English, gender and God

And I think Mr. P's point (and mine as well) is, where do these rules come from? How are they inferred? How is it possible to make arguments from the authority of those rules if thery're only inferred from usage?It's not like there's a standards body dictating usage to people (except within the arenas of highly technical writing). The OED only records usage shifts that have already arisen in the language (they're descriptionist, not perscriptionist).

Aren't we overlooking the fact that while people may attempt to use a gender-neutral "he", it isn't really common for people to imagine gender-neutral people?I mean, if I say something like "some doctor took his lunch", no matter how much I may say that my use of "he" is to be regarded as without gender, you're going to think of a male doctor. It's like the old riddle:

quote:

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A father and his son are driving to a ball game when tragically, their car is struck by a train. The father dies at the scene but the son is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon in attendance takes one look at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy - he's my son." How is this possible?

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Luckily this isn't such a brain-teaser in the year 2003. But that this riddle exists is testament to a time when the idea of a woman surgeon simply didn't enter the realm of consideration for most people.No matter what you mean when you say "he", if you call god "he" people think of a male god. If you don't think that this has had ramifications for the acceptance of women as equal persons under the law you're quite mistaken, as far as I know.

But the point is, in what form does language exist besides usage? How do you reliably determine the difference?Mr. P's and my point (which he is clearly much better than defending than I) is that language cannot be distinguished from usage. The usage is the language. Resources like the OED are not repositiories of language but only descriptors. I think Schraf was responding not to that particular instance, but to it's context of a greater, inherent sexism found in male conceptions of god. The proverbial last straw, perhaps. Anyway, I don't see anything eye-rolling-worthy about the idea of a female god, and it was that summary dismissal that Schraf was responding to, I believe. I could be wrong; I don't claim to read her mind. But I found her comments very appropriate, because I also was slightly offended by the idea that a female aspect of god is something to be rejected outright with a roll of the eyes. Albert Einstein's gender is confirmable. God's is not, so is it really a good idea to assume god's gender without discussion?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 05-09-2003]

Paul, do you think god is male? In the sense of having a penis, lots of body hair, XY chromosomes, etc. Your thoughts on the sex of god would appear to be germaine to the discussion.Most people who talk about god do not mean to indicate a specific gender identity for god or to suggest a purely genderless god, but rather use "he" to suggest that god has perhaps male characteristics. Of course, a creator god who made life seems female to me, but maybe that's just me.If you're going to use "He" to talk about god, the issue of gender comes up. Especially if you're going to reject the use of "she" to describe god. It's not possible to use "he" to talk about god, reject the use of "she", and then hide behind the idea of a genderless god.

Well, and punctuation and sentence structure. Which are a part of language, I think? Well, if we all use it that way, in every situation, why isn't it a rule? Clearly there is something in the language that says that size comes before color.I go one better. I'll propose Crashfrog's Rule of Size Before Color.Now, prove to me that this isn't a fundamental rule of the english language, since that seems to be your claim. How is it you are able to tell the difference between so-called "rules" of language and rules of usage? This is the part I still don't understand. I just don't see how anyone can say one thing is a fundamental rule of langauge and another thing is simply a universally accepted usage. The only clear conclusion is that all rules we percieve in language are simply based on usage. Not sure what that has to do with it - god didn't write the new testament.Let me ask you this - if I started referring to rocks as having gender, would you correct me? Or would you simply say "Well, Crashfrog seems to think that rocks have gender. I won't question that." Wouldn't you, in fact, question the assumption that rocks could be gendered entities? I sure would. I question the idea that god, if he or she or it exists, could be a gendered entity in the sense that we think of it. God may have traits that we associate with certain genders more than others, but it's outrageous to assume that male and female have any meaning beyond biological entities.

