Now take your self-righteous offtopicness and shoveoff. I contribute nothing to the problems of society by exercising freedom of vocabulary. You want to see real problems? Go look at pictures of the shelled remains of children in Syria. You're suggesting that I am contributing to a "real-world problem" is insulting.
Even if we want to consider the furthering of systemic sexism through benign use of vocabulary a "real-world problem", you are more to blame than I by trying to convert an innocent phrase into an example of hatred. Words only have the power that you allow them to. I accept no responsibility for your oversensitivity.
Meh, it's a smaller problem than most, but it's also far easier to solve than most. Why avoid making the world a tiny bit better if it costs you nothing? If making minor tweaks to our word choices could avoid violence to Syrian children, too, that'd be grand, but alas...
This is not exactly a response to you, BTW (since I can't imagine you'd be convinced) but for other readers.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wiktionary/en/wiki/men
Now take your self-righteous offtopicness and shoveoff. I contribute nothing to the problems of society by exercising freedom of vocabulary. You want to see real problems? Go look at pictures of the shelled remains of children in Syria. You're suggesting that I am contributing to a "real-world problem" is insulting.
Even if we want to consider the furthering of systemic sexism through benign use of vocabulary a "real-world problem", you are more to blame than I by trying to convert an innocent phrase into an example of hatred. Words only have the power that you allow them to. I accept no responsibility for your oversensitivity.