I am sure the french word in the subject lacks orthography. Sorry. I totally
agree with Sheryl Swink about not paying too much attention to the origin of
the words we use, and focus more on the meaning we fill them with every day.
Btw, I am not sure the circle in the root of the word "ranch" would actually
be a semantic projection of natural cycles...I rather see it as an
affirmation of property. I could easily easily be wrong, though.
What I understand from this thread, is that language is seen both as a way
to represent the world, and a driving force to possibly influence the course
of things. As a whitish-latin-petit bourgeios-european-male I am rather
skeptical about this second issue. Not that one does not care about other
people's sensibility, it's just that I don't see more respect towards, say,
immigrants in my country as a consequence of the spreading of a more correct
language. It's very sad (when not ridiculous) to see how a lot of such
language is mere euphemism. Of course, language is not intended to be the
only driving force...in any case I would not start from that. I am aware
this only comes from my own personal experience in my peculiar social
environment in a particular society. I thought I could drop my two cents,
anyway.
What touches me more, and frankly I did not care much about, is the exigence
of visibility mentioned by Michele. As to the sexual part of the problem,
you english-speakers have all the luck, with that neutral gender. We latin
males (I am italian and live in Argentina...a molotov cocktail...) have been
so busy slaughtering people that dared to doubt about our macho virtues, we
could not care about such a subtle issue. Too much sun, maybe. ; - ) (BTW,
there's plenty of clichés about the stupid gringo, the lazy indio and the
soap-proof french - yet how charming! -, but please....could we try to leave
them out of sanet?).
The matter is that I (how about you?) automatically think about a he-farmer
when I hear the word without further specification. This of course has to do
with the fact that 9 farmers out of 10 I deal with are men, but it's well a
matter of my own mind frames, and partly language-derived (when the word,
say, Mayor, has been a male noun since you were a kid, it's rather hard to
instinctively think of a woman leading the city council, isn't it? - this
should not apply to you neutral-users, anyway) too. Maybe a good way to help
communication could be that of recognizing the existence of these mind
frames, on both sides. (what's this? italian-catholic propension to
compromise?). The question remains whether a somehow imposed switch in
language would be of help in this sense. Me - personal again -, I feel
rather unease when I hear that "the men and women in our country" instead of
"the people", or "the citizens" - though the italian for citizens is male.
It seems to me that this is paying a forced visibility with some dignity. I
mean that sometimes I find visibility implicit in some commonly used
expressions, no matter how formally correct they be. I still believe that
language will follow the evolution of society - the example about the verbs
to access and to program was illuminating - though I'm beginnig to wonder
about this faith of mine in a "better tomorrow"....
Best wishes to you all
marco
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*Homo sum; nil humani a me alienum puto*
Terentius, Heautontimoroumenos
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Marco Biagetti - Agronomo
Cabo Lencina 13
B.o Inaudi
5016 Cordoba
Argentina
biagetti@powernet.com.ar
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