Women or females?

John Fairbairn · #1

There is a new page on SL that struck me as odd. It is called Etiquette Titles, which is a bit odd in itself (why not just Titles?) and it relates just to Japan, giving the false impression that only Japan makes a thing of using titles. All the go countries use them, but even we do in the West - you'll commonly hear things like "World Champion Max Verstappen" or Wimbledon champion Steffi Graf. The page is also inaccurate in various other ways, but leave that aside as the main point I want to hear views about is the use of "Female" - as in Female Honinbo.

As a native English speaker, I find that has a strong mote-in-the eye (or mote-in-the-ear) element. That's not how we refer to women's events anywhere in the English-speaking world, as far as I know. We have the US Women's national soccer team - NOT the US Female Team. We have the supranational Women's Tennis Association and NOT the Female Tennis Association. We have various Women of the Year titles - Female of the Year would actually sound laughable. We have International Women's Day (coming up soon by the way, 8 March - go Youtubers get ready). It is the day that is international. International Female Day would be a day for international females. In go, a female Honinbo, to me, is a woman who won the main (open) Honinbo title. The winner of the Women's Honinbo is the Women's Honinbo.

So why is SL littered with Female This and Female That?

I suspect two reasons. One is people copying games from Kin's go site where a Japanese (mis)translates titles into English. The other reason is that writ large - foreigners in general not appreciating the difference between International Women's Day and International Female Day while, probably, also being uncomfortable with the irregular plurals and apostrophes of men's and women's.

Or have I misses something? Is it a generational thing? I do know there has been a significant and ongoing change in this area. Wimbledon used to host Gentlemen's Singles and Ladies' Singles. Gentlemen's got the heave-ho a long time ago and Women's is increasingly replacing Ladies'. They also have Boys' and Girls' singles - NEVER male children or female children singles. It happens in other areas, too, but in an evolving way. In ballet, female dancers used to be called girls - not entirely inappropriately, because young students from a girlish age would progress through the school into the main company in the presence of the same (mostly female) teachers and coaches. (And, in the same way, the males were 'boys'.) There was an element of affection and intimacy. Nowadays you still hear boys and girls but men and ladies (never women) are replacing that. But in my own hobby field of Scottish country dancing there's a slight difference. Men and Ladies are now the normal words but there's an attempt by some people to change to Men and Women. Resisted mainly by the women!

Wherever change has happened, I have a sense that it is women who have fostered the changes. It's a shame we have so few women in go to offer a view, but, notwithstanding, what are the general views here? