"Re said..." (1 Viewer)

[Neil Joseph]

We are all entitled to our own opinions on this matter. Personally, I think this is one of the dumbest and worst ideas I have ever heard of. However, since we are a civilized forum, I do not disagree with JohnAD's advice.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Re's right, Raggy!

 

[Henry Carmona]

Neil is very correct.
JohnAD,
Take a chill pill and relax. I never attacked the guy, but i do disagree.
He might make the public "aware" of his idea, but theres no way i would ever use that language. There is a fine line between being considerate, being politically correct, and just plain ridiculous

 

[Cees Alons]

A very typical subject for our Home Treater Forum!

But frankly, I would ratris see tris more in a ristoric perspective. After all, language is a risitage of millions of years and although some people consider tre forced use of a female form to refer to tre Upper Being as pure risesy, Ris Son was best known as tre "Good Reprisd" and even trey, tre treists, must be used to rear pray "Our Fatris Who art in Reaven".

Now if you ask tre srisiff of a small town wretris re prefers a srisbet or a srisry, re will probably say that ris wife prefers tre latter. Tris, of course is just a red risring, to reave tris reinous and tristly subject to new reights. Tris whole subject is even so utterly reavy, that some may develop a risnia to which trise is no proper trisapy!

After all, you don't need an intimate knowledge of tre Rebraic or any otris language to see that tris isn't korer.

No Reh, not kosris at all!

Cees

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Ryan Wright wrote:
We've been using "He" to refer to gender inspecific people for hundreds of years. That's how the English language is.
Danny R wrote:

I don't get your point here, as ancient Hebrew certainly had grammatical gender (masculine : feminine) and 'God' (elohim (which goes ultimately with Arabic allahu 'God' and ilahu 'a (pagan) god' or Yahweh ( = 'He Who Is' ("I am that I am, saith the Lord.")) certainly fell into the former category in the grammar, as well as in the conception of the thoroughly patriarchal culture that conceived of "Him".
So, which "original text" are you referring to?

 

[Ryan Wright]

It's fine if you disagree with the this guy's proposal (I do), but personal attacks demonstrate childish behavior.

No offense, John, but the guy is a moron. While I normally do not stoop to calling names, this is an extraordinary case. The guy is an idiot. It's black and white and I can't help it. Sorry. You can think I'm childish if you like (perhaps I am).

 

[JohnAD]

Ryan:

I have to say that it takes a lot of guts to stand up for what you believe in. It takes even more guts when what you believe in is unpopular. Mr. Newdow stood up for what he believes in, in relation to the pledge (which I agree with), and assuming that Henry Carmona's information is correct, his stand on English (which I do not). If you disagree with what he believes, fine. If you think his stand on English is bogus, fine. But I respect the fact that he stood up for what he believes in, despite the majority's knee-jerk reaction.

John.

 

[cafink]

John, but the guy is a moron.

Oh, come off it.

In spite of what some seem to think, the English language is NOT perfect. While a well-spoken individual can usually get his meaning across quite clearly, there will always be cases in which there is confusion. In this particular situation, there is a simple solution to the problem. Why not go with it? Or, at the very least, why not let the man exercise his right to have his opinion about it?

I personally find the whole idea a bit silly, but I don't see what he has done that qualifies him as a "moron." He identified a very definite problem and proposed a workable, sensible solution. Don't like it? That's okay. But it hardly makes him an "idiot."

 

[Max Knight]

What I don't get is why people get so upset about the concept of gender in language. Is this guy going to start campaigning in Italy to change the plural "youths" to a gender neutral? Many languages use gender, and I really don't think it's oppressing anyone.

Rather than combat the supposed sexism of speech, he should be spending his time combating sexism that actually affects people. He'd be a lot more convincing if he were working to shrink the wage gap or something more noble.

 

[DennisHP]

I'm asking you all to please stop

No thank you. The MAN is a weird-o, moron, and idiot IMHO. Perhaps HE can take HIS ideas to a small isolated island with a population of one and live HIS dream. Then all MEN and WOMEN who agree with HIS BS can go live there.

 

[Jared_B]

Perhaps HE can take HIS ideas to a small isolated island with a population of one and live HIS dream.

All this because he made up a new word? I fail to see how making up a new word could invoke such harsh responses. Maybe some people are letting past judgement regarding the "pledge thing" get in the way of sound reasoning.

Dennis, why are his opinions not worth listening to, while yours are?

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

I don't really understand what he thinks he can accomplish. While the government can change the pledge of allegiance, it does not officially own the English language. In fact, if I am not mistaken, English isn't even the official language of the US (it doesn't have an official language). So all that he can accomplish is to make the courts rule that gender-specific language should not be used in public schools, and if this law is applied fairly, then it should affect all languages - not only English.

So either this will stop the use of Spanish, Italian, etc. in all public schools, or they'd have to bastardize these languages to where it is completely unrecognizable by anybody that spoke it. Would this really benefit women and minorities?

I personally think that he's enjoying his (ris) 15 minutes of fame and wants to extend it as much as possible. I tend to side with Ryan in this instance.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

All this because he made up a new word?

No, because he will try to make the courts force us to use this word. As Marge Simpson learned, one person can make a difference, but usually they shouldn't.

 

[Jared_B]

he will try to make the courts force us to use this word

Isn't that how the courts are supposed to work? A person presents a case, and if the courts agree, then action can be taken on that issue.

You're saying this guy should shut-up just because you disagree with him, no? So he shouldn't have the chance to present his case?

I don't think the courts will side with him, but at least they will hear him. I think "they" is just fine for a non-gender specific word. I don't think he expects to accomplish anything - he's just milking his prior fame.

