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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Off with that person's head!
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I remind you of the meme discussed above about actresses and bishops. It wouldn't be funny if the actress was not being related to sex.
The meme, which is pretty antique (I can't recall ever hearing a joke or witticism starting with this meme in my lifetime, and I'm not young, though I've read it in books published in the UK early in the last century), consists mainly in throwing together two characters from disparate spheres, morally, socially, and ethically. Contrast makes it funny, and yes, a hint of sex is certainly part of that context.
However, even before women were generally active in it, theater was always a "suspect" context. Actors, even when all-male casts were the norm, were regarded in many periods of history as living on the fringes of society -- roguish, licentious, unreliable, possibly larcenous, and on and on.
Respectable people in various historical periods weren't any happier to marry their daughters off to actors than they were to discover their bishops cavorting with actresses.
I believe Master Will S. tooted off to London and his subsequent playwriting career only after marriage.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
However, even before women were generally active in it, theater was always a "suspect" context. Actors, even when all-male casts were the norm, were regarded in many periods of history as living on the fringes of society -- roguish, licentious, unreliable, possibly larcenous, and on and on.
well, some things never change.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Max Beerbohm, writing theatre criticism in the 1890s, attempted to pioneer the term 'mimes' for all players, male and female. Ahead of his time.
Btw, if you ever come across his collected reviews (certainly Out of print and I don't know if it's made its way into electronic format), leap on them. He is watching the last, florid examples of the Victorian melodrama (not long after to be reborn as cinema of course). He preserves such wonderful curtain lines as - 'I go forth to fight in the Thirty Years War!'
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Porridge, do you know anyone who actually says chairwoman though? When I have gone to such meetings, lately it's always just been "the chair," and if it weren't, it would be chairman.
It should be chairperson -- neither chairman or chairwoman.
But it should NOT be that annoying term that I absolutely loath, "the chair", because it is not a piece of furniture that is doing the presiding.
[ 12. July 2013, 22:08: Message edited by: malik3000 ]
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
Posts: 3149 | From: North America | Registered: May 2006
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
I'm sure plenty of people think 'chairperson' is equally loathsome.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
I was going to write but one word...
Smurfette. for reference
then decided it may not be an adequate response.
If the purpose of a thing is have gender, when the purpose of all other things is to have character, then we have a problem. And all the time this problem exists, we need to be a bit careful with language.
When children no longer think that there is a term which can be universal, and then there is a female version, then we can have gender specific terms. But I think we may find that we end up with non-gender specific words instead.
'male midwife/male nurse' is as wrong as 'woman police constable' and people are making steady progress on changing to ungendered words. Players is good, I like it.
Did you know, porridge and Amanda, that back in the day, there were a lot of women primary teachers, and text books for teachers were almost unique in having feminine pronouns used throughout? When men started to seriously take on primary teaching there was a swift outpouring of outrage at the inappropriate gender bias which was very smartly responded to, with text books immediately reprinted to be non-specific. Interestingly, when women complained of the opposite bias in engineering, medical, law, etc etc etc etc they encountered a much less obliging ear. Surely they can read for context? Surely there is no actual obscuring of meaning? How can it possibly be offensive or demeaning or psychologically creating a disadvantage in any way? Really, women should be flattered...
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
So, on the possibly too-charitable and decidedly un-hellish assumption that the OP is simply suggesting that non-sexist language requirements can be carried too far, I'll hold out for actor/actress.
Well, I don't know - why pick on sex? We don't have a special word for "black actor," do we? If I am looking for someone to portray Rosa Parks, I don't advertise for a "Blacktress," even though we all know that I'm not going to hire anyone white.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Anyone who has a problem with legislation saying that laws will be written in non-sexist language is a complete ass.
Thank you for clarifying what you think of me. Good to know.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
But it should NOT be that annoying term that I absolutely loath, "the chair", because it is not a piece of furniture that is doing the presiding.
It's called metonymy, and it's fine.
ETA: Looks pretty stupid, though, if I misspell it.
[ 12. July 2013, 22:53: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Anyone who has a problem with legislation saying that laws will be written in non-sexist language is a complete ass.
Thank you for clarifying what you think of me. Good to know.
Ms. Amanda, you did kind of act like that. I often like your witty posting--but not this thread, which was a really poor choice.
I and many other women are angry at the way American society's treatment of women and girls has backslid so much--and language is a part of that.
If this were about another category than gender--say, race or religion or sexual orientation--would you be ok with excluding people???
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Ms. Amanda, you did kind of act like that.
