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Gender clarifications

Please desist from superfluous edits like this one. The noun man does not require gender clarifications. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 17:41, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Polizist

Could you please clarify this edit? Polizist cannot obviously denote a female person, because in German one needs to attach the suffix -in in order to derive the noun that denotes a female person. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

No, one doesn't have to add -in (or -inn). Especially in Plural or when Sex/Gender doesn't count, one can use Terms like "Polizist" or "Handwerker". E.g. "Alle Polizisten sind Schweine" (All cops are bastards) refers to Cops of both/all Genders, like "Soldaten sind Mörder" (Soldiers are Killers; kind of famous Quote, from Kurt Tucholsky in 1931) refers to all Soldiers. Same is true for something like "Ein Polizist sollte erst fragen und dann schießen" (a police officer/man [, be it male or female,] should first ask and than shoot). -18:31-18:36, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Nevertheless, your version of the article is not convincing, in particular policeman (a male or female one). One can hardly use the expression female policeman (but can use female police officer). And you also removed the link to the article Polizistin which I had added. Would you consider rephrasing the definition (currently allowing that nonexistent expression) and restore the link to the derived feminine noun? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:43, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

(kopiert aus meiner Diskussionsseite, The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:55, 10 April 2015 (UTC))

BTW (as it has nothing to do with "Polizist"): There's the word "Japanese" in German, which can for example be found at [www.zeno.org/Heiligenlexikon-1858/A/Michael+%2874%29] ("Michael [..], zugenannt Chinosci, ein Japanese, welcher am 28. Sept. 1630 zu Nangasaki für den Glauben an Jesus enthauptet wurde."). It might be older/dated, but it might also be simply rare or might be in use in some regions only (e.g. it might be more common in South and South-East Germany (Swiss, Austria) and less common or even uncommon in North Germany). -18:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Wir hatten uns doch geeinigt, die Diskussion der Übersichtlichkeit halber an einem Ort (an Deiner Diskussionsseite) weiterzuführen. Was Japanese anbetrifft, kann ich Dir Recht geben, nicht jedoch in bezug auf die Formulierung policeman (a male or female one) . Würdest Du das umschreiben? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:55, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Well. (a) English "man" can refer to men of both genders, i.e. male and female men or humans (even though sexism or political correctness might claim that it is limited to male men/humans only). Same is true for at least some compounds with "man". Not sure, whether or not "police man" can refer to both, but I can't see any problem here. (b) "Polizistin", as well as "Politesse", was already mentioned at "Related terms". IMHO it doesn't make sense to mention it two times (or even three times as it could also be mentioned at "Hyponyms"). (c) How about simply removing "police man" and mentioning "Polizistin" just once (be it in the header or, IMHO more fitting, at "Related terms"? -18:59, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

English "man" can refer to men of both genders Excuse me, how do you mean that? German indefinite pronoun can refer to persons of both genders (as opposed to frau), but not the English noun man. Regarding (c): yes, mentioning Polizistin in the header (once) sounds acceptable. As for the definition, what do you think about transferring the clarification in brackets from policeman to police officer: police officer (a male or female one); policeman ? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 19:06, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

P. S. I thought you were a native speaker, therefore I responded in German in my last answer. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 19:06, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

What I meant and mean is: The English noun "man" can refer to humans of both/all genders (all genders, if one includes those rare disabled persons which are neither male nor female). For example, one definition of the word "man" at dictionary.reference.com is: "a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex". Another example are Neil Armstrong's words "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind", which is often interpreted as "That's one small step for a human, but one giant leap for humankind.". And as said before, the same is true for at least some compounds (like Englishman and Dutchman), but those who support sexism or political correctness might claim that the English noun "man" is limited to "[adult] male human". (As political correctness is something which is newer, the limitation of "man" should be newer, but might be more common in modern school books etc.)

At first I would doubt that "police officer" needs a clarification, but than as some think that "gender of a word = gender of thing the word refers to", it might be necessary and I'm okey with it.

What about Bahrainer, Beniner, Belarusse? The terms can refer to both sexes/genders as well (as can Däne, Deutscher, Engländer, Japaner, Russe etc.). When using the English noun "man" in the sense of "[adult] male human", then the definition as "man from country name" is wrong, though one could add something like "especially a [male] man from country name".

I can speak German fluently, but I wasn't sure if you can (no offense; as for example German words like "Polizist", "Handwerker", "Sänger", "Belarusse" can refer to both/all sexes/genders and not only to males).