 

[Henry Carmona]

NOVAK: It's one thing to take on God in the Pledge of Allegiance but now Dr. Michael Newdow wants to banish sexist pronouns.
He and she would become "re." His and her would be replaced by "res." Is "re" out of "re's" mind?
Dr. Michael Newdow rejoins us now from Sacramento.
NEWDOW: That was very good - to get "re" out of a "re's" mind. OK.
BEGALA: Help me out with this then. These, of course, are not sexist - they're gender specific. Why now this crusade to neuter the English language?
NEWDOW: I'm not trying to neuter the English language. When we refer to somebody we don't say a Black person, a White person - we don't say a Chinese - we say a person. And we don't have a word that just says it's a person.
BEGALA: Sometimes we're more specific than that. No - that's just not true. Sometimes we say, "A Right Wing Conservative like Novak."
NEWDOW: If you want to say it. But I can also refer to somebody as - without any reference to their political persuasion. I'd like to be able to refer to people without relation to their gender.
And we all struggle with this all the time. We have hypothetical . . . BEGALA: No, we don't, brother.
NEWDOW: Sure, you do. I'll bet you - I'll bet you . . .
BEGALA: We figured out boys and girls a long time ago - most of us.
NEWDOW: That's not the issue. When you have some idea - somebody says to you, "I saw my doctor." And you say, "Well, what did your doctor say?" And then you can keep referring to your doctor or you can say, "What did he/she say?" You can assume it's a he, which is sexist. You can be very politically correct and say she or you can say re.
I just think we have a - we have a - we have a set of pronouns missing in this language. It would be nice to fix it.
NOVAK: Mr. Newdow, with all due respect - I don't want to really be insulting to you. But . . .
NEWDOW: Go ahead.
NOVAK: . . . maybe your position on Pledge of Allegiance is a little odd but your position on this makes you look like a real nut. Do you realize that?
NEWDOW: I don't think so at all. I think anybody out there who has ever tried to write a hypothetical situation and said - well, let's imagine we had a judge and the judge decided this." You'd like to say - just an imaginary judge - I'd like to say we have pronouns - that's why we use them. So re decided this and this is what happened to her.
NOVAK: We had a debate the other day about Title Nine. And Title Nine is you have to have so much money going into girls' athletics. Those are called shes that get that kind of money.
Now would you - how would you handle that? Would you say there's no difference between the boys and the girls?
NEWDOW: Not at all.
NOVAK: We'd give all of them to the male football players because there's no difference.
NEWDOW: No - you're taking this out of context and missing the whole point. OK - if somebody were discussing Title Nine and you didn't want to divulge the sex of that person because you think that was going to effect how the listener - excuse me - would respond, you might want to just say, "Re said this. This was re's opinion."
BEGALA: So this is part of the extension of this crusade to eliminate any sort of uncomfort out there or discomfort out there in the ears of the listener?
Is this part of a litigation strategy or this is just trying by moral dissuasion here to persuade . . .
NEWDOW: This is - we have a shortage in this language. We have - we have - we have a lack of a genderless personal pronoun. This is just for something that everyone can use. If everyone started using it . . .
NOVAK: Surely . . .
NEWDOW: . . . (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BEGALA: You're not suing anybody on this one, though, right?
NEWDOW: No.
NOVAK: You're not going to spend another 4,000 hours on this one, are you?
NEWDOW: No - I think that people - if they hear this enough they're going to start using it. And . . .
BEGALA: Why did you pick re?
NEWDOW: If you go through the alphabet, he and she - if you go with the "e" sound - R is the only thing that's open. And then you have his and hers so just add an R - re - I mean - add an S - you get res. And erm is kind of a combination of her and him. So . . .
BEGALA: Erm?
NEWDOW: . . . re, res and erm.
BEGALA: Erm? OK - erm. We want to thank erm for joining us.
Michael Newdow from Sacramento, California - good of you to join us on a holiday week. Thank you very much.
NEWDOW: Thank you

For more on the interview and also his interview on the Pledge lawsuit, go here:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/03/cf.00.html

 

[JohnAD]

lets not start getting political now

Or religious. I agree with Mr. Newdow; the government has no place forcing people to believe in a certain way.

John.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

All this because he made up a new word? I fail to see how making up a new word could invoke such harsh responses.

In general, people tend to live and let live if somebody wants to behave differently, create new words, or espouse extreme philosophies, but people tend to not like it when other people try to force these behaviors, words, or philosophies on the general public. This is true whether the behavior, language, or philosophy comes from the far left or the far right.

Once again, I didn't say that the courts shouldn't hear his case, but rather responding why people in general don't like it. I'm sure that I could come up with some example proposals that would make you see red as well, but they might violate forum rules.

 

[DennisHP]

Dennis, why are his opinions not worth listening to, while yours are?

Who said my ideas were worth listening to?
But while we're on the subject, let's all have our bottoms smoothed out like on cartoons so we're all genderless. I'm not trying to change the world's vocabulary using law like this clown is. I read the guy's story and I think the concept is rediculous.

 

[Aaron Copeland]

So all that he can accomplish is to make the courts rule that gender-specific language should not be used in public schools, and if this law is applied fairly, then it should affect all languages - not only English.

Exactly! What does this guy expect to do about languages like Spanish that apply gender to many inanimate objects? Will he or his daughter become offended by that next? I agree with Rex about the use of the plural. In Newdow's example about the doctor (in the interview above), a lot of people would simply say, "What did they say?" if they (

 

[cafink]

I agree with Rex about the use of the plural. In Newdow's example about the doctor (in the interview above), a lot of people would simply say, "What did they say?" if they (