Seems some feminists object to the word “woman”. It contains the word “man” you see. They prefer spelling the noun that denotes the sex with no Y chromosome as “womyn”.

Now consider the word “gentlemen” as in “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?”

Surely this is no longer an acceptable use of language. Surely someone wishing to gain the attention of an audience should start with:

“Gentlepersons, ….”

Where “gentlepersons” takes the place of “Ladies and gentlemen.”

Except that, well, you see, “person” contains “son”. Isn’t it time we replaced “per-son” with “per-child.”

Yes, I think that’s what we should do. I look forward to a time when announcers start with:

“Perchildren, may I have your attention please?”

I think that would do quite nicely.

Sorry, let them eat cake.
PC is a rotting carcase on every ones kitchen table.
A way minority's can force us, most of us to bend to childish stupidity.
This rubbish is foolish,the thought we will fall in line for the few, is worse.

per means via..[by means of]..in accordance with

in heraldry..it means divided by a line..in the direction of

per can also mean through all over or pervade

percieve the perception that per capita the percentage perchance percieves perdural perdition per perfect persons

we can speculate till the cows come home
but we live because man...passed on a living sperm

that woeman made into a living huh-man being

what is the fee of the free fe-male?
get over it

you can become a sister or a mother
take the sex out of it

stop pretending to be huh?-man
know your not a per-son
but a per father...[per-fat-her]

i could keep on decribing the vision
but we coverd this long ago...bro

legally a person..is a fiction
but i explained all that before too
any claiming to be the fiction deserve what they get

many claim to be human..[but human defined in legal dictionaries means monster..so feel free to use the words the media has taight us to use

by the way
indigenous means sans culture
this is what lawyers know..when they use these type words

and aborigonal ..means AB-origonal
alpha/beta oriogonal

alpha signifying the life giver
beta signifying the improved version that takes a living sperm
and causes it to shape living being...living a life...[get one]

i wasted too much of mine
bering destracted by stuff like this

sticks and stones
when there are real issues
that really deserve our attention

Gender neutral - what does it mean? Are we all to be homogenous hermaphradites? :)

The 'man' bit comes from 'human'.

Most people don't worry about it steven, I suggest you just keep saying "Ladies and Gentlemen".

Or if you insist on an alternative, maybe "gentlepeople". Sounds better than 'perchildren'.

As has been said "man" comes from human the generic name "man", and "Wo" comes from a womb man. Perhaps it is not the man so much they object to but that they posess a womb for children.

Well folks... perhaps now you can see my concerns over Dr Peter Singer being on the board of the Melbourne BIOethics school, with this rather lame view of human animal sexual relations.. not to mention his view of 'incest'.

These things filter down from academia...into the public service and education.....

If we don't FIGHT against such trends.. we will be re-shaped before you can say "social engineering"

The important point is.. it won't stop there.. it will just keep on going until they run out of words to change..then.. they will begin working on PEOPLE.. i.e..the 'inner' person.

We will be declard 'unpersons' if we don't speak 'correctly'

Remind you of a movie/book some years back ?

Modern terms exist such as "you'll"

And as "she" includes "he", perhaps you could refer the the PM as "it"

For god's sake if this floats your boat, get a life.

Is this a reprise

Of 1970s gender silliness?

Does anyone care?

There is usually an alternative means of address which does not descend to inelegant usage , such as "gentlepersons "or "womyn ". For example , as in Court , referring to members of the jury instead of gentlemen of the jury . At a public gathering , call those present "audience members " or "fellow citizens ".
It is easy to ridicule gender neutral language , but the intent which underlies it is valid , recognising that women have a role other than as appendages of men .

jaylex,
What is the independent role of a woman other than in a human society? Please explain!

The term "man" is a general term for homosapien and refers to a species and not a gender. Perhaps we should call woman "homo" meaning part of the human species.

Think back to any famous speech that made an impact on you. Do you remember the form of address (perhaps, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," is an exception) or the words that were spoken? If something is done with style, "elan," panache - and has the power to move us - I bet very few of us would recall what forms of address was used. "The quality of mercy is not strained..." "Think not what your country can do for you..." The point that I'm trying to make is if you don't like
"Ladies and Gentlemen," et cetera, there's always alternatives you can come up with - all you have to do is use your imagination, and be creative. For example - instead of "swamp-thing," you could use -
"wetlands-challenged mutant." Instead of "Ladies and Gentlemen" you could (depending on the occasion) use:

Fellow Australians
Distinguished Visitors
Dear Friends
Dear Colleagues
Good Evening Folks
Distinguished Guests
Dear Parents
Hello Booklovers
Hello Australia
Hi Everyone
Hello Brighton

And so on... if gender is your problem - don't refer to it. Many people become too concerned with language - often our writers ape the
English way and look at our native language as if our words were river pebbles pushed forward and tumbled by another stream of influence, a babbling English brook and not a roiling, flood-rushed creek.

"Homo" means 'same', philo.

depending on the context, homo as a prefix can mean man or same.

Using the Latin word for 'man', homo, we get Homo Sapiens (wise man), hominoid (man-like animal)and Homer Simpson (stupid man).

The Classical Greek word for 'same' is homos, giving homosexual, homogeneous and much more.

As English developed from Germanic and Latinised loan-words with add-ons from other languages, many similar examples of words with more than one meaning still exist.

