Re: Manmonth or Peoplemonth? -Reply

["Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM>]

Sigh.

Words have meaning. Even bits of words. Even if the meaning is not intended.
"Man hour" is not poetic or sacred or even a term with a rich tradition.
Changing "All men are created equal" weakens the poetry and damages the
historical accuracy. Nothing is lost by changing "man hour" to "employee hour".

As a tech writer, I prefer to 1) present as few irrelevant facts as possible,
and 2) present as few incorrect facts as possible. The term "man hour" presents
a fact that is both irrelevant and incorrect half the time: that the hour will be
worked by an adult male human. The root of the word "man" ("mann") was gender
neutral, but that was a different language, and "man" with one "n" has meant
"adult male human" for several hundred years. Longer, in fact, than standardized
spelling has existed, so who was counting "n"s?

"Man hour" costs a certain amount of distraction to a certain part of the
audience. Perhaps they are women who are out of line or should get a life, or
maybe the point is valid. But they are the audience, paying customers, so it
isn't my place, in a capitalist society, to judge. "Employee hour" costs a
smaller part of most audiences a smaller distraction. Only the most rabid
anti-PC people would take offense, and they would be wrong: I do not use
that term to be PC, I use it because I'm talking about employees, not men.

---
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