PrintMarch 14, 2005
The feminist assault on the English language
In 1965 I stopped working for Department of Defense think tanks and became a professor at Temple University. One of my contractual obligations — right in the middle of anti—ROTC demonstrations and of protests against the Vietnam war — was to teach graduate and undergraduate courses on the politics of national defense.
Political correctness wasn't in full vogue forty years ago. But when I bemoaned "man's inhumanity to man" during my first seminar on civil—military relations, a female student, who admitted she had never heard that corny quotation before, chastised me for not having uttered that immortal phrase 'persons' inhumanity to persons' instead.
Later, I went to a reception at the Philadelphia Public Library for local authors who had published trade books in the previous year. At the bar I greeted two fellow writers with 'I'm so pleased to meet you ladies.' Their response was 'We're women, not ladies!' And my response to their response was 'You're right....(Read Full Article)
