his famous TV series Jacob Bronowski clearly used it to mean the human race .

Two 'gendered terms' I should dearly love to see rendered exctinct are reference to ships as 'she' , and giving storms boys' names (e.g. 'Storm Peter') . I've always thought these ridiculous.