[extropy-chat] more language stuff

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Sat Jun 18 00:24:59 UTC 2005


--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> So why couldn't it be the other way?

Theoretically, no reason.  One could easily concoct a believable
hypothetical society where the female pronoun was the generic, from a
society that was dominated more by females than by males.  Indeed, I
would not be surprised if numerous examples of just that had been
written in the past century - although I am not immediately aware of
any.

> This whole sharing of pronouns situation reminds me of an 
> uncomfortable trend I have been seeing.  Instead of a mens 
> restroom with no queue and a women's restroom with a long 
> queue, many establishments are going to two unisex restrooms, 
> both with a queue.  Or one women's and one unisex.  The
> unjustice!  I will totally sue!

Nah.  Just economics: the mens' restrooms were being underused, but to
provide an uneven number would imply sexism.  Unisex restrooms have
their own problems, but they do solve those two problems.



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