Hi Patrik,
At 01:47 23-02-2014, Patrik Fältström wrote:
Please either call this "ombudsman" or come up with a different word.
The word "ombud" in Swedish (where "Ombudsman" comes from) does
definitely not have the same neutral meaning as "ombudsman" has. In
fact, "ombud" is absolutely not neutral but a proxy that acts on behalf
of someone else.
I.e. "ombud" and "ombudsman" are two different words, and you can not
"just" remove the ending "man" that part from meaning "male" also means
"human".
A quick search displays 7,480,000 hits for
"ombudsman" and 679,000 hits for
"ombudsperson". https://www.ombudsman.bc.ca/
uses the word
"ombudsperson". http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu
uses the word
"ombudsman". http://www.ombudsman.cl/ uses
"defensor del pueblo". The choice is clear if
the decision is to be based on factual
information. It is better to choose another word
if some people are not comfortable with the word "ombudsman".
On a lighter note, it has been said that "we
reject: kings, presidents and voting" [1]. There
is a word in there which is not gender-neutral [2].
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
1. http://www.ietf.org/meeting/83/images/submission3_002.jpg
2. "Political correctness differs from more
old-fashioned methods of self-censorship. Before
the era of political correctness, people already
understood that it was a bad idea to offend or
upset people. They had complex systems of
manners that involved a certain amount of
dishonesty to spare people's feelings. Some
truths were not to be spoken in public, in good
company, in front of the servants, etc."
