[B-Greek] 1850 Act of Parliament Re: (B-Greek) Two in one bed
Ann Nyland
nyland at tsn.cc
Mon Jul 24 21:30:41 EDT 2006
frjsilver at optonline.net writes, "Contrary to the erroneous but ‘politically
correct' theories promoted by misguided feminists, there truly does exist,
in English, a generic ‘he' which is inclusive, as mandated by an Act of the
British Parliament in 1850, but its use is clearly defined and appropriately
restricted: it works only for those who are sufficiently educated in the
language to be able to use its grammar and syntax successfully."
A Nyland writes, Here is an extract from my book, "More Than Meets The Eye:
The Campaign to Control Gender Translation in Bibles."
Let us consider the history of the use of “they” as the third person
singular. A basic linguistics textbook, Fromkin and Rodman’s An Introduction
to Language, states, “In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, masculine
pronouns were not used as the generic terms; the various form of he were
used when referring to males, and of she when referring to females. The
pronoun they was used to refer to people of either sex even if the referent
was a singular noun, as shown by Lord Chesterfield’s statement in 1759: ‘If
a person is born of a gloomy temper . . . they cannot help it.’”[i]
Indeed, “they” was commonly the English singular pronoun until
an English grammar prescribed instead the use of “he” around 1745. The
English grammarian Ann Fischer published the first edition (which has not
survived) of her popular English grammar around 1745,[ii] her second edition
in 1750, and eleven London editions under the revised title, A Practical New
Grammar, were published after 1762.[iii] Fisher’s work was important as it
was the first to contain exercises of incorrect grammar, said by some to be
the basis of the grammar’s great popularity. Fischer’s grammar was also
important as it was the first to set down the rule for “he” as the generic
singular, for “they” had been in common use up to this point. John Kirkby’s
1746 grammar followed in setting forth the same rule, for Kirkby was well
known to have plagiarized Fisher’s grammar.[iv] It is not known why Fisher
set down such a rule, but her grammar was highly popular, with 21 numbered
editions being accounted for, and thus the rule was accepted..
The politician and lawyer Lord Brougham became known as a
leading spokesperson for radicals in the British House of Commons. He was
actively involved in educational reform, campaigned against slavery, was
instrumental in making participation in the slave trade a felony, and was
one of main persons responsible for the passing of the 1933 Anti-Slavery
Act. Brougham was a campaigner for equal rights for women, and played a
strong role in the passing of the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act. He is perhaps
best known for the 1850 act, “An Act for Shortening the Language used in
Acts of Parliament”[v] also known as “Lord Brougham’s Act”, passed by the
British Parliament on June 10, 1850. Section IV read in part, “Be it
enacted, That in all Acts Words importing the Masculine Gender shall be
deemed and taken to include Females, and the Singular to include the Plural,
and the Plural the Singular, unless the contrary as to gender or Number is
expressly provided.”
Brougham’s intention was simply to ensure that women were
included under the terms “man” and “he”. Ironically, a person instrumental
for setting down “he” instead of “they” as the generic pronoun was a person
involved in women’s rights.
Brougham’s act was cited in the now famous Canada “Persons Case”
of 1928. The question was “Does the word ‘persons’ in s. 24 of the British
North America Act, 1867, include female persons ?”[vi] The background to the
case was that a Canadian woman, Emily Murphy, had become the first woman
police magistrate in the British Empire. When she presided over her first
case, the Counsel for the Defense objected to her as magistrate on the
grounds that she was “not a person”. The objection was based on the 1876
English Common Law decision: “Women are persons in matters of pains and
penalties, but not persons in matters of rights and privileges”. In August
1927, Emily Murphy rounded up four women to put a petition on the grounds of
Section 60 of the Supreme Court Act which states that any five persons may
petition for an order-in-council directing the Supreme Court to rule on this
constitutional point of the British North America Act.
The five women who put the application were presented by the
Honorable Newton Wesley Rowell. He built the case on Lord Brougham’s Act,
that the use of masculine gender also included the feminine gender unless
otherwise stated, and the Dominions Election Act of 1920[vii] which declared
the word “persons” must be interpreted to include females.
