Wordsmithing: What You Say Matters [Revised and Updated]

Sexist Language: It’s Not Politics, It’s Science!

My first true exposure to the sexist language issue came from my English Comp class at Marian University. My professor had the entire class read the essay "Why Sexist Language Matters" by Sherryl Kleinman. Although that essay is a great starting point, it feels a little too politically correct for my tastes. The real issue behind this, and any other language issue that comes up, is not what is politically acceptable, but what is correct. You see, precision is the key component of language. The whole purpose of language is to communicate, and if we’re not precise with our words, then confusion can and will arise (or in some cases has arisen) because we didn’t say exactly what we meant.

Take, for example, the term ‘fireman’ (out of the context of Fahrenheit 451). I have heard children argue that women can’t be firemen because the word is “fireman” and not “firewoman.” I too had those same exact thought cross my mind as a child. But my solution was simple: more precise language. When I was a child (we’re talking three or four years old at the time), my mind could not accept calling a female firefighter a fireman because she was a woman. That was just wrong. She was not a man, and I shouldn’t call her that. But I did the simplest thing imaginable for a child of my age: I called her a firewoman because, after all, she is a woman. The same happened with terms like policeman and mailman. I simply called the males with the -man ending and the females with the -woman suffix.

That’s a simple fix (although not the one I now prefer), but it doesn’t work when we turn those words into their plural form for a group of both genders. ‘Policemen’ is fine when it’s all men, and ‘policewomen’ is fine for a group of only ladies. But what about a crowd of both men and women? According to ‘correct’ grammar, the term should be ‘policemen.’ *shivers* Nasty, filthy, BAD grammar. All it takes is one male in a group of females to make the term change from ‘policewomen’ to ‘policemen.’ That’s just wrong! There’s only one guy in the group, and suddenly we use the word that means there’s at least two male officers? Really? I’m sorry, but that’s imprecise, and it’s scientifically wrong.

Before I go any further, I need to establish the premise of this treatise. I am not an advocate of ‘politically correct’ language, but when my statements align with the PC movement, then I could be called “politically correct.” However, I have no political agenda and no particular movement’s interest in mind. I’m not a ‘rad-fem,’ especially since I’m a guy. I don’t agree with everything in the rad-fem movement (guys and gals are not equal in all aspects), but I do agree that the English language needs to change with this male gender-based system. It’s not politics: It’s science.

To continue, there is a simple fix to this whole issue of male-based plural words. When I was younger, terms like ‘fireman’ and ‘policeman’ didn’t bother me, because if I came across a female serving in one of those roles, I’d simply change the -man to -woman. But as I got older, I realized that when the group was a mix of both genders, it became more difficult to say who was who. When there was just one policeman and three policewomen, I wouldn’t say ‘policemen,’ I’d say ‘a policeman and some policewomen (or something to that effect).’ But we can avoid this whole issue by simply changing which words we use. ‘Police officer’ carries the same denotation as ‘policeman/woman,’ and it also lends the language and the office a little more respect and honor. ‘Police officer’ sounds more official, more respectable, and it lends a sense of nobility to the language being used, something we don’t get with the word ‘policeman.’ But using these more ‘honorable’ terms also resolves the gender-based issue: there’s no more gender to argue about. ‘Officer’ has no gender assigned to it, so instead of having to say ‘x-number of policemen and y-number of policewomen,’ the phrase ‘n-number of police officers’ makes the term both plural and gender correct, lending a sense of equality to all of the police officers. This also implies that the respect due to one officer should be given to all the officers, regardless of gender or police rank. It does not imply that all the officers are equal (we all know that officers who have been on the force longer have more experience and therefore should be better at their jobs than those fresh out of the academy), but it does contain the subtle undertone that all the officers should be respected equally. And again, there is no gender to argue about, because ‘officer’ is a word that has no inherent gender.

‘Police officer’ is not the only honorific substitute our language contains. There are also words like ‘firefighter,’ ‘mail carrier,’ ‘delivery person,’ and so on and so forth, that have no assigned gender and lend a more noble element to the person being spoken about. Giving them a more official-sounding title not only carries a more honorable weight to it, it’s also more precise. With ‘firefighter,’ that tells us more about what they do than ‘fireman.’ Who knows what ‘fireman’ can mean in a different context, especially to those learning English as a second language? To them, ‘fireman’ could convey the same meaning as ‘arsonist’ would to us native English speakers. I understand that is a bit of a stretch for most of us, but it is true: Read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 to find a use of the word ‘fireman’ that doesn’t mean putting out fires, but starting them.

