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Eurynomus

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I have a simple question that has only now been brought to my attention.

Why, not even specifically in Rand's writing, but in philosophical, and most other types of writing in general, is "man" used to describe humanity?

Such as, "If man chooses to live his life rationally...etc"

I have gotten criticism for using a "gender-specific" term. I have always phrased things this way, and most people have... until recently. Because, as far as I'm aware, saying "man" in this context DOES mean "humanity" ...

Is there some deeper reasoning for why "man" should be used, or can be used, in place of "humanity" and making it a non-gender-specific term?

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I have a simple question that has only now been brought to my attention.

Why, not even specifically in Rand's writing, but in philosophical, and most other types of writing in general, is "man" used to describe humanity?

Such as, "If man chooses to live his life rationally...etc"

I have gotten criticism for using a "gender-specific" term. I have always phrased things this way, and most people have... until recently. Because, as far as I'm aware, saying "man" in this context DOES mean "humanity" ...

Is there some deeper reasoning for why "man" should be used, or can be used, in place of "humanity" and making it a non-gender-specific term?

Hu"man"ity....j/k

But seriously if people just understood the origin of the word they wouldn't complain so much. Correct me if I am wrong but man comes from "mannaz"(proto-germanic) meaning person.

Edited by Solid_Choke
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I have a simple question that has only now been brought to my attention.

Why, not even specifically in Rand's writing, but in philosophical, and most other types of writing in general, is "man" used to describe humanity?

Because that's what it means, or at least it did until the post-modernists got ahold of the language.

Because, as far as I'm aware, saying "man" in this context DOES mean "humanity" ...
You are correct in your understanding. Don't sweat it.

Is there some deeper reasoning for why "man" should be used, or can be used, in place of "humanity" and making it a non-gender-specific term?

Well, you've kind of phrased that backwards. "Man" being used is the default, and the question to be asked is if "humanity" should be used in place of "man."

And if you don't subscribe to hyper-leftist-nihilist-feminist postmodernism, then the answer is no, there is no reason why the feminist terminology should be used.

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Check with your local Womyn's Stoodies Departmynt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn

Kinda interesting etymology lesson here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn

Kinda interesting etymology lesson here.

This is my favorite part.

"... contend that they have the right to choose how a term referring to them is spelled, rather than be compelled to use words that evolved in what they see as a patriarchal society. "

Italics mine

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Why, not even specifically in Rand's writing, but in philosophical, and most other types of writing in general, is "man" used to describe humanity? Such as, "If man chooses to live his life rationally...etc" I have gotten criticism for using a "gender-specific" term. I have always phrased things this way, and most people have... until recently. Because, as far as I'm aware, saying "man" in this context DOES mean "humanity" ... Is there some deeper reasoning for why "man" should be used, or can be used, in place of "humanity" and making it a non-gender-specific term?

As language becomes more complex, we need to look for ways to improve our word economy. One very simple way to do that is to reduce the number of syllables (and sometimes words) that represent a particular concept. In this specific case, rather than remembering four syllables (hu-man-i-ty), or three (hu-man-kind), or two (hu-man), we have reduced the word down to one: man. Of course, there can be problems with reducing a concept down to one syllable, because it is more likely to be spelled exactly the same way as a similar (or even completely different) word-concept. But, we are often able to overcome such a problem by paying attention to grammar and context, which are other ways we achieve greater word economy.

Edited by MisterSwig
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My sources on this are not scholarly, and I'm not sure how to verify it.. But my understanding is that "man" was initially non-gender specific, and that originally the term "woman" merely described the type of man who has a womb (I read that they derived from Norse originally). That seems plausible to me, but I don't know.

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As others have mentioned, "man" refers to both "human" and "male", exhibiting a common property of natural lanaguage, polysemy. Etymologically, it derives from Indo-European *man- (usually words don't look that close), and is related to Sanskrit Manu, in Indic mythology, the first man. There is a plausible theory that this is a derived form of the root meaning "think" (mind, mental, Sanskrit muni-). The IE root *wir- served as the general word for "male" (Skt. vira-, Latin vir) and was used as Old English wer with the meaning "male", into the late OE period (when "man" came to take on the meaning "male"). This polysemy has persisted for about 900 years.

There are very few gender-specific terms in English. Some examples are "woman", "girl", "boy, "aunt". "uncle", "male", "female". "Man" is not an example of a gender-specific term. If you want to avoid giving verbal offense, you need to simply not use any words that can be used to a specific gender, thus you should only say "young human with a vagina" instead of "girl", because the latter allows you to indirectly infer "girl" without actually using the evil gender-specific word "girl".

