"Penmanship" is now 'handwriting' as Washington state removes gender bias in statutes

Reuters ^ | 4/23/2013 | Laura L. Myers

[markomalley]

Washington state's governor signed into law on Monday the final piece of a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary, replacing terms such as "fisherman" and "freshman" with "fisher" and "first-year student."

Lawmakers have passed a series of bills since 2007 to root out gender bias from Washington statutes, though a 1983 state mandate required that all laws be written in gender-neutral terms unless a specification of gender was intended.

"This was a much larger effort than I had envisioned. Mankind means man and woman," said Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle.

The new gender-neutral references, for example, include "journey-level plumber" instead of "journeyman plumber," "handwriting" in place of "penmanship," and "signal operator" for "signalman."

[markomalley]

sigh

[trubolotta]

Newspeak 9th edition?

[Jack Hydrazine]

Words that start with ‘man.’
http://www.scrabblefinder.com/starts-with/man/

Many words here that will be changed in the future!

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

I’m getting really sick of this sh!t.

[laweeks]

I’m getting really sick of this sh!t.

Other than their disgust with being a man or being around men, I'd love to have these a$$holes go after Spanish . . . tell those Hispanics to stop all reference to gender in ALL THEIR LANGUAGE.

[cripplecreek]

Damn my misogynous right hand.

[NJRighty]

Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle

Figures she'd have a hyphenated last name.

[max americana]

So repairman would be repairer?

[EternalVigilance]

"Penmanship" is now 'handwriting'

Ah, but what of those with no hands?

They should sue!

Argh.

[familyop]

And there went mankind.

[dayglored]

Next:

"midwife" becomes "midspouse"

"old wive's tale" becomes "old spouse's tale"

"call-girl" becomes "call-person" (I foresee trouble brewing there....)

[BykrBayb]

Many ^{A lot of} words here that will be changed in the future!

[BykrBayb]

Uh oh. That still doesn’t quite fix it. “Here” begins with he, and “the” ends with he.

[angcat]

My little one;s so far good school was thinking of dropping Script from the curriculum. I had a fit and went out and bought some books for her to learn. They then changed their minds and the little 9 years old are writing now in script. Can you imagine having a bunch of retarted adults who can't write script due to a decision by the government?

[Rodamala]

"...said Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle."

The hyphen explains it all... no doubt her husband partner has hyphenated his her its last name as well.

[Thom Pain]

Will they rename Whitman County? Is Hamilton offensive to Muslims? Shouldn't Adams become Adarns? What about Lyman?? Mansfield? Can Kittitas remain uncovered?? I'm just sayin.

[abclily]

It doesn’t matter how many words they change. Girls still have female parts, and boys still have male parts. This country is not progressing. This country is regressing. Now we are going to deny the differences between the sexes. Barnyard animals know the differences between the sexes. These word-changing liberals are dumber than barnyard animals!

[Revolting cat!]

Jeez, why not just penpersonship?

[BykrBayb]

You should have boycotted that school while you had the chance. ; )

[a fool in paradise]

Are you a penpersonator?