I’m sure everyone has heard the term ‘you guys’ at least once. I have heard several of my female friends (used to distinguish from the word ‘girlfriend;’ see, there is a reason to have more precise language. :D) use that when addressing a group composed entirely of females. Now, why should this offend me, since I’m a guy and could care less about the feminist movement? If they’re girls and they’re okay with it, why should we make a big deal out of it? Because as a ‘man of science’ [read highly analytical mind that can’t stand anything being incorrect] I cannot stand it when people use incorrect language. ‘You guys’ should only be used to address a group of only male Homo sapiens. How much harder would it be to say “Hey, y’all,” or “Hey, everybody/everyone,” when addressing a mixed group? It’s not that difficult. Now, I know habits are hard to break, but if we all stick with this, it’s an issue we can solve.

But our speech is not the only thing that needs to be fixed. If we have to change the words we say, we must change the word we write. Having a male gender-based writing system is also scientifically incorrect. This isn’t a matter of ‘gender scrubbing,’ but scientifically precise language. On the school playground (and even when we’re older) it’s an insult and a taunt to accuse someone of being the opposite gender. “You’re being such a girl, Ned!” Now, I’m not going to touch the LGBT issue, but for guys who are guys and for gals who are gals, it’s insulting to call them by the opposite gender. And really, it’s scientifically inaccurate. No, I’m not going to discuss biology and physical makeup beyond the fact that, scientifically, there are physical and biological differences between males and females.

But to continue, in writing, it is ‘grammatically correct’ to say “He went to his home” when we don’t know the gender of the person we’re speaking about. Now, the PC way of saying that sentence in such a scenario would be “He or she went to his or her home,” but that’s a mouthful. Saying “They went to their home” is a lot simpler, and obeys the grammar rules. But what about a sentence like “The person went to their car”? That's where things get extremely...simple. That "their" is actually correct. It's known as the "singular they", because "they" can function as both singular and plural (despite what you've been taught.) Now, before you (or your grammar teacher) go exploding all over that, this isn't just my opinion. I've found examples in Mark Twain, Jane Austen (and this isn't the only example), Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, and even the highly-lauded William Shakespeare, in his Rome and Juliet and A Comedy of Errors. Those are just the ones I came across in online sources while researching this topic. Based on the credentials of these authors alone, I'd feel extremely confident using the singular they.

Yet there are those who argue that such writing scrubs the genders and makes the writing more bulky and awkward. Well, to a degree it is tinkering with the genders, but only enough to be scientifically accurate. Who knows whether said person is a guy or a gal? To be scientifically precise, we need to leave the option open that the person could be either a male or a female. For those of you who don’t want to use the whole ‘he or she’ style of writing, there are two alternatives. One, you can use the neuter-gender ‘it’; two, you can adopt the sci-fi community’s ‘xe,’ ‘xir,’ and ‘xirs’ (as well as the ‘xirself/xirselves’); or three, go with the simple "singular they." For those of you that don’t write sci-fi/fantasy, stick with ‘they’ if you don’t like the ‘he or she.’

I understand that using ‘it’ seems a bit demoralizing, especially since I’ve been advocating using more ‘honorable’ and ‘noble’ language. But that is why there needs to be a singular, third person pronoun that carries the respect of ‘he’ and ‘she,’ while being in the neuter case (if you prefer not to use the singular they). The sci-fi community’s ‘xe’ family of pronouns is a good place to start, but we’re most likely not going to adopt that system for two reasons: 1) ‘xe’ is actually used for the unigender races of science fiction, 2) it’s just too hard to say for most people [actually, the reasoning is a bit more along the lines of “I’m not going to sound like a dork/geek/nerd/doofus/moron!”]. So what are we going to do? Perhaps we need to figure out a solution, one in which we create a new family of pronouns, increase the number of neuter-gender pronouns in our vocabulary.

And that, my friends, is where wordsmithing comes in. There’s a reason authors are called ‘wordsmiths’: We invent new words. Thanks to the sci-fi community over the ages, we’ve been given words like ‘robot,’ ‘cyborg,’ and concepts such as time-travelling and cloning. So what we need to do is fall back on the literary community to experiment with new ideas, new word choices that might help solve this problem. The simplest solution is to get enough authors generating substitutes so the populace can hear a wide variety of options, and let society do its job. It’s amazing how quickly new terms can spring up, but the ones that stick are the ones that are the easiest to say and still convey enough meaning to get the message across [Lol or Yolo, anyone?]. So if we get enough people talking about the new terms, eventually everyone will pick one they like the most, and that one will stick. So let’s get our wordsmiths pounding away at the letter forges, crafting our newest family of neuter-gender pronouns.

Any questions or concerns?

Addendum:

Singular they, although singular in its pronoun number, still requires a plural verb. Example: They walk their dog around the block.This "they" is ambiguous, so technically, it could be referring to a couple, or a group of people. But if you know (due to context) that you're talking about a single person, then you still have to use the plural verb. That may seem paradoxical, but right now, that's where it stands. So unless we become comfortable saying "They walks their dog", we're going to have to stick with the plural verb.