Or, you can continue to speak ordinary English, and request your critics to get a clue.

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This is an interesting topic. Last year I attended a conference in which I competed in public speaking. I thought my speech was very good, but I didn't win. When I received the judges' comments several weeks later, the female judges commented that I should not have used "man" to refer to humanity because "What about the women?" I was surprised that these people actually "qualified" to be judges. If I were a guy, I could possibly understand how a female judge might misinterpret the word "man" to be sexist if other things in the speech indicated this, as well. But I'm a girl: why would I not include my own gender when I say the word "man?" It made no sense.

That was the first time I was exposed to this kind of nonsense. When I was writing my speech, I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that the word "man" could arouse feminist angst. If I want to win next time, I suppose I must say "man and woman" or simply "people," though the latter does not have the specific emphasis that I feel the word "man" exudes.

Edited by Mimpy
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A highschool teacher of mine used to use "woman" or "women" to refer to humanity in general for "balance."

A college acquaintance of mine had a similar experience in highschool with a teacher who criticized his use of "man" and "men" to refer to humanity in general, but came up with a good strategy to appease her:

Whenever he was talking about something good in the abstract, he would attribute it to "man" or "men"; whenever he was talking about something bad in the abstract, he would attribute it to "woman" or "women."

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Check with your local Womyn's Stoodies Departmynt.

Haha... interesting you mention that... I had to drop a class 2 weeks into the semester, and the other classes I wanted to take were full... long story short, I am now taking Women's Studies... err.. I mean, Womyn's Stoodies. I figured I might at least educate myself on women's studies before debating people on it, which happens a lot, for some reason. I've gotten flak both in THAT class and in my English class for using a "gender specific" term such as, "man" to refer to humanity as a whole.

Anyways, as you could guess, this class, while I agree with feminism insofar as it's a fight for EQUAL rights (but then I do not think I would call it 'feminism'), is the biggest ... I can't even find the word ... propaganda? Since I'm a guy, as soon as I speak in class, my opinion is taken with a grain of salt, and apparently doesn't hold as much validity. The teacher ALWAYS has to mention, after everything I say, "right, but you're a guy..." or something along those lines.

We learned about sexism in language, and one of the examples that the lady was ranting about was, "Why do there have to be different words for equal male and female jobs? For example, medic and nurse, we have to distinguish between the genders for the same job. I feel thats wrong... or, why do we have to call it "housework" ... we should use a non gender-specific term such as, "internal reorganization""....

For one, there IS A LARGE difference between a medic and a nurse. And I'm not even going to bother with the 'housework' example.

Something that really bothers me about being asked to change "man" to a "non gender-specific term" is that, to the best of my recollection, I can not think of an instance where I have heard someone say "man" and thought specifically and exclusively of "males," unless it is preceded by "the" ... "The man went to the store" vs. "man has created stores"

Anyways, thank you all for your comments -- I am going to look into it a bit deeper.

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In this specific case, rather than remembering four syllables (hu-man-i-ty), or three (hu-man-kind), or two (hu-man), we have reduced the word down to one: man.

Actually, no, English man is unrelated etymologically to human, which is borrowed from Latin. It in turn is related to Latin homo meaning man in the sense of all people (as opposed to vir, meaning man as opposed to woman). Interestingly enough, homo in turn seems to come from a suffixed form of the root meaning 'earth' that you see in humus, and thus probably originally meant something like 'earthling' (as opposed to the gods, who lived elsewhere).

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My sources on this are not scholarly, and I'm not sure how to verify it.. But my understanding is that "man" was initially non-gender specific, and that originally the term "woman" merely described the type of man who has a womb (I read that they derived from Norse originally). That seems plausible to me, but I don't know.

I've read that before, but it's not true; it depends on looking only at the modern form and free associating. (I remember encountering it only in one place, actually, a book by a radical feminist "thinker" named Marilyn Frye, from which she claimed it indicated men think the essence of woman is to bear children and thus need to be subordinated to the fathers of the children. She also claimed that royal and reality were etymologically related, thus showing the role that political power plays in defining what is taken as real. Needless to say, all of this is utter BS.) Woman is the modern form of a compound word wifman or wyfman (which was the form in Old English around 900 AD but developed into wummon, womman, and woman in Middle English, 1200 and later), where man meant human and wif meant woman or female; it's the same word historically as German Weib 'woman, broad, dame.'

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Interestingly enough, homo in turn seems to come from a suffixed form of the root meaning 'earth' that you see in humus, and thus probably originally meant something like 'earthling' (as opposed to the gods, who lived elsewhere).
Indeed, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention other words from that root, including authochthonous, chameleon, bridegroom, and, of course, humiliate. Possibly also connected to the Tkon empire, depending on how clever the writers were; assuming there were no Croatian writers.
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Actually, no, English man is unrelated etymologically to human, which is borrowed from Latin.

