Re: Quaint technical writing

[Geoff Lane <geoff -at- gjctech -dot- co -dot- uk>]

On Sunday, April 2, 2006, Stuart Burnfield wrote;

> ... but it sounds as though they don't think you should entrust it
> to a skilled woman. I wonder why.
---

I wonder whether they actually thought that. The style is archaic
enough to have me wonder if its origins are from when "man" was
gender-neutral (in the same sense as "lion"), and you used "wif-man"
if you wanted to specify the female gender (in the same sense as
"lioness").

More seriously, it's only in the last couple of decades that we've
been lumbered with "political correctness". Not that long ago, we had
"chairmen" rather than "chairpersons", "manhole covers" rather than
"access covers", "firemen" rather than "firefighters", "policemen"
rather than "police officers", etc.

Ned Bedinger wrote:

> I have to wonder if the environment that produced this is really in
> Pittsburg. What do you think?

I suspect that both the product and manual might stem from the era
before PC-madness took hold - and it's environment is a function of
time rather than location!

-- 
Geoff

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