[19309] in APO-L
Re: Toast song
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph M. Fisher)
Wed Oct 7 23:06:23 1998
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 23:05:53 -0400
Reply-To: "Joseph M. Fisher" <jfisher@RacerX.mse.jhu.edu>
From: "Joseph M. Fisher" <jfisher@RacerX.mse.jhu.edu>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <3618C315.86DF2E79@sprintmail.com>
On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Richard Quodomine, Thomas Register Rep. on Long Island wrote:
> 1. We are already "true to self and to each other", being "true to"
> Alpha Phi Omega again is bad lyrically, uncreative and says nothing new.
This never occurred to me... but it is no worse than "men of" which
amounts to a pronoun.
Have there been other alternatives proposed before? What happened to
them? "Joined in" comes to mind.
> 3. There is a great degree of PC Police in any change argument.
Not necessarily. Our language has changed a lot since the writing of the
Toast Song... one result being that "men" is no longer understood to be an
equivalent for "people." That is why we have (had) TV shows called "The
Secret Lives of Men" and "Men Behaving Badly." Men as in "male."
Of course *we* know that's not what we mean, but it may not be so clear to
other people, college administrators, and most importantly new brothers.
-- Cyrano (advisor, Kappa Mu PG)