To clarify, I wasn't arguing from a point of etymology. I was arguing from word economy. Etymology studies the origin and history of a word, but it doesn't explain why we actually use a particular word versus another. It doesn't explain why we stop using some words and replace them with others. You need to study linguistics for that.

My theory is that, in general, we don't use "man" because we are sexist, but because it's more economical than using "humanity" or even "people." These other words for "man" do still have some uses, however. So we keep them around for writing poetry, feminist literature, etc. But for the common man, "man" will suffice. He has little need for the instant recollection of other terms for "man." So, he forgets them, if he ever learned them, and those other words gradually fade from the realm of common usage and become obsolete.

Edited by MisterSwig
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I was arguing from word economy.
I think that pointing to notions like language becoming more complex and needing to improve word economy implies a kind of "cost" to words like "humanity" which lacks factual support. The economy that exists is a cognitive economy and not a caloric one, which is in fact related to etymology. The actual cost of redefining words is in the conceptual disruption, not the number of neural commands required to say particular words. The word for human is man, and while that is not an immutable fact, it changing the meanings of words -- in this case, eliminating the meaning "human" from the word "man" is cognitively costly. There is nothing significant to be gained from redefining the word "man" to exclude the meaning "human", so no reason to change what works perfectly well and has worked perfectly well for, well, really millenia; i.e., if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
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I think that pointing to notions like language becoming more complex and needing to improve word economy implies a kind of "cost" to words like "humanity" which lacks factual support.

It's a fact that "humanity" is four syllables while "man" is one. To use "humanity" therefore requires more mental energy to learn and recall, and it requires more physical energy to speak and write.

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To clarify, I wasn't arguing from a point of etymology. I was arguing from word economy. Etymology studies the origin and history of a word, but it doesn't explain why we actually use a particular word versus another. It doesn't explain why we stop using some words and replace them with others. You need to study linguistics for that.

Huh? Etymology is part of linguistics (historical linguistics, to be exact).

My theory is that, in general, we don't use "man" because we are sexist, but because it's more economical than using "humanity" or even "people."

Economical for whom? The speaker, certainly, but not necessarily for the listener. Fewer syllables, and more generally fewer distinct sounds in a word, means that there's a greater chance of confusion for the listener; similarly, having to figure out which of several meanings of a polysemous word is intended in a sentence is added effort for the listener. There's a fundamental tension between the ease of the speaker and the ease of the listener that works to keep words from being reduced entirely to an inchoate vocal cry. (In case you're curious, that leads to an inverse relationship between the length of a word and its frequency in speech described by Zipf's Law.)

These other words for "man" do still have some uses, however. So we keep them around for writing poetry, feminist literature, etc.

And for distinguishing one of the two distinct meanings of the word man.

But for the common man, "man" will suffice. He has little need for the instant recollection of other terms for "man." So, he forgets them, if he ever learned them, and those other words gradually fade from the realm of common usage and become obsolete.

It's more complicated than that. If man and humanity were essentially identical in meaning, then yes, there would be a tendency to use the shorter one in common speech to the exclusion of the longer one. (There's the opposite tendency to use the longer word for play, flair, emphasis, or what not, and if the word man were reduced enough in length, to (1) reduce the probability of mishearing, and (2) prevent confusion with other really short words.) However, man has two distinct meanings, and it's necessary in some circumstances to distinguish them. Humanity has been used as synonymous with mankind/man/people for several centuries (the earliest citation in the OED for this particular meaning is from 1579, which might well not be the earliest but only representative) and it's quite common usage even among common men today, so presumably it meets some need. (Mankind has been around in some form since at least 1225 or so, and people--another loanword--since the early 1300s if not earlier, and they too show no signs of impending obsolescence.)

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Economical for whom? The speaker, certainly, but not necessarily for the listener. Fewer syllables, and more generally fewer distinct sounds in a word, means that there's a greater chance of confusion for the listener; similarly, having to figure out which of several meanings of a polysemous word is intended in a sentence is added effort for the listener.

Not necessarily. Improving your use of linguistic tools such as grammar and context can significantly reduce or even eliminate the listener's confusion. That is true no matter how many syllables you use to express a concept.

If man and humanity were essentially identical in meaning, then yes, there would be a tendency to use the shorter one in common speech to the exclusion of the longer one.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not talking about the cases where "man" and "humanity" have different meanings. You would first need to infuse "man" with the other meaning before you could stop using "humanity" for, say, the purpose of conveying "the condition of being human" or "benevolence." But you don't necessarily need to use "humanity" to convey "human beings as a group," because "man" works just fine for that one.

