I found the following quotation from the introduction of Peter Suber's "The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Law, Logic, Omnipotence, and Change" (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/psa/index.htm). It amused me.

"I would like to use sex-neutral language. But I find "she or he" and "his/her" to be barbaric constructions, and I cannot always arrange to use plurals and hide behind "they" and "them". My solution is to use "she" and "her" as generic pronouns; this is not sex-neutral, but it is compensatory. If we do this for a few centuries, then we can switch back. Or perhaps by then English will have acquired an elegant set of neutral personal pronouns."

I often use "s/he" as well, which is equally barbaric.

Yes, I noticed, and it is barbaric. Even more barbaric is the suggestion that we must conform to the stupidity of violently feminist criticism and change an elegance of the English language which has been in place since the time it began to be spoken. After all, 'man' and 'mankind' refer to both genders equally and should not be assumed to be offensive by hypersensitive freaks. Yes, I probably am violently hypersensitive in the opposite direction, but I am a girl and have had feminism shoved down my throat all my life until I am ready to vomit at any mention of it.

Feminism!

Apparently, it is a good thing that in my previous post I mentioned that I am a girl, because some of us seem to have missed that fact.

By the way, would you mind clarifying your remark? 'Feminism!' is extremely ambiguous and esoteric for most of us to understand what exactly the point is. A negative comment? Positive? Agreement or disagreement? Perhaps it is simply a elocutive exclamation with no deeper meaning? hmmm...

We could have fun with the interpretation of this.

Well, actually, you said you might vomit at the mere mentioning of feminism. I'm afraid the joke fell flat.

In an effort to distract myself from the chaos of my current life, as well as to placate the powers that be, I have decided to join into this amusing banter. I hope my presence is welcome.

As to having sex-neutral language, I personally find it is quite amusing to try to assign sexes to random objects such as cars, boats, and temptation, all of which are called "she". At the moment, I can't think of anything that is commonly referred to as "he", though. Hmm. I wonder why that is. Any ideas?

Because "he" is such a sacred term? :)

Nice try, flyboy.

It seems to me that all these things are weaknesses that men have... be they boats, cars, or temptations. Perhaps men call them "she" because they are fantasizing that they have what it is they actually want... women.

It seems to me (and I've already discussed this with Faith at great risk to my sacred being), that as all these terms were being refined in fire of history, nearly all intellectual discourse was the domain of men. Miss Jedi seems most correct in asserting that men prefer possessing women over men, so naturally these terms take on a feminine persona.

Incidentally, in every other language that I'm aquainted with nouns take on both masculine and feminine genders, depending.

Well, some of them actually seem to make sense in their context. For example, 'Mother Earth' is a nurturing, fruitful entity. It is only natural that as men go forth into the sea they will call their new caretaker and protector, the boat, a 'she'. Likewise, the imagery of the sea as a mistress, pulling them from the natural landlocked lives, and all of the personification that goes with it are really quite apt. Extending the metaphor, as men go from boats to cars and such it only fits that the customary metaphor would be attributed to the new venue. The ship has gone from home for most of their life and their only refuge to simply a mode of transportation. Soon their other modes of transportation, such as the car, also acquire it, and the imagery of refuge and protectoress fades into simply a quirk of the language.
…and of course, for most of the centuries woman was perceived as the sole cause of the fall and of men’s carnal nature, a naturally lower order of being, so why not pin the feminine onto temptation?

Wow. I am so not touching this one.

There is also the fact that women are known for their feminine wiles. These are necesarily subtle nuances of dress, expression, movement, etc., that are designed to tease the senses. It seems to me that these are akin to temptation... they pull you in and try not to let you go. Why not, then, attach temptation to women? We are, after all, manipulative creatures.

I have a question. It is said that men have a very strong spirit of adventure. It seems to me that this is why they would take their boats out on the ocean or their cars out on the road for a drive. Their modes of transportation become more than that; they become a means to find their adventures. Is it possible that rather than being a source of safety, women are regarded as an adventure in and of themselves? After all, many a good man has capsized in the open sea or died in a car accident.

Being a man a feel authorized to answer this question. Being a Hilton I do not feel authorized in answering it for all men everywhere. I'll leave that task to Shaun. My response is:

Yes.

This is a perfect example of what we would call "over analyzation." I think, now, we're giving ourselves way too much credit over the fact that vessels are often referred to as "she." If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that English is one of the few languages that doesn't have clear gender associations to each noun and that the practice of referring to different things as "he" and "she" migrated from other languages. This would make perfect the comparison of a boat to a woman by a man because it could be looked upon as his mistress (should he spend more time with it than with his wife).

Another plausible explanation seems, to me, to be that when someone spends a great deal of time with/on an object, that person develops a relationship with it. It seems logical that most men would refer to objects as females (since, if they can't get a real woman, then at least the boat can be his lover) and women refer to them as males. Over time, certain items became associated with being feminine (even though in English, I do not know if any word has a formal gender associated to it) because, historically, men worked on them waaaay more than women would have. The perfect example of this would be boats, cars, and anything technical.

To cite a couple of examples, Hilton and I both refer to our computers as female. Mine is even named Athena (look up what she's goddess of to understand, if you're not sure why). However, Karen Redmon calls her car Murry and Chelsea calls her computer Ernest (and previously Charlie).

It may be fun to think that things like boats are referred to as females because of their "wiles" and "charms" and the fact that occasionally some hapless man has lost his life through his involvement with it, but I think that the plain, boring explanation of people forming relationships with the object is the most probable and reasonable explanation.

Public service announcement:

You will all notice that in the very dense post appearing immediately before this one, Shaun uses a period within his quotation marks, and not without. This is because I schooled him on the proper use of punctuation.

Also, Hlton is a dork.

In response to the non-sequiter about the period: To place the period within the quotations is the British way of writing. To place it outside is the American way. Obviously someone is following the European higher-culture and better-punctuation rules of England. Way to Be!!
I have been told by my teachers that I am un-American for stubbornly punctuating the, may I say, proper way. I will continue to do so until America catches on (as long as it is only annoying and does not actually hurt my grades; at that point I will capitulate) and joins the rest of the world in reasonable punctuating. We should not have to re-edit and re-format every book to be published in the United States. That is taking national pride way beyond the bounds of reason. Ugh. Yes this is a pet peeve of mine. I have gotten in a lot of trouble for it, but I will stand by my guns!!

Thank you all for teaching me how to punctuate. At this point, I will stubbornly continue to do things my way, which means that sometimes I will put the period within my quotations and sometimes I will leave it outside, depending on the situation. Thank you all very much, and have a wonderful day.

Wait... were you actually called "un-American," or just plain "incorrect"? Or are they the same thing? :)

No, it was actually "un-American", and if 'incorrect' is the same thing, then there are certainly a lot of people I know who should be waiting in the deportation lines right now...