Monday, October 12, 2009

"Confusing, archaic, offensive language"

In your writing at Denver Seminary, you will be required to use gender-neutral language.

In older English, still used in some parts of the English-speaking world, generic nouns later referred to by pronouns used a form of the pronoun “he.” (E.g., “The student should bring his Bible to class.” Today, particularly in the United States, there are increasing numbers of individuals who find this kind of language archaic, confusing and/or offensive. There are ways, however, to avoid using the masculine pronoun in contexts like this, and thus make the language gender-neutral.


http://www.denverseminary.edu/media/student-handbook.pdf

Good point about the continuing everyday-use of "man." I work in a highly secular, retail environment -- mostly twenty-somethings -- and I hear, not only "man" as a universal plural, but also "he"/"his" as a universal singular. E.g., "If a customer buys a Vista notebook, will he get the free upgrade to Windows 7?"
I never hear either "she" or "they" in everyday language. Only in academic papers.


http://www.koinoniablog.net/2009/10/a-personal-note-on-the-niv-2011-by-bill-mounce.html?cid=6a00e54fc7cbdb88340120a6340716970c#comment-6a00e54fc7cbdb88340120a6340716970c

2 comments:

  1. NIV Genesis 5:

    1 This is the written account of Adam's line.

    When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

    2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man."

    TNIV Genesis 5:

    1 This is the written account of Adam's family line.

    When God created human beings, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "human beings."

    Not an insignificant change from NIV to TNIV. I hope Bill Mounce changes this back to what it was.

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  2. The Bible is content to use masculine pronouns and that's good enough for me.

    ReplyDelete