Defense of Suffrage Act

[trochee]

For those who've read "A person paper on purity in language", and those who haven't, you might be interested in The Defense of Suffrage Act.

Suffrage has, since time immemorial, meant in common usage and legally the "right of a man to vote." That women's right advocates must use the phrase "woman's suffrage" to clarify their meaning simply reinforces this point. If we bow to political pressure and "redefine" suffrage to mean the "right of a human being to vote, we will have "redefined" suffrage out of existence. It would be meaningless. This is exactly what advocates for woman's suffrage desire. This might seem like a small step, but it is a slippery slope; ...

It is the real goal of women's rights advocates to receive the rights and privileges similar to those our society grants to men. If that is the case, then debate that and work on state or local government level. But to fit the female vote into a long recognized and historically sound male vote would unnecessarily create a mountain over a mole hill. Society has not yet conclusively decided if it wants or needs women to have a political voice. To destroy any meaning for the "suffrage" to advance the agenda of a minority is foolish.

If you haven't checked out A person paper on purity in language, I urge you to do so.

Most of the clamor, as you certainly know by now, revolves around the age-old usage of the noun "white" and words built from it, such as chairwhite, mailwhite, repairwhite, clergywhite, middlewhite, Frenchwhite, forewhite, whitepower, whiteslaughter, oneupwhiteship, straw white, whitehandle, and so on. The "negrists" claim that using the word "white," either on its own or as a component, to talk about all the members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and reinforces racism. Therefore the libbers propose that we substitute "person" everywhere where "white" now occurs.

I shouldn't have to say this, but just in case: both of these are parodies. In each case, the author is highlighting absurdity and thus means the opposite of what the words say. Just in case you didn't know.

Comments

[evan.livejournal.com]

i've always liked how german has two words where we have one: Mann, for man, and man, for, uh, "person" (usually use in places where we'd use the word "one" as the subject).

[isolt.livejournal.com]

In relation to the latter example, I'm rather fond of my own position on the chairman/woman/person issue. I would like a return to the original meaning of "man" - a generic term for any human being. (I confess to have stolen this idea from sf author David Brin, whom I otherwise can't manage to like.) If I'm ever, say, elected to be chairperson of anything, I think I'll insist on being called the chairman. Language is flexible, I'm sure we'll soon coin a replacement term that means specifically "male human". Then both sexes will be equally marked, linguistically. :)

Something else I came across which I rather liked, is this article on why the author is upset that conservatives are even trying to frame this as a linguistic issue in the first place.