Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad)

Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:

> En réponse à Andreas Johansson :
> >But now, I assume _exigu_ too is to be pronounced as [Egzigy] - why insist
> on
> >having a separate orthographic form for the feminine?
>
> Because French feminists insist!!!
>
> And I'm not even kidding! :))) Unlike English-speaking feminists (and for
> what I know Dutch-speaking ones), the French feminists are currently
> lobbying for what they call "féminisation des noms de profession", i.e.
> that every noun that describes someone having some activity should have two
> forms: one masculine and one feminine. So nowadays we have "mairesses"
> (female mayors), "députées" (female MPs), "ministres" used with a feminine
> article, etc... while those nouns used to exist only in the masculine. But
> it's true that "madame _le_ ministre" sounds strange :)) . So you can
> imagine how they would react if we got rid of a feminine form in writing,
> even when it's not pronounced. Of course, there are irreductible words: how
> would you call a male "sage-femme"? (midwife) It has been decided: it stays
> "sage-femme" :))) .
>
> In Dutch, they did exactly the contrary: they kept only one form for such
> nouns, the most commonly used. So nowadays they have male "secretaresse"
> (secretary), with the typically female -esse ending :)) .
>
> I guess each way has its limits and stupidities :)) .
We've had this discussion before, as you may recall. Suffice to remind you that
the Swedish feminists follow their fellow germanics on this point.

Hm, I should find a fanatic feminist and ask her (for some reason, fanatic
feminists are almost unfailingly female ...) what are her views on 'lects (like
mine) that keep the fem~masc distinction on adjectives vs those who do not.
There could be an interesting clash between different species of political
correctness - downplaying gender differences vs allowing everyone to keep
his/her native way of speaking. The way out would probably be that "standard"
usage keeps the distinction (altho less consistently than do I), and that
anything that's standard or prescriptionist is necessarily bad. :)

                                                             Andreas

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