#563 Person Man

I have occasion to use Microsoft Word a lot.
So it’s probably no surprise that I encounter spellcheck and grammarcheck more often than your average bear.
Most times, I agree with grammarcheck. Except I think it’s a little aggressive about whether the passive voice is used.
But lately, since I use older words for things, it’s really begun to annoy me. Because it seems like grammarcheck has also become PC check.
At first, I thought it was an anomaly. I typed in “chairman” and a green squiggly line appeared under it. I clicked on the line and it suggested alternatives. Namely, “chairperson” and “chair.”
Personally, I refuse to call someone a piece of furniture in lieu of specifying his or her gender. “Chairman” and “chairwoman” are fine with me. At least they’re chair people.
Then I typed in “fireman.” Same thing, green squiggly line— suggestion, “firefighter.”
“Stewardess” sent up the green squiggly flag, but steward slipped through unsquiggled. Hmm. Yesterday’s news on that one. Slobobian Chauvinist Airways is the only one who still uses anything but “flight attendant.”
“Police officer” very naturally was suggested for “policeman.”
“Mailman” became “mail carrier.” I like the postal service’s “letter carrier” better. “Mail carrier” sounds like you’re the unwitting transmitter of the male disease.
And, really, going with how things sound, Mailman really ought to devolve twice, from “mailman” to “mailperson” to “personperson.”
But what really got me going was when I typed in the word “caveman” and up came a squiggly line. The alternative offered was “cave dweller.” I had used the phrase “back in caveman days,” when the PC squiggler attacked.
Point of style. Using the phrase “back in cave dweller days” would have been cumbersome and confusing. Language is, first and foremost, a means to communicate.
Confusion is not up there in language’s primary goals.
“Man” and “men” used as generic suffixes and prefixes totally emasculates those words as used in other contexts.
It’s man as in Mankind. I’d like that to be one small step for the next grammarcheck.
All this lingual hand wringing, by the way, for the only western language that doesn’t genderize its articles.
America ya gotta love it