Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 28/02/2005 16:47, Uri Hurwitz wrote:

>       Well, does the English word "man" refer to the masculine gender, 
> as one would think, or really to both masculine and feminie? ...


In my dialect and that of most British speakers today, to the masculine 
only. But I take your point that in many languages there is a tendency 
for words for "man" etc to shift between male-only and gender generic 
reference.

> ... The term "mankind" or the expression "everyman" does refer 
> genrally to both sexes. ...


Perhaps, but these words are obsolescent, not least because they are 
offensive to 50% of the population.

> ...   Which raises a question about your examples: what conclusions 
> about a rule can one derive from the exceptions?
>  

Good question. But Yigal wrote ""Ish" means "man" - an adult male ... It 
never means "man and woman"." Well, it takes only one exception to 
overturn a "never". Anyway, the "exceptions" I quoted are by no means 
unique, it is regular usage for 'ish, especially repeated as 'ish 'ish, 
to mean "each" in a gender neutral way.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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