"Gender-free masculine pronoun"? Absurd. [was: Re: Crossposting [was: Re: Traditional gender-free "he" [was: Re: "16 and 276 are 292"? No. [was: Re: Lack of vocabulary in English?]]]]

From: Bob Cunningham (exw6sxq_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 02/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 01:00:18 GMT

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 13:52:55 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@worldnet.att.net> said:

> Bob Cunningham wrote:
 
> > On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 14:23:40 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> said:
 
> > [...]
 
> > > In this case, he instigated a new topic -- an attack on stylists who
> > > recognize that there is no "gender-free neutral masculine singular
> > > pronoun" --
 
> > I would ask the muddleheaded Daniels how a pronoun could be
> > gender-free and masculine at the same time, but I'm afraid
> > he would try to tell me and get even more screwed up in the
> > process.
 
> Just quoting bits of Cunningham, who makes the point for me. The
> traditional masculine pronoun is inherently _not_ gender-free.
 
> Now that he has (once again) been shown up for the fool he is, perhaps
> he'll have the sense (and grace) to retire to lick his octogenarian
> wounds. Apparently you _can't_ teach an old dog new tricks.

It takes a muddleheaded specimen like Daniels to fail to
understand that while a pronoun is being called gender-free
it can't at the same time be called masculine.

Using his weird "thinking", it would be okay to refer to a
"huge, small animal" because some animals are huge and
others are small.

True: In traditional English, "he" has sometimes been used
as a masculine pronoun.

True: In traditional English, "he" has sometimes been used
as a gender-free pronoun.

Danielesquely false: *"He" can be referred to as being both
gender-free and masculine at the same time.

By the way, the word "grace" coming from Daniels, one of the
more insolent, graceless pests it has been my misfortune to
encounter in Usenet, is good for a chuckle.

Also by the way, I ask readers to take note of another
display of Daniels's ignorance, where he puts the phrase

    gender-free neutral masculine singular pronoun

in quotes, thereby implying that someone in Usenet has used
those words. A Google Groups search will show that that
collocation has not appeared in Usenet during the 25 years
or so represented by the Google Groups database.

Daniels might ask one of the older pupils to explain to him
the difference in punctuation between a direct quote and an
indirect quote.

Again by the way, let me say that when a participant in an
exchange of words is reduced to ridiculing his or her
opponent's presumed infirmity of age, it obviously shows
sheer desperation.

If anyone else wants to use a similar ploy against me in the
future, let me reveal that my pinky finger on my right hand
is missing about a half inch of its previous length due to
an accident I had 10 or 20 years ago. That should be good
for a cruel dig when pseudo-logical arguments run dry.

Someone could say, like, "Cunningham says he didn't say
'gender-free neutral masculine singular pronoun', but he has
only three and a half fingers on his right hand! So
there!." That would be on a par with Daniels trying to
prove a point by saying that I'm 83 years old.

ObAUE: Consider the phrase "huge, small animal": The comma
is extremely important. If the phrase were "huge small
animal", it would be okay, because a small animal can be
huge relative to other small animals. (A rabbit is huge
compared to a mouse, but they're both small animals compared
to elephants.) With the comma there, the reference is to an
animal that is small and at the same time huge.

But in the case of Daniels's absurd "gender-free neutral
masculine singular pronoun", insertion of a comma wouldn't
make it any less absurd. As it stands it means a masculine
pronoun that is gender free. With a comma after
"gender-free", it would mean a pronoun that is masculine and
is also gender free. There really is a difference, but it
may take someone with more intelligence than Daniels has
displayed to understand the difference.

It wouldn't make it a whole lot more absurd if Daniels had
said "a plural gender-free singular feminine masculine
pronoun". Maybe he will say that someday if his mental
condition doesn't improve.

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