Well, we all do once in awhile. I wouldn't dispute that. But that's not the same as being a complete ass, which I really don't think I am despite what Ruth thinks.
quote:
If this were about another category than gender--say, race or religion or sexual orientation--would you be ok with excluding people???
No, I am not OK with excluding anyone, anywhere, ever. Again, my point was that I don't think the words in question are in and of themselves exclusive. To say that we can no longer use the word "freshman" because it means only men, and doesn't include women, is just plain silly, in my opinion. I don't think that "freshman" is gender-exclusive. I would never use it to mean men only. Others are entitled to their opinions, but that's mine.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Ms. Amanda, you did kind of act like that.
Well, we all do once in awhile. I wouldn't dispute that. But that's not the same as being a complete ass, which I really don't think I am despite what Ruth thinks.
This sounds like an irregular verb.
I am being a bit recalcitrant
You are being an annoying jerk
He is being a complete ass.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I think the first line of that should read:
I am being firm to principle.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I think the first line of that should read:
I am being firm to principle.
Well said.
I am being firm to principle.
You are being a recalcitrant jerk.
He is being a complete ass.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Is now a good time to mention that I read the thread title as 'Off with that parson's head'.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Again, my point was that I don't think the words in question are in and of themselves exclusive. To say that we can no longer use the word "freshman" because it means only men, and doesn't include women, is just plain silly, in my opinion. I don't think that "freshman" is gender-exclusive. I would never use it to mean men only.
Miss Amanda, the core of what you seem to be saying is:
"My personal internal feeling about something is the fundamental universal truth for all."
Which, for the pragmatic part, is probably mostly correct. Most everybody who uses "freshman" probably has no particularly sexist meaning¹ in mind.
Except that we're not talking about "everybody". We're talking about a governing body, specifically about how it words its legal creations. For a law-creating body to be extra-conservative with respect to sexist language... I feel pretty OK about that, and I suspect you do too. And it's doubtful that it's the most-awkward aspect of legalese they feel obliged to employ.
None of which has any effect on what anybody else can or can't use, regardless of what they want it to mean.
¹ Although, there is no doubting that words like "freshman" are a product of a profoundly sexist era. A word with a sex embedded in it has sexist baggage, and always will. Languages with forced gender for every noun are probably trapped in this regard.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
"My personal internal feeling about something is the fundamental universal truth for all."
That's certainly not what I intended to convey. If that's how it came over, then mea culpa.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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snowgoose
Silly goose
# 4394
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Posted
It can get very silly indeed. When I was in the Navy many years ago they were rewriting directives (instructions, and so on) to be gender non-specific and, in true Navy fashion, insisted it be done for *everything.* So in a document discussing maternity leave, we ended up with "pregnant personnel" and some amazingly tortuous attempts to avoid ever saying "she" or "her."
They still refer to "ordnancemen" and "radiomen" and "airmen" (to say nothing of "boatswain"). Some things are just embedded in the language and have pretty much lost their gender connections.
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Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man? --Terry Pratchett
Save a Siamese!
Posts: 3868 | From: Tidewater Virginia | Registered: Apr 2003
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
If an all female College "went co-ed" as we say in Australia (we use the term purely as an adjective to refer to mixed gender high schools), would the male students be referred to as "co-eds" for ever thereafter?
I went to a women's university. There was litigation while I was there over the single-sex policy. The student editorial board of the campus newspaper decided that, if the school went co-ed, that male students would be referred to as co-eds for ever thereafter.
However, as things happened, the campus newspaper ceased to be an independent publication shortly before the first men were admitted. As an official publication of the university, the newspaper had constraints that it didn't have when it was independent. So the men were never referred to as co-eds.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Signaller
Shipmate
# 17495
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Posted
There are elements of visibility and pragmatism in this. People who put out fires are now called firefighters, but people who make fires by shovelling coal on steam locomotives, who once shared the same descriptor (to the total confusion of many non-native English speakers) are still called firemen.
Is this because (a) there is no convenient genderless term that doesn't sound ludicrous (steamships had stokers, but no-one seems inclined to transfer that to the railway, except in a mechanical context) (b) there aren't enough of them to make it worth anyone's while to try and change things (c) they are nearly all volunteers on heritage railways who don't want to rock the boat (with the corollary that most of the (male) volunteers are of the dinosaur persuasion anyway) or (d) none of the above?
[ 15. September 2013, 17:04: Message edited by: Signaller ]
Posts: 113 | From: Metroland | Registered: Jan 2013
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
The State of Washington has declared illegal words such as "freshman" and "penmanship" as indicating gender bias.
