I'd like to once again remind everyone that feminists are not a hive-minded species of alien. We are all different and think different things. If you have indeed heard any feminist argue with all due seriousness that "history" should be eliminated and replaced with "herstory", do keep in mind that does not mean that all feminists are thinking that. Just because someone popular identifies as feminist doesn't mean that every idea zie prescribes to is universally accepted across all feminists everywhere. Amazing how that works, isn't it.

Please forgive the interruption. It just annoys me to no end that people seem to think we all think alike when we are individual beings.

Forgive me if you think that I thought that....

As for English, we also have to take into account that "man" is frequently derived from Latin for "hands". Take words like "manual" or "manuscript", for example, which suggest using one's hands to do something. It's silly to attempt to change words like those just because they are the same as the common word for a male in English (which, IIRC, is derived from old Germanic languages, though I'm no linguist).

The way I see it, languages change inevitably, and much like a meme, you can't really force the direction in which they change. It doesn't seem like asking people to change their use at a superficial level (aka substituting words) makes much of a difference; the substitution inevitably becomes the new slur, insult, vulgar term, etc. It's much more important to ask for change at a deeper level, and it's also important to ask "Why is this word negative?" or "Why doesn't this word work?".

But changing words, assigning peer pressure to not use words, asking for basic levels of politeness, there are all things that force these sorts of conversations. I can lecture people to hell and back on language and civilized behavior, but on a basic level even the most offensive people often think they're just being funny, or that it's the way things are, or that it's some terrible inconvenience to not be a horse's ass, or whatever. Bad behavior isn't often recognized by the people who behave badly because they've had some independently motivated epiphany, but because other people metaphorically smack them across the phase for it. That goes double for the stubborn, obstinate sorts who claim to just be assholes because the rest of the world thinks assholes are out of style. Often civilization is less about recognizing the beautiful unique snowflake of everyone's differences and more about telling someone to shut up, sit down, behave like a human being, and spanking them.

And yeah, sometimes we still get it wrong and sometimes it all gets twisted and whatever. I'm fine with that. Hopefully a hundred years from now my ancestors look back on me and think "What a terrible knuckle-dragging jerk that guy is. In the past everyone was terrible and had horrific ideals." That would be great. Civilization should push itself forward, it should test itself and challenge people. One day I hope people think we're all horrifying for even being in the position to have these sorts of conversations about language, and I hope one day after that there's other people doing a facepalm at those people's attitudes. The past isn't good enough and neither is today. The whole point is to build up to tomorrow.

I'm just gonna leave this here... "Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as 'companion animals' while owners should be known as 'human carers'"

Ok, I want to know where you are finding people that have seriously tried to remove every single instance of the word man from the English language? I hang around a lot of feminists and have never heard this suggestion until this thread.

Your last line seems to suggest that it's not possible to do both? Language affects us, all of the time, without even being entirely aware on a fully conscious level, so yes it does make a difference to change the language. We can't always just start with making changes at a "deeper level". We have to start on the surface.

It was a purely hypothetical situation. In fact, none of us (well, except Wojtek) are saying that such a movement actually exists; we're just pointing out the futility of one.

I disagree on so many different levels. Correctness is good to a point but it gets to a level that is silly (ie. HPs post). Have any of you read The Giver? For a basic run-down it's a book about a futuristic society that has gotten rid of differences, everyone is the same. It's rude to point out ANY peculiarities or accomplishments of another person. So I hope that we get to a point where we won't keep making things politically correct. I can just picture what you said and it's exactly like what happened to the community in that book.....

So you made up an argument just to argue that it is silly?

When picking unattainable goals I don't feel bad shooting for the moon, and neither do I take works of fiction seriously enough that I consider them credible warnings for the possible. But feel free to disagree on so many levels.

I don't take them as credible warnings of the future either but if we must constantly make things more politically correct then something like that probably would happen (sorry for misconstructing "and I hope one day after that there's other people doing a facepalm at those people's attitudes" to mean anything but society will push it's self to insanity with political correctness). We cannot live trying to avoid any possible discomfort or offense by our actions/words.

What I mean is that I hope society is so constantly improving itself that it always looks back on itself and goes "Man, our ancestors sure had terrible attitudes. Look at all the bad things they used to do!"

I hope we never become satisfied with our own behavior, and never ever fall into the trap of being satisfied with ourselves.

We're not talking about trying to avoid every possible discomfort or offense - as far as that goes the article that whiterider linked to addressed that problem brilliantly - what we are talking about is not using language that further oppresses the people who are already oppressed.

And when we talk about removing gendered language, i.e. fireman, we are talking about using words that do not erase the female-identified of that group and that is important.

You can't avoid offending every person. If we tried to do that, we'd never get anywhere as a society. Sometimes people, especially privileged people, need to have their sensibilities offended a little bit in order to advance equality for the groups they wish to oppress.

Yes, I did. HELLO, welcome to the 21st century. Politicians do it all the time. d:

Relevant to this thought, and to the course this thread has taken: Why the Term 'Freedom Fries' Never Stuck (video, ~3 minutes)

The speaker's point is that term-swapping doesn't work because it suggests that the two words being exchanged are synonymous... in the case of "freedom fries," it suggests that France/the French are freedom-centric.

Another interesting comment (source):