Bring Back the Word ‘Man’

Commentary

The struggles over pronouns did not just begin a few years ago. They have been going on for decades. The push to use a more inclusive term than “man” has persisted throughout my entire career.

It has always been rooted in a linguistic misunderstanding, of course. The term “man” can refer to sex/gender or it can refer to the whole category of human beings. Nothing in the second formulation makes males somehow normative. It’s just a word with a meaning. That’s not hard to understand.

Many words in English have two and three meanings. Think of “run,” “mean,” “bank,” or “light.” Man, this is not complicated.

Still, there are people who have an agenda to promote misunderstanding. These days, it is somehow considered acceptable to mix tenses in personal pronouns.

“Everyone can take their seats.”

That’s grammatically incorrect. It should be “everyone [singular] can take his seat.”

However, somehow using that language is now deemed reactionary and patriarchal, if you can believe it. This really needs to stop because a consistent attempt to mix singular and plural in order to avoid using the term “man” leads to absurdities.

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” reads Psalm 8:4 in the King James Bible. The Catholic Douay–Rheims edition of the Bible agrees with this translation. The Jewish/Talmudic tradition does, too.

The passage is so beautiful that few translators have dared update it for modern sensibilities. However, some have attempted to, with disastrous results.

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them?” barks the New International Version while committing another supposed sin: the use of “mankind” to refer to the whole.

More extreme is the New Living Translation: “What are mere mortals that you should think about them?”

A version popular when I was a kid was called The Living Bible. Look at this rendering: “I cannot understand how you can bother with mere puny man.”

Once again, nothing gained there: no points for political correctness for you.

Here is another preposterous rendering, this time from The Message version: “Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us?”

The less said about that one, the better.

In the end, the best approach here is to insist that the word “man” is often used to refer to the human person. It is a singular noun. It must be matched by a singular antecedent: him or his. That’s it. Nothing more.

Or consider this example from Ash Wednesday, when ashes are put on the foreheads of the people. The Latin original is “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.” That was traditionally rendered as “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Now, to avoid saying the dread word, it goes as follows: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

It is fine, passable, plain, but missing the drama and poetry of the past. We are talking about mortality here. Can we be just a bit ominous?

Plus, there is actually a big difference between speaking of “you” in the singular and speaking of the large category of humans as created beings to which we all equally belong.

The old version said that you will be judged in death alongside all others who have lived and died. The new version reads like a personal missive having no larger philosophical implications.

I’m embarrassed to admit that 10 years ago, I grew tired of fighting this, acquiesced to the fashion, and started using “he or she” or “his or her.”

An example might be the following: “To assess the loan, the banker looks at his or her balance sheet.”

Or: “A terminated employee must take his or her leave immediately.”

Or: “Ask the typical eater if he or she prefers cheesecake or strudel.”

Sure, it’s awkward, but I decided to stop battling the emerging norm. I briefly became Thoroughly Modern Millie simply to make the conflict go away. It was a dumb idea, I know, but I was tired of the struggle.

Then two hilarious things happened. The affirmative action gremlins started agitating to drop the “he” and “him” entirely. In short order, all academic literature started using only “she” and “her.” Suddenly, in the economics literature, women were investment bankers, welders, startup entrepreneurs, hedge fund managers, and politicians.

Men had been made to vanish entirely. Now the entire world was made of women only. The whole thing was a ridiculous and embarrassing flex, as if every college professor had become a white knight fighting for the rights of womankind. It is still going on now.

Second, an even funnier thing happened. The transgender movement suddenly popped up. My use of “his or her” was deprecated and attacked. It was using discriminatory binaries. Why was I silencing transgender people? Am I anti-LGBT?

This whole movement wasn’t just about deleting men. It was aiming for women, too, such that anyone with a flouncy dress and earrings can be called a trans woman, whatever that is. Using “his or her” was denounced as bigoted against nonbinaries!

At this point, I had had enough.

I reverted to my old ways and just started using English again.

The beauty of real English is its precision. A pronoun must have a clear antecedent—the noun to which it refers back. When the antecedent is singular, the pronoun should be singular, too.