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It's a fact that "humanity" is four syllables while "man" is one. To use "humanity" therefore requires more mental energy to learn and recall, and it requires more physical energy to speak and write.
I've been doing this stuff all my adult life, and have never seen one shred of empirical evidence that longer words take more energy to learn or speak. It's imaginable that more energy is needed to write "humanity", though there exists no empirical evidence for that claim either. Of course if you know of credible evidence to the contrary, I'd be happy to discuss that evidence. Whether or not more calories are consumed in thinking "man" vs. "human", such a consideration has zero effect on word choice in speech. It is the semantic and syntactic differences between the two words that has the most bearing on whether one word will be replaced with another. Phonological questions about how a word is pronounced (e.g. how many syllables it has) only enters into the question of how a word is pronounced (I can elaborate on that point if necessary).
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This is an interesting topic. Last year I attended a conference in which I competed in public speaking. I thought my speech was very good, but I didn't win. When I received the judges' comments several weeks later, the female judges commented that I should not have used "man" to refer to humanity because "What about the women?" I was surprised that these people actually "qualified" to be judges. If I were a guy, I could possibly understand how a female judge might misinterpret the word "man" to be sexist if other things in the speech indicated this, as well. But I'm a girl: why would I not include my own gender when I say the word "man?" It made no sense.

That was the first time I was exposed to this kind of nonsense. When I was writing my speech, I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that the word "man" could arouse feminist angst. If I want to win next time, I suppose I must say "man and woman" or simply "people," though the latter does not have the specific emphasis that I feel the word "man" exudes.

That really is breathtaking arrogance on their part. I would have considered taking that to the local press. It reminds me of the city councilman (I believe) who was embroiled in controversy a few years back for using the word "niggardly". Local groups and the media of course got all up in arms about this. When informed that the word bears no common meaning with the more offensive word for which they mistook it, rather than do the honorable thing and just utter a Rosanne Rosannadanna-esque "Nevermind!", many local activists actually asserted that the councilman should have refrained from using a perfectly innocent word in deference to their ignorance. He should hold their stupidity and paranoia above his own knowledge of the English language and his right to express himself.

Anyone can crack open a dictionary and look up either word. Looking up "man" not only reveals that it is in fact synonomous with "humankind", but that it also can be used in place of "person" or "individual". The phrase "she's your man" is actually perfectly coherent and correct.

It is amazing how many intellectuals engage in willful ignorance, especially of facts that can be checked out in less than 30 seconds.

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I've been doing this stuff all my adult life, and have never seen one shred of empirical evidence that longer words take more energy to learn or speak.

Find a child who has just learned to read and ask him to read the word "hippo." See how long it takes him to sound out the word and learn it. Then ask him to read the word "hippopotamus." And see how long it takes. Obviously, some additional energy will be used up attempting to sound out and memorize the longer word. For, there are more syllables to string together and articulate properly.

There's a reason why children first learn the easy, one or two-syllable words. It takes less effort.

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Find a child who has just learned to read and ask him to read the word "hippo."
Maybe you're just using "energy" in a special way. What do you think "energy" means? What are the basic units for measuring "energy"? The obvious follow-up question would be "how man of those units does the average child require to learn the words 'hippo' and 'hippopotamus'?", but before we get bogged down in the actual facts of reality, I think it would be helpful to know how you are defining energy (that is, are you defining it in such a way that no observation of reality is required to know that a child must use more energy to learn one word vs. the other, or is this based on actual empirical evidence where you would have to measure something before knowing the facts of reality?).
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Maybe you're just using "energy" in a special way. What do you think "energy" means?

I'm not using energy in a special way. I'm using it to mean the "work" or "exertion of power" required for a task. More mental work is required to learn, speak, write, and recall longer words. You must perform more mental and physical activity to use the word "influenza" instead of "flu." Both words mean exactly the same thing, so why waste energy on the four-syllable "influenza" when the one-syllable "flu" works perfectly fine for most purposes.

I'm not going to figure out how to precisely measure the amount of mental work required to use "influenza" versus "flu." If I could do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would, instead, be accepting my Nobel Prize award. But it should be clear, simply through your own introspection, that you exert some additional mental effort to learn longer words. Maybe not a lot, but some--enough to make a real difference when you need to learn thousands and thousands of words. And it should also be clear, through simple self-observation of how much your mouth moves, that, under normal conditions, you exert more effort to say longer words as opposed to shorter ones.

I can't do the observing for you. So, I think I'm done explaining this for now.

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