Aliasing mailman → mail_carrier
Link to alias

Reason:

Was going to suggest mailman {with 30 uploads} (and mailwoman) imply to Mail_carrier,

BUT saw forum #219278 thread (suggested alias of waiter/waitress -> server ) where the final word seem to be of the discussion was gender-specific job titles (example: murse) should alias to gender-neutral job titles (example: nurse).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_carrier

A female mailman is still a mailman. The "man" part of most job titles don't imply male.

Someone's actually created a mailwoman tag. ...urgh.

Genjar said:
Someone's actually created a mailwoman tag. ...urgh.

Already on it.

BlueDingo said:
A female mailman is still a mailman. The "man" part of most job titles don't imply male.

Wikipedia lead paragraph says "A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier ..."

ListerTheSquirrel said:
Wikipedia lead paragraph says "A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier ..."

Just because "mailwoman" exists, doesn't mean mailman isn't the generic term. Female mailmen existed well before that term did. See waiter/waitress and nurse/murse.

I suggest aliasing postman as well.

I'm gonna pull a massive ass Occam's Razor on any argument involving the suffix -man: human doesn't mean male, so neither does most titles of jobs with -man as a suffix. It's easier to interpret as "human with *job title*" and not break it into gender terms.

Siral_Exan said:
I'm gonna pull a massive ass Occam's Razor on any argument involving the suffix -man: human doesn't mean male, so neither does most titles of jobs with -man as a suffix.

Not to mention "man" also means human and humans collectively.

Wiktionary. See definitions 2 and 3.

BlueDingo said:
murse

Ugh why.

Siral_Exan said:
I'm gonna pull a massive ass Occam's Razor on any argument involving the suffix -man: human doesn't mean male, so neither does most titles of jobs with -man as a suffix. It's easier to interpret as "human with *job title*" and not break it into gender terms.

I'd agree somewhat, however lot of the world disagrees. Especially when referring to certain industries where there used to be (and sometimes still is) a clear gender bias.

parasprite said:
I'd agree somewhat, however lot of the world disagrees. Especially when referring to certain industries where there used to be (and sometimes still is) a clear gender bias.

Hence the Razor, people like to focus the small details, like the term "man" over the suffix "-man", and often ignore outright any argument made against them.

It's because people have a, as science has shown, bias for their own arguments, often because they cannot "defeat" their own. This leads to either long, drawn out arguments as a wall against a wall (this doesn't fix anything), or often a third (or more) party who actually knows to criticize their own views when they do to the others (this leads, in here, to the usage of gender neutral terms, either already existing or made).

My Occam's Razor uses this simple and easy to understand argument: a human that works in a specific job can be called "a human who works in *job title*". Titles like postman is just that: the human who works in the post.

ListerTheSquirrel said:
gender-specific job titles (example: murse)

haven't heard that one before

Munkelzahn said:
haven't heard that one before

Didn't you know? Replace the first letter of any word with "m" and it automatically becomes manly enough for guys to associate with. Murse, moobs, magina, manpon...

"Man" is historically gender-neutral, particularly as a suffix. At no point has anyone with a brain and a decent grasp of the English language ever thought of the word "mankind" as referring to only male human beings, for example.

parasprite said:
Didn't you know? Replace the first letter of any word with "m" and it automatically becomes manly enough for guys to associate with. Murse, moobs, magina, manpon...

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the primary reason "words" like murse came around was more than likely to shame men who chose to work in a female-dominated profession rather than to make it somehow more appealing for men to do such a thing. All of the "words" you cite are used in a derogatory or mocking fashion more often than not.

Kavellrist said:
"Man" is historically gender-neutral, particularly as a suffix. At no point has anyone with a brain and a decent grasp of the English language ever thought of the word "mankind" as referring to only male human beings, for example.

By definition, no, but it's been a persistent connotation for centuries. This is an innate flaw in any system that uses the same word for one gender as it does the gender-neutral - the word will always lose one of those senses in favor of the other. Examples in the other direction include "dog" (m) and "cow" (f), both of which have become generic gender-neutral terms.

But because humanity has a vain interest in fabricating a war between sexes, "man" has become one of the weapons in that war.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the primary reason "words" like murse came around was more than likely to shame men who chose to work in a female-dominated profession rather than to make it somehow more appealing for men to do such a thing. All of the "words" you cite are used in a derogatory or mocking fashion more often than not.

"Mansplaining" is one of the more hilarious ones.

FibS said:
By definition, no, but it's been a persistent connotation for centuries. This is an innate flaw in any system that uses the same word for one gender as it does the gender-neutral - the word will always lose one of those senses in favor of the other. Examples in the other direction include "dog" (m) and "cow" (f), both of which have become generic gender-neutral terms.

But because humanity has a vain interest in fabricating a war between sexes, "man" has become one of the weapons in that war.

It used to be that the proper term for an adult male human was "wereman" and the proper term for an adult female human was "wifman". Also, the word "girl" initially referred to a child of either gender, whereas "boy" referred specifically to a servant. Sometime around the dawn of the courtly love and chivalry era all this got shaken up.

FibS said:
"Mansplaining" is one of the more hilarious ones.

The "word" mansplaining is basically a feminist thought-terminating cliché. It's designed to give any given woman a simple, instantaneous method of dismissing anything a male human being says to them as being motivated by sexism. Basically, if for whatever reason a woman feels like she's losing the slightest bit of face she plays the mansplaining card and she is instantly the victim of horrible sexism, perpetrated by a loathsome, lowly male who doesn't know his station. Because what he's doing is now considered "sexism" it can be dismissed out-of-hand and she not only does not lose face, she gains "victim cred" and usually the man will receive a few glares and verbal barbs to ensure that he shuts up, gives up and walks away.

FibS said:
Examples in the other direction include "dog" (m) and "cow" (f), both of which have become generic gender-neutral terms.

Except "cow" refers to females of many different animals. Cattle, buffalo, camel, rhinoceros, elephant, whale.

Kavellrist said:
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the primary reason "words" like murse came around was more than likely to shame men who chose to work in a female-dominated profession rather than to make it somehow more appealing for men to do such a thing. All of the "words" you cite are used in a derogatory or mocking fashion more often than not.

I was just being sarcastic.

parasprite said:
I was just being sarcastic.

Ah, ok. Hard to tell on an Internet forum.

BlueDingo said:
Not to mention "man" also means human and humans collectively.

Wiktionary. See definitions 2 and 3.

Speaking of Wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mailman says
"(US) someone (implied male) who delivers mail"
and "Usage Notes * The gender-neutral letter carrier is sometimes preferred."

(Trying Wikipedia Letter_carrier redirects to Mail_carrier)

At the top of the this thread I linked to Wikipedia's Mail carrier article, but forgot to mention that if you try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailman , it redirects you to Mail_carrier.

I don't really see any issue with "letter carrier" or "mail carrier" becoming the default. If nothing else, it prevents rabid feminists from turning any sort of discussion or tagging issue into an ideological battleground.

Kavellrist said:
I don't really see any issue with "letter carrier" or "mail carrier" becoming the default. If nothing else, it prevents rabid feminists from turning any sort of discussion or tagging issue into an ideological battleground.

e6 generally ignores ideological stuff, so no worries there.

Flygon said:
I must say, this topic is the very first time in my *life* that I've ever seen anyone actually use the term "Mailwoman".

Chill, man. "Mailman" is clearly gender neutral.

It's more about preventing people from assuming there should be an equivalent tag with a -woman suffix.