[QUOTE="whipassmt"]
okay here is what the book says:
"Avoid biased language
always take care to avoid words that are gender-biased or that have negative connotations for particular racial, ethnic, or religious groups. You should never use expressions that are clearly derogatory. In addition, you should be aware that many words that were once acceptable are now deemed inappropriate. For example, the use of masculine words to refer to both men and women, once a common practice, is now considered sexist by many. Use humankind or people rather than mankind, and do not use masculine pronouns when referring to people of both genders.......
Note that you cannot always rely on the books you are reading to alert you to biased language. In older publications, you may encounter previously common terms such as Oriental or Negro to refer to people, but these words are generally no longer used. Today the preferred word for people of Asian heritage is Asian; people of African descent are generally called black or (for U.S. history) African-American".
gamerguru100
I remember in eleventh grade English when we did these grammar correction sheets. One of the "problems" was that "mankind" had to be switched to "humankind" so "ladies could be included" or something. The teacher then went on and said something along the lines of "not all the language we'll encounter will always be politically correct". The political correctness thing was on the sheet and I scribbled the phrase "politically correct" completely in pencil lead. I'll say "mankind" if I want, bitch. It's a semi-free country. speaking of the whole "gender-neutral" language thing. Here is a passage I found from the document Liturgiam Authenticamwritten by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome.(I bolded some words for emphasis):30. In many languages there exist nouns and pronouns denoting both genders, masculine and feminine, together in a single term. The insistence that such a usage should be changed is not necessarily to be regarded as the effect or the manifestation of an authentic development of the language as such. Even if it may be necessary by means of catechesis to ensure that such words continue to be understood in the inclusive sense just described, it may not be possible to employ different words in the translations themselves without detriment to the precise intended meaning of the text, the correlation of its various words or expressions, or its aesthetic qualities. When the original text, for example, employs a single term in expressing the interplay between the individual and the universality and unity of the human family or community (such as the Hebrew word adam, the Greek anthropos, or the Latin homo), this property of the language of the original text should be maintained in the translation. Just as has occurred at other times in history, the Church herself must freely decide upon the system of language that will serve her doctrinal mission most effectively, and should not be subject to externally imposed linguistic norms that are detrimental to that mission.
31. In particular: to be avoided is the systematic resort to imprudent solutions such as a mechanical substitution of words, the transition from the singular to the plural, the splitting of a unitary collective term into masculine and feminine parts, or the introduction of impersonal or abstract words, all of which may impede the communication of the true and integral sense of a word or an expression in the original text. Such measures introduce theological and anthropological problems into the translation. Some particular norms are the following:
.....
32. The translation should not restrict the full sense of the original text within narrower limits. To be avoided on this account are expressions characteristic of commercial publicity, political or ideological programs, passing fashions, and those which are subject to regional variations or ambiguities in meaning. Academic style manuals or similar works, since they sometimes give way to such tendencies, are not to be considered standards for liturgical translation. On the other hand, works that are commonly considered classics in a given vernacular language may prove useful in providing a suitable standard for its vocabulary and usage.
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