Ladies and Gentlemen, is rather sexist.
Only the men are considered, and they are gentle and the boys are called Laddies. Rather demeaning of our young men I think.Please include the women in this term of address. "Men and Women" covers both sexes in a distinctice and Identifies them separately as part of the human race.

no im afraid this word wont do
people.. in anciant times was written pee pole

and we dont want that sort of suff cluttering up the wmca adgenda

come on peep-le
lets sort out this mess

lets go where no man has gone before
and no woe-man neither

its time man-kind
stopped being so kind about the hole thing

[kind as in child]
kinder surprize
from the ger-manic kind

holy heck bat-man
this looks like a job for the boys club

club em on the head till they get sober
stop looking so gay..neuterd lan-gauge...no way

One post came from the type of woman who wants us to fall in line in my view.
A reference to women not being just for men,true I would run away from some, not many.
Women are women men are men.
SM it? best you can do it will have to do,with both dislike PC and so we should.

What next, gender neutrality ? Like those asexual lefties ?

Australian “Idiom” to the rescue:

Bucks and sheilas (close to a complaint).

But safer is;

OK you bunch of dags,

Pack of nurds, dills, Galahs, yobbos, deros, dunny rats .

and more unmentionables.


Easily an appropriatly safe greeting for every occasion!

Ladies and Gentlemen, is rather sexist.
Philo,
what's sexist about that ? It's classist yeah but sexist ? Those who have nothing more to worry about than this nonsensical PC crap I suggest go out into the real world & fend for yourself for a week rather than depend on our tax money.

You guys do realise this is a spoof?

Individual:

I am into “oronyms” today. Here’s one for you; hope it helps!

“There’s a bathroom on the right”
“There’s a bad moon on the rise”

An “oronym", diver dan?

>>“There’s a bathroom on the right”
“There’s a bad moon on the rise”<<

When they refer to popular songs, I have always called them mondegreens.

http://wordinfo.info/unit/3347/ip:8/il:M

But thank you for introducing me to the generic term, I hadn't come across it before..

Pericles:

Oh, the purity of linguistics! No worries.

Is that all you have Individual?
Imposing your slurs on threads ?
You are aware surly you are not impressing.
Asexual Lefty's hmmm.
You would kick a kid in the bottom for such childishness, try harder.

Asexual Lefty's hmmm.
Belly,
Is there another term for them ? why don't you enlighten us.

individual,

I'm spellbound by your repartee.

Why ask others to enlighten us when it's obvious you consider yourself a master of wit....Oscar Wilde was a mere scribbler by comparison.

Carry on....

Stevenlmeyer wrote earlier that his topic was written as a "spoof". I don't believe that, I think he wrote that first post because he thinks that language change is inappropriate when it comes to gender considerations. He believes in the old language.

"Some" people consider gender neutral language to be PC. Actually it's the other way around.

The older, non gender neutral approach, is based on ancient and middle ages approaches to language from an era when females had almost no legal right to self determination. As a result, this was reflected in the language. At the time, it was the accepted norm and oh sooooooooooooooo PC for the era. It's a language that we have inherited in this more modern era. A language where many traditional gender related terms are TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY PC to the core: Terms like "man", when used to describe both sexes; there's dozens of similar PC terms that have been in common English usage for centuries.

Most modern gender neutral language is an attempt to replace the old style political correctness of some old language, with language that is not politically correct.

But of course the old style neanderthals amongst us are still too thick to realise that the gender language they've been using all along is as PC as it's possible to get. The poor old timers don't like hearing that because the truth hurts.

/// You guys do realise this is a spoof? ///

Do NOT belittle it Steven --you have a serious talent there.

There must be literally hundreds of lobby groups and government departments (Whoops! Sorry ) governBODIES departAREAS hanging out for someone like you.

You could get a six, or even seven figure position plus expenses.But hey , it's not only about money, you’d also be entitled to wear the Bob Brown smirk (or the Julia blush) that comes from knowing you are doing something for the betterment of… PERSONkind.

Why, I’ll bet, even at this moment Graham is being bombarded with queries from head-hunters on behalf of groups with names like The Positive Discrimination and Unequal Opportunity Body, or The Special Persons Electoral Lobby, or perhaps even the ABC Editorial Board, seeking to sign you up.

courageous,
I'd be careful not to down grade the literary experts, since u liv in a txt gen.

Philo, I have no idea what you're talking about. Would you care to elaborate please. Thanks.

courageous,
You said, "But of course the old style Neanderthals amongst us are still too thick to realise that the gender language they've been using all along is as PC as it's possible to get. The poor old timers don't like hearing that because the truth hurts".

I say nonsense the term, "Ladies and gentlemen" places the female gender of the human species in the highest esteem and only recognises their gentle male partners and ignores the bully boys and chauvinists among the assembly; Unless you mean that males are discriminated against is PC.

Most legal documents have "male" or "female" as identifies of the gender of the human species. Perhaps you prefer an asexual non gender identifier.

That's the real problem. Right there.

>>There must be literally hundreds of lobby groups and government departments (Whoops! Sorry ) governBODIES departAREAS hanging out for someone like you<<

Think how much of us taxpayers' hard-earned is being flushed down the dunny on pointless "gender ishoos".

Rather than impose a levy to fund the reconstruction of Queensland, we should close down all these self-righteous, value-free bureaucratic sheltered workshops.

We'd have a budget surplus the size of Uluru in no time.

Don't forget that people who prefer the old language (where terms like "man" refer to both men and women when describing our species) are no less self righteous about their old fashioned PC language than people who are trying to change that language.

No language is ever fixed in stone. Change is a part of life. The old fashioned PC male dominated language of the past had to change eventually. All language eventually changes. These days society is far more aware, cosmopolitan and intelligent and the language change will continue.

Of course there will still be a few self righteous people who will try to cling to their PC old language norms. I guess those old dears need the comfort, God bless them.

[Deleted. Appears to be sock puppet for Courageous.]