Come off it! Doesn't the Washington legislature have bigger fish to fry, such as collapsing bridges, maybe?
You can't legislate how native speakers use their native tongue. Or is "native" politically incorrect also?
I just had a moment where careful wording would have helped understand collapsing bridges. The Seattle NPR station was talking about the re-opening of the bridge which has collapsed and other bridges in the state that were fragile (capable of collapsing with a single member failure) or deteriorated. They said that although the one that had collapsed was fragile it had not deteriorated. However many of its peers were both deteriorated and fragile.
It took me a moment to figure out from the surrounding context that they meant other bridges and not the piers under the bridge. Fortunately we don't have to worry about decaying nobility in the U.S.
;-)
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Signaller:
There are elements of visibility and pragmatism in this. People who put out fires are now called firefighters, but people who make fires by shovelling coal on steam locomotives, who once shared the same descriptor (to the total confusion of many non-native English speakers) are still called firemen.
similarly, around here all official documents tend to refer to "anglers" while everyday Joe Sixpack still says "fisherman" no matter the fun bits of the person in question.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
Words often reflect our actions and shape our society.
This.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
I have to say that I'm absurdly inconsistent. I would never use 'poetess', and don't generally use 'actress'. I do say 'waitress', as does pretty much everyone I know ('waitron', although evidently seriously proposed in the 1970s, now sounds like a joke).
Landlord/Landlady is another gender specific job title that doesn't seem to going anywhere any time soon.Comedian/Comedienne seems to be about a 50/50 split.
In certain church circles, its not uncommon to refer to 'a foundress' or 'a benefactress'. We also refer to a woman who leads singing at Evensong as 'a cantrix' (if a man does it, then he's a 'a cantor', obviously). I find all of these uses charming, if a bitself-consciously antiquarian, and I don't think there is any intention to imply that a woman in one of those roles is anything less than a man. Of course, Catholics of all stripes invariably refer to Mary as 'mediatrix'.
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
I am in favour of gender equality but I also have respect for the English language. And therefore I too am inconsistent, because the language is, and sometimes it can be gracefully changed to be more inclusive, and sometimes it can't.
For example, when I see constructions like :" Every student must remember their homework" --a clumsy effort to avoid a personal pronoun, where "his" might have been used in the past to mean all students--I am horrorstruck. No, I do not want to go back to "his" meaning "his or her" ! I agree that no longer sounds inclusive.
But why can't people be bothered to recast the sentence?!
"All students must remember...their homework."
I can't really comment on "freshman" as I grew up and went to university in the UK. (I first encountered "freshman," "sophomore" etc in the charming American novel Daddy-Long-Legs as a teenager, and was baffled.)
But I too use "waitress" and I don't think it has anything demeaning about it. I think I might use "actress" too sometimes, but I quite understand why female actors might not like it...
In the armed forces, it's interesting that "airman" (as mentioned above) has been retained for women as well as men...I wonder what the women in question think?
Anyway, I believe (though it's not very hellish!) that there must be a happy medium between sticking to very exclusive language on the one hand and committing horrible distortions of English on the other.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Choirmistress ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
As a female organist friend says: she in nobody's mistress - and certainly not her choir's.
After all, we talk about a "Master's" degree - female MAs don't have a "Mistress'" degree.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
This particular problem would be solved by referring to the 'choir leader'.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Not so.
The person who leads the choir is the Head Chorister.
The person who trains/directs the choir is the musical director or choirmaster.
Two different people: one who sings, the other who teaches how to sing and conducts the singers.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Well, I suppose Anglicans have their own formal terminology for these things.
Personally, I wouldn't want to be called a choirmaster anymore than I'd want to be called a chairman. I'm not male.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
Is choirmaster really the normal term in the Anglican choral tradition? I'm more familiar with 'director of music' or 'organist'. Confusingly, the organist is often the one who conducts the choir, leaving it to the sub-organist (or the organ scholar, ass appropriate) to actually play the instrument. The situation is quite different from in the French system, where the 'organiste titulaire' really is primarily tasked with playing that instrument, and does not (in my admittedly limited experience of French churches) usually conduct the choir.
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
Is choirmaster really the normal term in the Anglican choral tradition?
Yes, I think it is the normal term. At least in the rare situations where there is a choirmaster who is not also the organist. Its a word I hear more often on Rado Three than in real life, but it is I think a usual word.
I suspect that the number of churches who can afford two organists, or an organist and a chiormaster, is exceeded many times over by the number who can't even aford one. Many many times over.
