Larisa.

Fireman or Firefighter?

Hello dear friends!   I hope you are enjoying your day-off /holiday!     I �m sorry to bother you on this wonderful Sunday!  It might sound silly but I got confused  .    I �m preparing a worksheet  on jobs for my students and I don �t really know how to explain the difference between fireman and firefighter, policeman/policewoman and police officer.    I understand that �fireman � and �policeman � are used only for male colleagues and �police officer & firefighter � might be used for both male and female.   But what names do you really use talking about these jobs?   Are some of them more common in spoken English than the others?   Thanks a lot for help in adcance,   Hugs from sunny Siberia,    Larisa

25 Jul 2010      

yanogator

25 Jul 2010     

Larisa.

Thank you very much, Bruce. You really helped me a lot.      It was really important for me to know what most native speakers say nowadays.    I really appreciate what you do for all the members of this site.    Larisa

25 Jul 2010     

lshorton99

25 Jul 2010     

SueThom

It�s interesting that this subject has come up again. (Earlier this month a post on a grammar issue veered off to this topic. See http://www.eslprintables.com/forum/topic.asp?id=20773) I�m going to add excerpts from two replies I posted then.  (Those of you who�ve already read this will want to just skip to the next post!) "Policeman" is considered by a few to be mildly offensive and by many to be a little old-fashioned--dating yourself to a generation when no police officers were female. (Similar to "fireman" and "firefighter".) ...I do know a few people (not many and probably more women than men) who actually do find the term mildly offensive and more who, while not offended, do think of it as a dated term which is being (and should be) replaced with the term "police officer"--for both male and female officers. (Note: Just out of curiosity, I perused our local police department �s website for a few minutes and discovered they use "officer", as far as I could tell. http://www.seattle.gov/police/ Also, every news article I looked up online in our local paper and CNN used "officer", too.) This does not include everyone I know. I, too, know some who take great pride in being as politically incorrect as possible as often as possible... ...Gender inclusive language is supported by major textbook publishers and many professional and academic groups (e.g. American Psychological Association, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal) and many journals--law, psychology, literature, etc.--won �t publish articles that do not employ it. OK, so most of our students will never reach a level where this will be of any concern to them. However, many colleges and universities also require gender inclusive language in their written work, so those students who hope to study in an English-speaking institution of higher learning may need to be competent in its use. Why teach them one way and then have them have to relearn it later? Or maybe some students want a job with a US business. Policy manuals are increasingly being written in gender inclusive language and written business documents are more and more expected to be written in the same way. I �ve heard people who do hiring talk about how they notice when an applicant doesn �t use gender inclusive language and mark them down for it. Why teach students in such a way that we ensure they will be unwittingly less competitive in a global market? Or maybe your students want to work in a business in their own country which interacts with businesses in the US. A business letter or email which doesn �t use gender inclusive language may not be off-putting to many, but do business people really want to give a bad impression to any potential clients if they can avoid it? I �ve read that it �s not just English that �s grappling with this issue. Most cultures around the world throughout most of history have been male-dominated and our languages reflect that. Living languages change over time. Is gender inclusive language going to eventually be the norm in English? Who knows? My crystal ball doesn �t function very well. However, as teachers, I think we owe it to our students to give them the best tools to succeed. This sometimes means not just defining the words, but also explaining the connotations, implications, etc. behind them. In some circles, for example, the use of the term "ain �t" is not only perfectly acceptable, but preferred. I would be doing my students a disservice, though, if I didn �t explain the potential--even probable--consequences of using it outside of those circles... So, it�s a long post, I know, but I think you asked an important question, Larisa, and the answer is complex. Hope my "two cents worth" is helpful to you or someone else. Sue

26 Jul 2010     

Larisa.

Hello, dear friends! I was away for some time.   Thank you Lindsey and Sue for your help! I like ESLprintables a lot becuase you can get  precious information straight from the horse �s mouth and free of charge.     And special �thank you � to Sue for the link, very interesting discussion.  I �m sorry, I couldn �t read it on the day it was - the 5th of July (it was my birthday and I was not with you on that day. )   Have a nice day everyone!   Hugs, Larisa

26 Jul 2010