lavalamp comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong

62 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 July 2009 07:22AM

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Comment author: lavalamp 24 July 2009 04:18:43PM 3 points [-]

I used to mention that derivation whenever the subject came up IRL (with the rather unfortunate gloss that therefore "man" really was gender-neutral and women should not feel left out by its exclusive use), until I realized that usage 800+ years ago has little to no influence on the current meaning of the word.

No one ever noticed the fallacy, which is depressing now that I think about it. Don't count on others to fix your thinking is the lesson, I guess.