[ 16. September 2013, 16:36: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
[qb]
I suspect that the number of churches who can afford two organists, or an organist and a chiormaster, is exceeded many times over by the number who can't even aford one. Many many times over.
But partly made up for by the fact that an astonishingly high number of Anglicans in the pews turn out to be competent organists. At my current parish, in addition to the organist and his 'assistant' (which is not a permanent post), the curate and one of the churchwardens can play passibly, as can the sacristan and one of the men in the choir. One of the servers, having been an organ scholar at his College in earlier years, plays more than passably.
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
For example, when I see constructions like :" Every student must remember their homework" --a clumsy effort to avoid a personal pronoun, where "his" might have been used in the past to mean all students--I am horrorstruck.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif) Not this old bit of fake grammar again. |
Constructions like "everyone must remember their homework" are normal standard English, they've been part of normal standard English for the entire history of the language, pretty much ervery major writer uses them (Including Shaokespeare and the AV Bible so obviously God has spoken!)
The idea that they are wriong is just a silly piece of nonsense thought up by some semi-literate nincompoops in the 19th century. Ignore then and speak English.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Well said, Ken. Language is defined by usage.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
Is choirmaster really the normal term in the Anglican choral tradition?
Yes, I think it is the normal term. At least in the rare situations where there is a choirmaster who is not also the organist.
If I may be allowed a further, most un-Hellish tangent, if 'choirmaster' really is the norm, then it's by no means overwhelmingly so.
If we take quick survey at what would generally be thought the bastions of the English choral tradition (conveniently divided into college chapels, cathedrals, royal peculiars, and parish churches), we will find them divided as follows:
At King's, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury is the 'Director of Music', and is assisted by a large staff, including an 'Assistant Director of Music', two 'organ scholars', and two 'teachers' (music teachers, not to be confused with the teachers at the school where the boys are educated)
At St John's, Cambridge, Andrew Nethsingha is the 'Director of Music', and is assisted by two 'organ scholars'
At Westminster Cathedral Martin Baker is 'Master of Music' and is assisted by an 'Assistant Master of Music' and an organ scholar.
At St Paul's Cathedral, Andrew Carwood is 'Director of Music', and is assisted by an 'Organist & Assistant Director of Music', a 'sub-organist' and an organ scholar.
At Christ Church, Oxford, the Cathedral Choir (there is a separate college choir), is headed up by Stephen Darlington as 'organist', and assisted by Clive Driskill-Smith as 'sub-organist', and by two organ scholars.
At Canterbury Cathedral, David Flood is the Director of Music and is assisted by an 'Assistant Organist' and an organ scholar.
At York Minister, Robert Sharpe is the Director of Music, and he is assisted by an 'Assistant Director of Music' and an organ scholar.
At Southwark Cathedral, Peter Wright is the 'Cathedral Organist / Director of Music', and is assisted by an 'Assistant Organist' and an organ scholar.
At Llandaff Cathedral, Richard Moorhouse is 'Organist and Master of Choristers' and is assisted by an 'Assistant Organist' and a 'Second Assistant Organist'.
At St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, Duncan Ferguson is 'Organist and Master of the Music' and he is assisted by an 'Assistant Organist'
At Westminster Abbey, James O'Donnell is 'Organist and Master of Choristers', and is assisted by a sub-organist, an assistant organist, and an organ scholar.
At St George's Chapel, Windsor, James Vivian is the 'Director of Music' and is assisted by an 'Assistant Director of Music' and an organ scholar.
At The Chapel Royal, Hampton Court, Carl Jackson is the 'Director of Music' and is assisted by an 'Organist.
At All Saints, Margaret Street, Tim Byram-Wigfield is the 'Director of Music' and is assisted by an 'Associate Director of Music' and an organ scholar.
At St Margaret's Westminster, Aidan Oliver is the 'Director of Music' and is assisted by an 'Organist.
At St Marylebone Parish Church, Steven Grahl is 'Director of Music', and is assisted by an 'Assistant Director of Music' and an organ scholar.
At St Bride's, Fleet Street, Robert Jones is the 'Director of Music' and is assisted by an Assistant Director of Music.
[Many apologies to those who feel that their church has been left off this list! It's selective, possibly dated, and doubtless London-centric].
From the above list, it seems that we can conclude that the actual title 'choirmaster' is extremely rare in the English choral tradition (although one or two people do have fairly similar titles). Most churches use a title that is, in fact, gender neutral (either 'director of music' or organist). That doesn't change the fact that none of them actually have female directors of music, and only a small handful have female assistants or organ scholars. Being an organist is still very much a bloke's game, which is unfortunate.