This isn’t patriarchy; it’s basic grammar that keeps meaning sharp and sentences readable.

Consider these straightforward, everyday examples done correctly:

• “A doctor must trust his own judgment when a patient’s life is on the line.” Antecedent: “a doctor” (singular). Pronoun: “his” (singular). No confusion. The sentence refers to any doctor, male or female.
• “Every student should bring his notebook to class.” Antecedent: “every student” (singular). The pronoun matches. Teachers have used this construction for generations without anyone imagining that it excluded girls.
• “If a citizen fails to pay his taxes, the government may place a lien on his property.” Here “citizen” is singular. “His” points straight back to it. The rule applies equally to men and women; the word “man” or the generic “he” stands for the whole human category. Obviously.
• “Man is a political animal.” “Man” here means humanity.

The Psalms are filled with verses that begin “blessed is the man” (“Beatus vir” in Latin). There is no way to make that plural without messing up the poetry. You know this if you have ever heard “blessed are those”; it’s just disappointing.

“Blessed is the man who” flows naturally. It wastes no words. Readers grasp the point instantly because the grammar reinforces reality. Now look at what happens when we twist language to dodge the issue:

• “Every student should bring their notebook to class.” “Every student” is singular, but “their” is plural. The antecedent and pronoun don’t match. It sounds like multiple students share one notebook.
• “A doctor must trust their own judgment.” Suddenly one doctor has somehow become plural. The mental picture becomes foggy and weird.

Looking this up, I see that these days, the word “their” can be considered singular or plural. Bollocks! No. This is wrong. This is dumb. Just stop it.

When it comes to language, we don’t have to become prescriptive fundamentalists to avoid the absurdities of a purely descriptivist model such that anything can mean anything.

Now consider my old attempt to mediate the controversy: “A banker must review his or her balance sheet before approving the loan for his or her client, and then he or she must document the decision so that his or her supervisor can review it.”

Reading that aloud feels like running through mud. After the third “his or her,” the mind checks out of finding meaning and is instead obsessing about the repetitive prattle.

The same problem appears in official forms, textbooks, and news articles. “The applicant must submit their résumé”—leaving the reader wondering how many applicants are involved.

Or corporate policies: “Each employee should update their personal information.” One employee, plural pronoun. The antecedent disappears into vagueness.

Language exists to transmit thought clearly. When pronouns lose their anchors, ideas grow foggy. We start thinking sloppily because the tool we use to shape thought has been dulled.

Children learning to write absorb these mixed signals and produce work that feels uncertain. Lawyers drafting contracts create loopholes through ambiguity. Scientists describing experiments risk misinterpretation.

Traditional English solved this elegantly with the generic masculine. It wasn’t invented to oppress; it evolved because it works. “Man” carries two meanings, just as many words do. Context tells us which applies. No reasonable person hears “man’s search for meaning” and assumes that Viktor Frankl meant to exclude adult human females.

Nor do we believe that the psalmist was talking to God about adult human males only.

We don’t need to erase half of mankind to show respect. A woman can be a congressman, a fireman, or a mailman without losing her femininity—just as a man can be a nurse or a flight attendant. Professions and humanity itself transcend narrow categories. Insisting otherwise reduces people to checkboxes.

Worse, it subsidizes stupidity. Leave it to the intellectuals to lead the way in that direction!

The transgender pronoun demands took the confusion to its logical extreme. Suddenly we were told that “he” or “she” must reflect internal feelings rather than observable reality or grammatical agreement. Not only were men destroyed, but women, too!

Biology, dictionary definitions, and basic syntax all became suspect. Institutions caved, rewriting style guides and punishing dissenters. The result? Mass confusion, mocked by comedians and resented by millions of people who simply want to speak plainly.

It’s time to stop the nonsense. Write and speak with confidence. Use “man” when you mean humanity. A woman can be a chairman and need not be reduced to a piece of furniture to avoid sexism. Just match singular antecedents with singular pronouns. Your readers and listeners will thank you for the clarity.

When we restore simple, time-tested rules, we restore the ability to say what we mean and mean what we say without apology. Man—that noble, troubled, glorious creature—deserves no less.

Everyone who agrees is free to clap his hands.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.