PS (as "frau" was mentioned): Terms with "-in" (older "-inn") are limited to female creatures (not only to women as there is e.g. Hündin = female dog). Maybe some feminists - they're the ones who created "frau" - try to use words with -in for creatures of all sexes/genders, but that's uncommon and would be non-standard, feminists' slang. Furthermore feminists might claim that words like "Polizist", "Handwerker" etc. (gender of the words is masculine) do only refer to males (persons resp. creatures of male sex/gender), but then "Kinder" (children, boys and girls) wouldn't have any gender, "Menschen" (humans) would only be male (maybe that's why some feminists want "Frauenrechte"?) and it would be retarded that "Messer" (knife) and "Löffel" (spoon) are masculine/male and that "Gabel" (fork) is feminine/female.

-19:37-19:54, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I can't speak to the German part of this, but, in the US, at least, using man as both masculine and feminine is becoming more and more archaic and/or proscribed. To cite an English parallel to the matter at hand: in the acting profession, it seems to be the standard these days to refer to females as actors, rather than as actresses, but that has yet to catch on with the public as a whole. As to the qualifiers you've been adding: I suspect that the original meanings were masculine, but that they're being replaced by the common-gender meanings. In such cases, saying "male or female" is deceptive, because it implies that the term has never had a gender-specific meaning. There are two ways to deal with this that I can think of. One is to have two senses: one for the masculine/"as opposed to -in" usage, and the second for the "either male or female" usage. The other way would be to explain, either in the definition or in a usage note, that in modern usage it can also be used to refer to females. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:56, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

The German terms did not become gender neutral (at least not recently because of sexism, feminism, and political correctness), but were kind of gender neutral in old times, too. Though to the things above I maybe should add this: Depening on the context, e.g. "Sänger" can and could mean both "male or female singer" as well as just "male singer". Usually the "male of female singer" is the one most fitting (e.g. when talking about a person who sings in general), while the meaning "male singer" usually is mentioned through the context (e.g. when one compares male and female singers or when one refers to specific individuals). Though In older texts by context "Polizist" could mean "male police officer", but in the same way by context English words like "doctor", "soldier" usually mean "male doctor", "male soldier" too, so such an old text wouldn't reveal the meaning of "Polizist". The gender-neutral usage of German words can easily be seen when one reads older texts and looks for things which also women could do or be. E.g. there were Roman priests like the Vestals, but in German one usually didn't and doesn't speak of "römische Priester und Priesterinnen" but simply speaks of "römische Priester".

An actual example from 1808: "Wenn erwachsene Menschen, deren Aeltern [= Ältern; now: Eltern] nicht Christen sondern Juden, Muhamedaner oder Heiden waren, zu Mitgliedern der christlichen Kirche aufgenommen werden wollen, so geschieht das noch immer nicht anders als nach vorhergegangenem Unterrichte, durch die christliche Zeremonie der Taufe." (When adult humans, whose parents weren't Christians but Jews, Muhamedans or Pagans, want to become members of the Christian church, so it happens though baptism after foregone teaching. [in the end it's less literal].) Here "parents" (Eltern, plural word) and Christians, Jews, Muhamedans (moslem), Pagans (in singular: Christ m, Jude m, Muhamedaner m, Heide m) are mentioned. Parents are of of both sexes/genders (as there is a male father and a female mother - Vater m & Mutter f). If one would say that e.g. "Christ" only refers to males then the German sentence would make no sense as it's impossible for the female parent, the mother, to be a male Christian or a male Jew.

From 1833: "Sind die Aeltern gute Bauern oder Bürger, so haben sie den Trost, daß es auch ihre Kinder seyn werden.". When limiting "Bauer m" und "Bürger m" to males, then again that sentence makes no sense as only one parent is male, but the other female. So, when limiting the sense of grammatically male words to naturally male person, one would have to say something like this in German: "Wenn der Vater ein guter Bauer oder Bürger ist, so [...]" or "Wenn der Vater ein guter Bauer und die Mutter eine gute Bäuerin ist, oder wenn der Vater ein guter Bürger und die Mutter eine gute Bürgerin ist, so [...]" or, when the father can be a citizen while the mother can be a farmer or vice versa, "Wenn der Vater ein guter Bauer oder Bürger und die Mutter eine gute Bäuerin oder Bürgerin ist, so [...]". Such monstrous sentence exist, but only in very young feminists language, and there it's still questionable if just men (Bürger) and women (Bürgerin) are mentioned, or if men are mentioned just once (implied in the gender-neutral term "Bürger") while women are mentioned twice (once in the explicitly female term "Bürgerin" and once implied in the gender-neutral term "Bürger").

-22:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)