[ 16. September 2013, 17:33: Message edited by: S. Bacchus ]
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
A very long list indeed, but it appears to concentrate on cathedrals, colleges and grand London churches. Hardly a good sample.
If you went about average CofE parish churches, you would find lots of choirmasters and organists.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
What he said. We were talking about "Normal". None of those places is a normall Anglican Church.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
What he said. We were talking about "Normal". None of those places is a normall Anglican Church.
But they are typical enough to be representative of the sort of place that has several full-time (or even part time) musicians on staff. Even if they're not strictly representative, they're the sort of place everywhere else will be emulating.
I suspect that 'choirmaster' probably lingers on for school choirs (I think that that was the title of the teacher in my prep school who picked out the musically talented boys, i.e. not me, an coached them through the RSCM grades, but then that was a very long time ago indeed and I don't remember that far back with any real clarity).
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Constructions like "everyone must remember their homework" are normal standard English, they've been part of normal standard English for the entire history of the language, pretty much ervery major writer uses them (Including Shaokespeare and the AV Bible so obviously God has spoken!)
The more awkward usage is when "they" is used in a clearly singular context (rather than just the linguistic proctologist singular above ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
Such as, for example "The candidate for examination should arrive promptly. They should wait on the chair provided until they are invited to enter the examination room."
One can easily rephrase this to avoid the awkwardness.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Signaller:
There are elements of visibility and pragmatism in this. People who put out fires are now called firefighters, but people who make fires by shovelling coal on steam locomotives, who once shared the same descriptor (to the total confusion of many non-native English speakers) are still called firemen.
Is this because (a) there is no convenient genderless term that doesn't sound ludicrous (steamships had stokers, but no-one seems inclined to transfer that to the railway, except in a mechanical context) (b) there aren't enough of them to make it worth anyone's while to try and change things (c) they are nearly all volunteers on heritage railways who don't want to rock the boat (with the corollary that most of the (male) volunteers are of the dinosaur persuasion anyway) or (d) none of the above?
Probably most volunteer stokers are nostalgic antiquarians who see the period usage of the gendered term as the least of the hardships of stoking a wood or coal engine by hand.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Constructions like "everyone must remember their homework" are normal standard English, they've been part of normal standard English for the entire history of the language, pretty much ervery major writer uses them (Including Shaokespeare and the AV Bible so obviously God has spoken!)
The more awkward usage is when "they" is used in a clearly singular context (rather than just the linguistic proctologist singular above )
Such as, for example "The candidate for examination should arrive promptly. They should wait on the chair provided until they are invited to enter the examination room."
One can easily rephrase this to avoid the awkwardness.
Yes, leorning cniht, this is really much more the sort of thing I meant. I agree that "everyone...their," while I still don't like it, especially in written language, is more standard and sounds much less awkward and "wrong" than your example here.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
If I may be allowed a further, most un-Hellish tangent
AHHH! My eyes! My eyes!!
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Under some circumstances I really like the singular they. For instance: Q: Whose car is that? A: I don't know, but they sure don't know how to park!
"She" is the traditional pronoun here, surely? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
of course. "She" couldn't take the time to park, because "she" actually had something important to do, like rip the testicles off some smirking man who thinks a faulty shrunken chromosome makes him magically good at something so vital to life as getting an automobile between two arbitrary lines.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Succinctly put, comet. (raises beer.)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
The traditional response to 'why are women bad at parking' (which is nonsense btw) is 'Men keep telling them that this much (indicates tiny distance) is six inches'.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
The traditional response to 'why are women bad at parking' (which is nonsense btw) is 'Men keep telling them that this much (indicates tiny distance) is six inches'.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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snowgoose
Silly goose
# 4394
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Posted
After spending many years as a member of the grammar police I have come to terms with the use of "they" as a singular gender-neutral pronoun.
The fact is, such a pronoun is needed in a world where people object to the use of, e.g., "he" to mean "he or she." There have even been a few clumsy attempts to invent one. "They" has the benefit of being close to hand and already widely used.
Language, and especially English, is an evolving creature. When bits of it stop working for our society we don't scrap the whole thing and start over, we adapt what we have.
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Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man? --Terry Pratchett
Save a Siamese!
Posts: 3868 | From: Tidewater Virginia | Registered: Apr 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The trouble with grammar police, is that the burglars have tip-toed into the building, or maybe picked the locks, anyway, gained easy access, and then set about nicking some stuff, tampering with other stuff, or whatever, and then made an easy getaway. And meanwhile the police were looking the other way, and pompously pronouncing on whether a sentence should begin with 'and'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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