That's simply too arbitrary to be reliable. Did you notice, your own criteria relies on usage as reported by speakers of the language? How can you use usage to determine between usage and something deeper?Anyway, you assume quite a bit about speakers of English. Anyone who can tell me that "hungrified" isn't a word can tell me that "red, big balloon" sounds wrong because "red" should come after "big", so I don't see what your point is. Your distinction between "rules" and usage is arbitrary on one hand and on another relies on hypothetical speakers. That's a pretty weak justification.Consider the utterances "dirty big axe" and "big dirty axe". By your argument, adjective position isn't a rule, but a usage because the meaning doesn't change.But certain speakers of english percieve different meanings for those utterances. In the first, "dirty" is a magnifying modifyer for "big", synonymous with "very". In the second, it simply means the axe isn't clean.The meaning changes, therefore adjective position in English is a basic rule, by your own definition. Do you see how "rules" vs. usage are too close to call? I'm not speaking for god, but simply drawing conclusions based on the definition of god. Gender is a quality restricted to biological life. As god is not biological, god cannot have gender. I mean, who would god have sex with? Mrs. god?

The point isn't that Paul thinks that god is male; but rather, that he rolled his eyes when presented with the use of "she" to refer to god. The question is, why would he do that? Schraf proposed that he did so because the language he's used to using is inherently sexist; that would appear to be a nicer assumption than assuming that Paul is generally rude enough to simply roll his eyes at valid statements he may not agree with.

Clearly Schraf didn't think so; she accused the language of being sexist, not Paul. I probably would have made a more direct challenge. I find the summary dismissal and ridicule of a position as "a political game" rather rude.Your argument was that statements were leveled at Paul; the text doesn't support this. Language was the target, not Paul. Whether or not that is a reasonable target is part of what you and Mr. P have been arguing about, and I'm nowhere near qualified enough to really get into that. I think you two have covered all that ground.

Not in the least. Schraf's language clearly indicated that she (to whatever degree of seriousness) meant to give Paul the benefit of the doubt - to suggest that Paul's sexism might not have been deliberate and concious, but rather a simple oversight allowing (in Schraf's view) English's natural sexism to rear its ugly head.Everyone makes mistakes. It's not an insult to suggest that someone may have made an honest mistake in not correcting a language's inherent sexism (if that sexism exists). I guess I missed this the first time. I honestly thought you were somehow defending Paul's rolling of the eyes. My mistake, obviously.So, uh, whose side are you on in this? Support this from the text, then. I honestly don't see it. She's talking about the language, not Paul. Language exists outside of Paul, right? And therefore it's possible to talk about Paul's use of language without suggesting anything beyond "Paul might have used language without realizing it's implications"? Which would be a common mistake that any of us could have made. Schraf's words clearly imply that she was willing to give Paul the benefit of the doubt; that the sexism inherent in his language may not have been of his concious choice, but rather a genuine oversight. I don't think that says anything bad about Paul; we're all obviously capable of such mistakes.

Them perhaps it would behoove you to stop putting words in my mouth (fingers?) and implying insult where none can be found, like here: And here: And here: And here: And here: And yet again, here: I think we get it.Honestly, if your argument is going to rely on insulting implicatures that I'm not making, there's really no reason to argue with you. For somebody who wants to keep the insults out of the argument you used more in that last post than Salty in his last six.Come up with a better tack or don't expect a reply from me.

If you use a green-colored tool (the color is ingrained) do you turn green yourself?Using a tool doesn't mean you aquire all aspects of that tool.

Ask Schraf. How the hell should I know?

To the contrary, it was a very valid analogy. We're not talking about green paint being green - sexist comments being interpreted as sexist - but rather if painting green makes you green - if making sexist comments makes one sexist. I say they don't nessicarily.

You didn't ask for plain meaning. You asked for Schraf's deep motives in making statements. Without mental telepathy those deep motives are not accesible to me.The plain meaning of her statements was that Paul's sexist gesture was not motivated by Paul's own sexism but rather by sexism inherent in the language, specifically the use of "he" to refer to a god commonly held to be ungendered.You've gone off the handle about what you think that says about Paul, but the simple truth is that Schraf's statements don't imply anything about Paul that they don't imply about all speakers of English.

I think the answer is here is clearly "yes". Such a usage implies a worldview (as that held by Greek philosophers) that masculinity was the "normal" state, and that femininity was a deviation from that - and therefore ultimately inferior.The use of "he" in reference to ungendered objects clearly perpetuates that view. Ergo, sexism in the language.