The latest is, Is the term master bedroom offensive? Well, how about calling it a mistress bedroom instead?
Seriously, as regards "non-sexist" language, I have no problem at all with saying police officer instead of policeman, fire fighter instead of fireman, letter carrier instead of mailman. But what about manhole? I think I did actually come across some ridiculous substitute for that, perhaps personnel hatch. This from a book publisher, terrified of having the wrath of the feminists unleashed upon them.
What about manhunt? I bet the feminists are perfectly happy to leave that one alone, since only males are bad enough to be hunted for, right?
At the University of _____ (okay, I'm leaving out the name but probably should let the opprobrium be applied), they have an "ombudsperson." This is political correctness going way too far. They presume to take a Swedish word and open it up and change part of it, a word that just happens to be the same in Swedish as it is in English—man—and substitute a morpheme which is not Swedish, person.
And I don't like changing alderman to alderperson. My objection here is that alderman is a fine old word—in fact, very old, going back maybe 1500 years to Anglo-Saxon times—and I hate to see it morphed. But maybe that is not all of my objection to it since I don't like congressperson, either.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
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There are other words like journeyman, militiaman, brakeman, and minuteman. As everyone knows until recent years certain occupations were considered mans work and others exclusively womans work. Gender barriers are constantly being broken although there are still some area of life that to date remain gender specific and are perhaps best left that way.
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