From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!alice!rabbit!jj Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: Re: person Article-I.D.: rabbit.594 Posted: Wed Jul 7 12:31:18 1982 Received: Thu Jul 8 01:08:05 1982 References: floyd.348 My own idea of the proper address for general use is the word "creature". Don't you think that chairman, chairperson, chairperchild, etc,etc, is a bit humanocentric? Why not creature. Why descriminate by species or genera, or even kingdom? Dear chaircreature: Now THAT has a ring to it! For those of you who take me seriously, I suggest that you reconsider your sensitivity to the issue. Until the language develops a non-gendered pronoun and personification noun, the issue will not be solved. Personally, I thought that chairman meant, from its roots, "the hand of the chair". I further thought that woman was from the anglo diminutive of hand, i.e. little hand. Whether or not this is sexist is an independant arguement. I do insist that the use of the word person in all non-specific references to people is a very ineffecient use of language, i.e. "Whether or not theknows, he/she is in for a surprise." is hard to read and in some cases ambiguous if the third person male is not used. The convention of the third person male for the linguistic equivelent of the algebraic "x" contains some important information, and is difficult to replace. In such cases I will use the third person male pronoun. In such cases I am trying to convey information, not to determine gender. Please respond accordingly. flame off: rabbit!jj