thought

[Roland J. Prather]

I often felt that when it came to reference, the very word "man" can often in the minds of ordinary understanding amongst people interpretation will automatically or unconsciously exclude "she" maybe due to a language and/or program barrier. So finding a word that includes both. I often thought that the word "She" is the answer since "he" is contain within the "she" : S, he= she or both?

Would this be correct?

 

[Stellaria_graminea]

I think of "she" as referring to only females, no matter that the word has "he" inside. Then, "man" could mean mankind more generally, or strictly males, to me. The interpretation depends on the rest of the sentence. English is not my native language, but we have very similar words for this.

If "she" is meant to refer to both males and females, I will be confused in the beginning, but probably get used to it.

 

[ocean59]

According to the dictionary (in this case Merriam-Webster):

1 - that female one who is neither speaker nor hearer <she is my wife> — compare he, her, hers, it, they
2 - used to refer to one regarded as feminine (as by personification) <she was a fine ship>
3 - used as an alternative to he to refer to a person of unspecified gender <allow anyone to do whatever she wants

1 - that male one who is neither speaker nor hearer <he is my father> — compare him, his, it, she, they
2 - used in a generic sense or when the sex of the person is unspecified <he that hath ears to hear, let him hear — Matthew 11:15(Authorized Version)> <one should do the best he can>

So, either term can be used ambiguously, AFAIK.

I believe there was an attempt in some of the transgender movements to come up with a non-gender based pronoun (ze, zie, zir), but to my knowledge it hasn't really caught on.

 

[Roland J. Prather]

Yeah is a funny thing, "words"