Sadly the reason why so many students unions have become parodies of far left lunacy is because your average student no longer gives a damn about student politics. This is bad not only for students but for universities themselves, as they're often stuck in the mindset that these numpties genuinely represent the views of the student body.

@ Gobbledygook:

"Our student union is retarded"

"I never bother to vote"

Don't you see a conflict between these two statements?

One of the problems our uni had was that the SU held all of it's meetings on Wednesday afternoons. The reason for this was supposedly because it was the traditional part of the week set aside for free time, when students keen to make a difference could "get involved". The reality was that it prevented students involved in competitive sports (always scheduled for Wednesday afternoons) and the more scientific students (lab work tended be scheduled for Wednesday afternoons too) from ever taking part.

I couldn't be assed to figure out who was running. It doesn't matter for shit; the students vote for whoever promises them more goodies.

No they don't :p. Those that bother vote for their mates, or occasionally who has the best posters.

Most recently they have been calling for the university to 'divest', meaning to sell all its oil and gas stocks, purportedly to send a message that such destroyers of the planet are not supported by the university.
It's bullshit, because you will never have a voice if you don't hold their shares, but their false arguments do manage to persuade many students.

What the fuck is wrong with people? Isn't it just as logical that "man" spelling should be changed?

After all "MAN" is only a PART OF "WO'MAN'"....therefore man is lesser/inferior/etc.

If fucking women had half a brain, they'd lord it over men that man is less than woman.

Stupid feminists...

I don't think it works like that krellin... Man is the root word that exists without wo. Whereas woman as a word does not exist without "man". But it's fine, I don't expect any male on webdip to understand basic language constructs. Or anything, really

God took a rib from Adam, ground it up in a centrifuge machine.
Mixed it with cardamom and cloves, microwaved it on the popcorn setting.
While Adam was like “that really hurts!”
Going off into the tundra, so pissed at God,
And he started lighting minor forest fires, stealing osprey eggs,
Messing with the bees who were trying to pollinate the echinacea

Until God said, “I'm a smite you with loneliness!
"And break your heart in two”

And Adam wept and wailed, tearing out his hair
Falling on his knees, looked to the sky and said...

“Thank God”

I've never viewed student government as important or consequential, but then I had the luxury of being disengaged from campus politics and never needed school funding/approval for clubs or other activities. For the rest, well, this is a rather less burlesqued look at the social dynamics involved:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/the-new-activism-of-liberal-arts-colleges

Man was originally a gender neutral word for person, with woman basically being "wife person" and males having a separate word, "wer". The gender neutral on its own eventually became mostly synonymous with "wer" and then eclipsed it in usage, which could be a separate instance of linguistic sexism, but the issue with "woman" is more the "wo" than the "man".

@Demon. It works however you want to v PERCEIVE IT. Most people are too stupid to ACTUALLY understand where words came from... They simply get offended because someone told then to be offended.

Of stupid feminists had started their war on words years ago by telling feminists EOman is superior to man, because women build upon the smallness of man, etc etc.... It works be totally different.

Seriously, I'd any fucking human of offended because of man / woman, they have too much fucking time on their hands and need to find a real fucking job other than agitating their moronic followers.

You can call me "shitstain" for the rear of my life for all I care - I assure you it won't offend me. People get offended because they WANT to be offended.

I don't empower anyone enough to offend me in such a manner, because I don't give a fuck about your choice of words to label me.

Naw krellin, some people just have larger and smarter objectives and thoughts in life than you ;).

It's okay that you lead a simple life that requires you not to think about greater ideas. I respect that if it makes you happy. If the pinnacle of your intellectual thought is to post on webdip about how life is okay as is, and then proceed with your day then that is perfectly fine!! We can't all be scholars... Simple men like you have to exist to do simple things in life. Thanks for taking that role, krellin!

"Naw krellin, some people just have larger and smarter objectives and thoughts in life than you ;)."

How ironic. I never knew that changing an a to * and back to a is thinking in the big picture or that it's a "greater idea". It certainly doesn't take "scholars.

"

"Man was originally a gender neutral word for person, with woman basically being "wife person" and males having a separate word, "wer". The gender neutral on its own eventually became mostly synonymous with "wer" and then eclipsed it in usage, which could be a separate instance of linguistic sexism, but the issue with "woman" is more the "wo" than the "man"."

The etymology is basically right (it was "wer"/"werman" for men and "wyf"/"wyfman" for women and "man" for everyone, which I do think is an excellent pronoun system), but I don't think it's correct to divorce the gendering of "man" from the perceived issues with "woman", and conclude that the "wo" is the real problem. After all, the "wyf" part of "wyfman" wasn't an issue when "man" wasn't gendered.

That said, I'm skeptical that "wom*n" and "womyn" and other such forms will be successful. Assuming for the sake of argument that this sort of linguistic evolution is worth pursuing for its own sake, as opposed to when it's incidental to clarity (e.g. cis/trans), those words are still derivative of the derivative.

Wyf is a problem insofar as that it came to mean "wife", which has all manner of nasty connotations. The sexing (gender is a bad word to use with its typical meaning when talking linguistics) of "man" probably represents a trend of male dominance in linguistic development, but hasn't had any apparent impact on the development of "woman" itself unless we count the subject actually being discussed here as legitimate linguistic change, which I'm wary to do in part simply because it isn't and in part because I agree with the points you make in your final paragraph.

"Wife" has all manner of nasty connotations? What's next? Polygamy has all manner of positive connotations?

@ leon: "It certainly doesn't take "scholars.

"

Well apparently it took you two separate posts to even correctly refer to it.

Sorry that adding a quotation mark inconvenienced you so much.

No, it was just ironic that you attacked a woman, the *only* woman posting in a thread about the politics of the etymology of the word "woman", on the basis that she was somehow too much of a "scholar", or too academic, and in the course of doing so, you demonstrated how you can barely even type.

""Wife" has all manner of nasty connotations?"

I think ghug meant that the process of "wyf" becoming "wife" has unfortunate implications re: what women were in society. Not that "wife" itself is a nasty word.

No Leth I just hate men and white people and anyone who doesn't love to take it up the ass as much as I do. Also if you're a polygamist like me you don't call your wives "wives".

Why do I only get to talk about linguistics here as it relates to contentious issues?

I don't even get what people are arguing in this thread, or what these arguments are going to accomplish.

lol the world is going to hell in a hand basket and this is what is being debated.

I was unaware that anyone who has posted is a woman. I was not implying that anyone is "too" scholarly. I was merely pointing out that being able to change the a in woman to an asterisk doesn't make you an intellectual.

ND, the world isn't going to hell in a hand basket. I think it's been hell in a hand basket for quite a long and consistent time.

"lol the world is going to hell in a hand basket and this is what is being debated."

Fact of the matter is, it wouldn't be a debate in anyone's wildest imagination at any other time in history.

I'd actually argue the world is getting better for the most part if people have time to get upset over such minor things.