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AFAICS, the only one that's explicitly gendered is "journeyman". We've had a pretty good track record swapping out "person" in such situations when it's an issu
by grzm 9y ago
AFAICS, the only one that's explicitly gendered is "journeyman". We've had a pretty good track record swapping out "person" in such situations when it's an issue. One might take issue with "master", and some senses of "master" are gendered, but some are not, such as senses 1c (particularly applicable here) and 1d:
> "c : a worker or artisan qualified to teach apprentices (see 1apprentice 1b)"
> "d (1) : an artist, performer, or player of consummate (see 1consummate 1) skill (2) : a great figure of the past (as in science or art) whose work serves as a model or ideal"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master
- bweitzman 9y agoThe word caries with it a history of a workforce dominated by men. If there's going to be a new made up system for standardizing and measuring the proficiency of software developers, then we may as well make up new words too that don't have this baggage.
- grzm 9y agoI agree that language is important for effective communication. I also am cognizant of how language changes over time, in meaning, connotation, usage, morphology. One can find problematic usage in a lot of places if one chooses to look. I don't believe that's what you're doing here, and don't mean to put forth some reductio ad absurdum argument. I'm interested to learn what heuristic you use to decide what language is acceptable and what needs to be changed. Would you mind sharing?
- jdmichal 9y ago> If there's going to be a new made up system for standardizing and measuring the proficiency of software developers, then we may as well make up new words too that don't have this baggage. This proposal is explicitly not making up a new system, but rather adopting an existing one.