In a Manner of Speaking 3

Genderless Language. Gender Neutral Language. Anyone else confused? These two new forms of language are sweeping the nation and the educational system, with the possibility to change the literary world as we know it.

But what is Genderless Language? How does Gender Neutral Language have to do with me? First and foremost, understand that these are two different forms of speech. When someone talks about Genderless Language, they do not necessarily mean Gender Neutral Language as well.

Genderless Language is a contructed human language that has no grammatical gender usage (huh?). Grammatical gender involves classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words. Okay, too many big words. Grammatical genders specifies whether a words is "feminine" or "masculine." Few words (as in roughly two or three hundred out of MILLIONS) fit into both categories.

So what does that mean for Genderless Language? In otherwords, Genderless Language avoids using words that are either "feminine" or "masculine," and leans towards words that can apply to either one.

Okay, we have part one down. Gender Neutral Language is a little easier than Genderless Language. Gender Neutral Language removes any assumptions of gender, biological sex, and any other form of human referents in the human language. An example would be changing "anchorman" to "anchorperson."

This is simply a fad that isn't going to last, similar to the acceptance of text message style writing in essays, formal papers, and research papers (yes, that was actually considered for about two semesters of college.) Though I am a supporter of equal rights and all that, I find that this is something that doesn't really support equal rights. My favorite example is one that will have people hating me from here on. I noticed that we haven't changed "man" and "woman" to "person" and "woperson." The day that happens, there's something really wrong going on. Just my opinion.