The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously answered that the word
“persons” did not include females. The five women requested an appeal of
this decision and on July 19, 1929, their appeal was heard by the Privy
Council in London. Lord Chancellor Lord Sankey’s decision was announced on
October 18, 1929, that “person” was meant to be inclusive of both men and
women. The Privy Council took into account Lord Brougham’s Act, and the fact
that on May 20, 1867, when the Representation of the People Bill came before
a Committee of the House of Commons, John Stuart Mill moved an amendment to
replace the word “man” with the word “person”.[viii]
The evidence thus shows clearly that the use of “they” cannot be
due to an attempt at political correctness or any action by “the feminists”.
It was used for hundreds of years until the mid 1700s, when a woman and a
pre-feminist man prescribed the use of “he”. Now it is coming back into use
again in the USA and has already been in common use for some years in other
English speaking countries. In fact, grammarian A. Bodine has demonstrated
that it was in common use prior to 1975.[ix]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman. An Introduction to
Language, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993, pp. 309-310.
[ii] Ian Michael, The teaching of English, from the sixteenth
century to 1870, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1987, p. 457.
[iii] Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Female grammarians of the
eighteenth century, (University of Leiden) Published: 28 August 2000,
HSL,SHL 1/1. Accessed at
www.leidenuniv.nl/English/staff/tieken/internetjournal/femgram.htm#N_1#N_1.
[iv] Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, “John Kirkby and The
Practice of Speaking and Writing English: identification of a manuscript”.
Leeds Studies in English ns 23, 157-179 (1992), pp.166-167
[v] (13 and 14c Vict c 21)1850, “An Act for Shortening the
Language used in Acts of Parliament CAP. XXI.
[vi] Appeal (No. 121 of 1928) by special leave from a judgment
of the Supreme Court of Canada, dated April 24, 1928, in answer to a
question referred to that court by the Governor General under s. 60 of the
Supreme Court Act.
[vii] Section 41 of the British North America Act.
[viii] Hansard, 3rd series, vol. clxxxvii., col. 817.
[ix] A. Bodine, “Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar:
singular ‘they’, sex-indefinite ‘he’, and ‘he or she’”, Language in Society
4 (1975) 129-146, p. 133.
----- Original Message -----
From: <frjsilver at optonline.net>
To: "Daniel L Christiansen" <dlc at multnomah.edu>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 11:03 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] (B-Greek) Two in one bed
Dear Friends --
Here's another quote from my old paper.
I realize that it has theological resonances, but I ask that you just work
around them as you navigate among the socio-linguistic principles I adduce.
And I sincerely hope that this helps (at least a little) to advance the
question.
Peace and blessings to all.
Father James Silver
Monk James
Orthodox Church in America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BEGIN QUOTE:
VOCABULARY, DICTION, INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE
The written or literary form of any spoken language is almost always a more
formal vehicle of expression than common speech. As such, except as a
deliberate exercise in dialect or colloquialism, the written language will
avoid ‘low' speech: contractions, slang, vulgarities, and so forth. Some
of these distinctions are really obvious, while others demand much more
sensitive attention. The written language, for example, will almost
certainly prefer to say ‘excrement' or ‘dung' where the spoken language will
use another biological term or one of several colloquialisms with varying
degress of acceptability in polite discourse.
Other distinctions are less obvious. There is a subtle sense of elevated
style in the use of ‘no one' rather than ‘nobody'; ‘can't' and ‘don't' are
more informal and less elevated than ‘cannot' and ‘do not'; but, except in
a really well-turned phrase, the latter forms are likely to sound heavy and
wooden. This is the province of diction: to allow words to interact with
each other to convey not only meaning, but style and sonority. This is
especially important in the Psalms, since they will be sung.
Although some translations of the Psalms, both from Hebrew and from Greek,
are
undeniably at fault for failing to reflect it in English, the Greek 70's
Psalter and its accurate
translations make full use of inclusive language. Terms which mean ‘human
being' are intended to include both male and female human beings. Terms
which mean ‘male human being' are not intended to include female human
beings, and vice versa. Personal and political agenda which require the
degenderizing or (especially) the ‘demasculinizing' of all pronouns and
concepts are on a collision course with reality and ethical integrity.
Contrary to the erroneous but ‘politically correct' theories
promoted by misguided feminists, there truly does exist, in English, a
generic ‘he' which is inclusive, as mandated by an Act of the British
Parliament in 1850, but its use is clearly defined and appropriately
restricted: it works only for those who are sufficiently educated in the
language to be able to use its grammar and syntax successfully.
