You are right about what the definition might be, but everything is not about what the English definition says. Some definitions are based on social or academic definitions that apply to issues like this. And often English definitions change because of social and cultural changes. I am not saying that I disagree with what Cameron stated, but I just realize that the dictionary definition does not always fit to a level of understanding or acceptance. Then again, I do not see a way to get away from the usage of "man to man" because you are referring to women in a particular sport.

Peace

Rut makes a good point that terms and words mean different things to different folks. Unfortunately, one cannot know the jargon of a particular group unless the individual is either part of that group or studies it.
The default is the standard definition, and yes, even those do change as he points out. Language is an evolving device of communication.
In many cases, what someone says is not what is understood. When that happens we must identify which party is at fault for the miscommunication. Should we point the finger at the one using the nonstandard definition of a term or the one using it out of its expected context within a particular social circle?

'Nough Said ...
 

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (Neil Armstrong, July 21, 1969)

He left out wimmen.:eek:

Neil Armstrong shoulda been horse-whipped for saying that!

Horse-whipped, I tell ya!

Whipped with a horse!




Stoopid monkey thread.....

That's insulting? Disagree. That's amazingly petty. Astoundingly petty. Beyond belief petty. PC out-of-control petty.

Just my petty opinion.....

An interesting bit of trivia is that he actually flubbed what he originally was going to say. He meant to say "That's one small step for a man..."

I guess he got a little caught up with the whole being the first person to step on the moon and all that. ;)

Why does there have to be a fault? mis communication, per se, is almost never a "fault" issue, it's simply a breakdown in the wiring.

That being said, I don't think feminist objections to using "man" to refer to any human being have anything to do with miscommunication, but that's not a point I'm going to argue. And it certainly was not my point when I was discussing it several years ago. Just saying...

IMO it's not merely PC. For a very brief, fact-based account of gendered pronouns, see Carolyn Jacobson's (Penn) handout:
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.html

The "handbook of non-sexist writing", eh? :rolleyes: "Mankind" is now a bad word? :rolleyes:

"Fact-based"?

OK.......

This is a no-win argument and a wobw. I'm done.

I wonder how many man hours....errrrr....person hours were logged in the basketball officiating industry in 2009?

Ever watch American Idol? That judge named Randy calls everyone, even the ladies - "dude". Awkward. Ok...that has nothing to do with hoops. :o

I think the viewership for women's basketball would go up considerably if they called it "girl on girl". Just sayin . . .

Reminds me of something a friend told me years ago. "My son's hockey team has a girl now. It gives new meaning to the phrase 'man down.'"

Anyway, I've heard some coaches use "player to player." I like accuracy, but I think this takes it too far.

The late, great George Carlin once said, "I believe it should be 'humankind' instead on 'mankind,' but if you tell me that thing in the street is a 'person-hole cover', I think that's going too far."

Another word that has lost it's gender specificity over the years, especially in sports, is "guys". It's become relatively generic. I hear coaches, including female coaches, call female players "guys" all the time. I virtually never hear "gals" any more in that context.

One term I hope never loses it's original meaning is "hot mom". :p

""Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed".
 

Speaking the line, he accidentally dropped the "a", from his remark, rendering the phrase a contradiction (as man in such use is synonymous with mankind). Armstrong later said he "would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said – although it might actually have been." It has since been claimed that acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing "a". A digital audio analysis conducted by Peter Shann Ford, an Australia-based computer programmer, claims that Armstrong did, in fact, say "a man", but the "a" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time. Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis. The article by Ford, however, is published on Ford's own web site rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman at Language Log were skeptical of Ford's claims. Armstrong has expressed his preference that written quotations include the "a" in parentheses.