VOA慢速英语--妈妈,爸爸,还是父母立法者对性别词语进行了规定

In the U.S. House of Representatives on January 4, 2021, Representative Emanuel Cleaver¹ of Missouri closed a prayer to mark the swearing in of the 117th Congress. He changed the traditional "amen" and instead, said "amen and awoman."

"Amen" contains the sound "men" but it is not connected to the English word "men," meaning adult males. The -men from "amen" is from a Hebrew word meaning "truth." The word is used at the end of a prayer to signify agreement with the prayer's message. But it also can be used to show agreement to the truth of any statement.

The representative's words show the desire among the members of Congress to use gender²-inclusive language. He may have thought the word "amen" excluded women, and changed it in the same way we would say, "men and women of the military."

Grammatical and biological gender

In grammatical terms, "gender" refers to how many languages divide mainly nouns and adjectives into one of three groups. The groups, or categories, are "feminine," "masculine" and "neutral." Feminine means related to the female sex. Masculine means related to the male sex.

English does not use grammatical gender. Our words, however, do often speak directly to biological gender, a state of being either female or male. In America, increasingly, people are seeking to avoid language based in biological gender.

The House Committee on Rules announced rules for the new Congress in January. The new rules demanded language changes to avoid terms considered sexist or discriminatory in other ways. The Rules committee explained that their goal in writing the new rules is to include all those who work with Congress and their families, including those who are nonbinary, identifying as neither male nor female. The words they chose to avoid include such words as "father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt ... nephew, niece, husband, wife, ... grandson, or grand-daughter." Instead, the rule calls for using ‘‘parent, child, sibling³, parent's sibling, ... sibling's child, spouse⁴, ... or grandchild".

Guidelines for written rules

These guidelines only restrict Congress' documented language. The use of "gendered" words in speech is not part of the new rules.

This was evidenced on January 13, when Nancy Pelosi opened debate on impeaching⁶ President Donald Trump⁷ using gendered language.

"I stand before you as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a daughter," Pelosi said. "A daughter whose father proudly served in this Congress."

Honoring all gender identities

The new House Rules also identified words to be used in connection with job or occupational positions. For example, the leader of a committee will be described as the Chair. Words such as "member" or "delegate" replace the pronouns "she" and "he." And, "herself" or "himself" is replaced by ‘‘themself."

Changes like these are becoming more common. In 2019, several language expert groups named "they" both the Word of the Year and the Word of the Decade. The American Dialect Society named "(my) pronouns" the Word of the Year for 2019.

Colin Surname, a singer and songwriter who lives in Britain, has written a song to teach us about using the singular pronoun, "they."

Singular 'they' is really easy;

Singular 'they' is here to stay.

It's been around since 1350 and it's a word you already say.

Think when you don't know someone's gender,

So you refer to them as 'they.'

I just did it when I said "them" then

What a convenient display

And that's Everyday Grammar!

I'm Jill Robbins.

You can read more about the use of "they" in our previous stories:

Problems with Pronouns and Gender

'They' Wins as Linguists⁸' Word of the Year

Words of the Year: ‘They,' ‘Existential,' ‘Climate Emergency'

Words in This Story

masculine – adj. of, relating to, or suited to men or boys

feminine – adj. of, relating to, or suited to women or girls

sibling - n. a brother or sister

impeach⁵ – v. to charge (a public official) with a crime done while in office

1 cleaver   

n.切肉刀

参考例句：

• In fact,a cleaver is a class of ax.实际上，切肉刀也是斧子的一种。
• The cleaver is ground to a very sharp edge.刀磨得飞快。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 sibling   

n.同胞手足(指兄、弟、姐或妹)

参考例句：

• Many of us hate living in the shadows of a more successful sibling.我们很多人都讨厌活在更为成功的手足的阴影下。
• Sibling ravalry has been common in this family.这个家里，兄弟姊妹之间的矛盾很平常。

4 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

5 impeach   

v.弹劾；检举

参考例句：

• We must impeach the judge for taking bribes.我们一定要检举法官收受贿赂。
• The committee decided to impeach the President.委员会决定弹劾总统。

6 impeaching   

v.控告（某人）犯罪( impeach的现在分词 )；弹劾；对（某事物）怀疑；提出异议

参考例句：

7 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

8 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句