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Language, like restrooms, embeds a number of assumptions about the culture that uses it, for the sake of efficiency. These assumptions are usually right. A whil
by alexandros 17y ago
Language, like restrooms, embeds a number of assumptions about the culture that uses it, for the sake of efficiency. These assumptions are usually right. A while after they stop being right, they get phased out. Optimising for all use cases is not optimising at all.
- Locke1689 17y agoFairly accurate. I was with him up until here >workplace (and I count myself among the occasional >offenders) talks about “manpower” The rest of the words may indeed need reworking but I simply do not understand the bias against the word "man" when one is referring to the human race. It is simply a generic term to refer to people in general. I remember some people getting really worked up over philosophers using the word "man" in the context of humanity. The implication that women are not part of the human race is so patently ridiculous that it seems the objection is taking things way off base. Linguistically it even makes sense, given that the word man is the root word for woman. The definition is even in the dictionary: "4. The human race; mankind: man's quest for peace." Manpower seems just as ridiculous. When I hear manpower, I don't immediately think that it is the "power" of a man as opposed to a woman, I think manpower as in mankind-power -- the power of a person, as opposed to a machine.