long post ahead: I am copying this for youse guys.
There ain't no link to it. It first appeared in The Whig-Standard Magazine (I believe - am a bit hazy on the details - MIGHT have been on the op/ed page of The Whig, instead) probably getting on for 10 years ago. I made it the first piece in my self-published book. Hope the anticipation will not have led you to believe it's superlative; 'taint bad, tho'.....IMHO, but then I wrote it so I'm biased.
Don't know how to do the copyright sign but eh, I'm putting it up in a public forum - I can't control it nooooowwwwwww.....
A slightly hersterical look at the future of neutered Englishby Mary SteerOne of the sad side-effects of modern society's attempts to make the sexes equal is the bastardization of the English language. Because
man as a suffix or even as a blanket term for the human race is no longer accepted as being generic, many fine and inoffensive words like
chairman and
alderman have become "personalized." In some case the easy option that could please everybody has been overlooked -
chair or
head for leaders of departments, for example - in favour of castrating the language. How long will it be before origins of words are completely ignored, and the words changed in the name of equality? I can see it now....
The face of scholarship will change the world over. Those studying the past will be known as "theirstory" majors, because some history is only half a story until you've heard herstory, too.
People will no longer use molasses for cooking or as a spread on bread. But to use moladdies would also be sexist - this knife cuts both ways - so that fine, sweet, gooey substance will become known as "mobairns." Similarly, sailors will use windbairns instead of windlasses, and pirates will slit each other's throats with cutbairns.
When the devout attend church on Sunday, they will not be singing hymns - nor will they be singing hyrs. Musical praise will be called "pyrsongs," that both sexes may sing them with equanimity.
But certain words will always resist being neutered in this way, and these words must be allowed to vary in accordance with the sex to which they are being applied. Women with colds, hayfever or other allergies will take antiherstamines; and while women may write missives (or msives) and make mistakes (or mstakes), men may write misterives and make misterakes. The next time a bomb is dropped, whether it's deemed a missile, msile or misterile will depend on who pressed the button.
Medical terminology will change. Men in their 40s and 50s who begin acting half their age will no longer be referred to as going through male menopause; the redundant qualifier will be dropped. At the same time, females will begin womenstruating at puberty and will go through womenopause later in life. Hysterectomies, because of the sex on which they are performed, will be termed herstorectomies. And herpes, which can be contracted and transmitted by either sex, will become theirpes, giving rise to terrible puns about warning people to mind theirpes and q's....
Gender-specific names for well-known objects will be replaced by names which might apply equally to men or women. Instead of douglas fir or jack pine trees, we will have lesley/ie firs and frances/is pines. The Oscars will have to be rechristened; so will the Neilsen ratings, which are, after all, sexist in their first syllable. Never mind that they may have been named after someone; they're still sexist.
After a generation or two of such neutralizing of the English language, English speakers everywhere will become so confused that they will become theirmaphroditic, like snails, solving the problem of gender relations for all concerned.
Let's face it. Neutralizing the language isn't going to do much for equality between the sexes. Changing a word doesn't change an ingrained attitude. The changes that will be good for both men and women in creating an equal-opportunity society will not be artificial ones imposed by one sex or the other in the name of "progress." For real, lasting change to come about, the brain and the heart, and not the tongue, must evolve.
(the end.)
Or is it theirsterical?