In translating the Scriptures, there are situations where the masculine form
must be used, not only because it is grammatically and syntactically
correct, but required by an authentically Christian and Christological
understanding of the text. For example, Psalm 1:1 says ‘Happy is the man';
in modern English, this is accurate. From a purely linguistic standpoint,
it cannot correctly be made to say say ‘Happy is the person', ‘Happy is
one', ‘Happy are they', ‘Happy are we', etc. The underlying Hebrew word is
_'iysh_, unquestionably meaning ‘male human being'. The Greek renders this
as ANHR and the Latin says _vir_ while the Slavonic uses _mouzh"_; all
these words have exactly the same meaning. The sense of the Slavonic is so
inevitably male that this very word has come into modern Russian with the
meaning ‘husband'.
It would have been possible to translate this as ‘person' or ‘someone' or
with another generically human, inclusive term only if the Hebrew had
started out with _'adám_, and if this had been rendered ANQWPOS, _hómo_ and
_cheloväk"_ in the respective languages just cited. But this is not the
case, and this translation of the Psalms has no personal or political agenda
which would skew the rendering to satisfy such agenda.
A further complication arises from the ‘demasculinization' of pronouns in
translations of the Scriptures: Christ becomes invisible. Much of the Old
Testament must be read with a recognition of its Christological subtext if
it is to mean anything to us at all. The Christians are guided in this by
the Tradition, and the Jews would understand it much better if they adopted
the Christological point of view, since the Gospel was proclaimed primarily
for the Jews (MT 10:5-6; ACTS 11:19-20; ROM 1:16); if the Old Testament's
predictions concerning Christ were not fulfilled, then there really is no
point to our faith.
Eradicating the masculine pronoun from our translations of the Scriptures is
like depriving a ship of its rudder. There is no possibility of finding our
way to Christ in a translation which speaks only in vague generalities about
‘them', but never about ‘Him'. Other comments about the implications of the
translator's need to be faithful to the Tradition will be found in this
paper's section titled ‘Christianisms'.
At the same time, not every pronominal referent needs to be cast in the
masculine gender. Where the Tradition does not assert a clearly
Christological meaning, there is no reason why generic terms for human
beings cannot be employed. Psalm 103, discussing daily human life is a good
example of the possible use of ‘people' to translate ANQRWPOS. The pronoun,
by grammatical logic, then becomes ‘they' instead of ‘he'. But this will
not be true in Psalm 1, or in any other Christological context where the
Tradition tells us, unequivocally, that this ‘man' is Christ. This is not
the same thing as skewing the translation toward a theological assumption,
but rather recognizing the Tradition's reading of the text. This is so
ancient as to have been codified in first-century documents, including the
gospels.
Although it has many other good points to recommend it, the failure of the
New Revised Standard Version to acknowledge these distinctions has earned
it, alone among all other English-language translations of the Bible, the
condemnation of the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, who will not
permit it to be read in the services. For the same reason, the Roman
Catholic bishops of the United States took similar action against 'The Grail
Psalms: An Inclusive Language Version'.
That there is some male/female imbalance in human thought is undeniable;
what its causes are and what its cure might be are beyond the scope of this
paper, and are not the subjects of this translation. Perhaps language, in
general, ought to be kept from the fray.
If there is indeed oppression of the female half of the human race by the
male half, I suggest that this problem will not be solved by spurious
translations or by doing violence to standard English usage. People who
propose aberrant forms ‘womyn', ‘herstory') are clearly misguided in their
zeal, as are those who would ‘demasculinize' all pronominal referents. I
would like to call to their attention the fact that there are languages
(Chinese and Turkish come to mind) which employ genderless pronouns in
common speech.
This is not as odd as it might at first sound; we do it all the time in
English, but in the plural, when we say things like ‘They're in the house'.
‘They' conveys nothing about gender; ‘they' could be men, women, children,
dogs, plants, bugs or books. The larger context in English, as well as in
Turkish or Chinese, would tell us all we needed to know, but the pronoun
itself would not. Yet even the most casual observation of Turkish and
Chinese societies will reveal that women in those cultures, genderless
pronouns notwithstanding, are far more repressed than are English-speaking
women who balk at being included within ‘mankind'. Language cannot be
legislated, not by the civil government and not by the pressure of groups
who claim that their ox has been gored. There are notorious failures of
fascism on record to demonstrate this truth. The status of women in any
society is probably not indexed by ‘inclusivity' in language; I submit that
language is not the problem, nor is it the solution.
END QUOTE
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