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On Feb 27, 2004, at 11:02 AM, Chiusano Joseph wrote:
> Irene Polikoff wrote:
> [snip]
>> What you are bringing up is that in some countries a husband may be
>> also a male.
>
> Sorry to be picky, but wouldn't this be in all countries (a "husband"
> is
> never female)? :)
>
Do you *know* that Rosie O'Donnell's new spouse does not consider her a
"husband"? <duck> Somebody out there (presumably in California) is
going to enter "husband" to describe a woman before long, it's going to
violate constraints built into software, and some poor geek is going to
have to take political heat for it. I don't want to be in that
position.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=husband says that the Old
Norse had a feminine form that didn't survive into English; maybe it
will be resurrected! Think of the verb form definition " To use
sparingly or economically; conserve". Females can do that, and one can
imagine some future evolution of the language defining "husband" in
terms of the roles people play in a marriage irrespective of sex.
My only point is that what may be true in all countries today may not
be something you want to bake deeply into your software or data schema,
unless you really really get more benefit from the rigidity than you
will pay down the road if your assumption is relaxed.
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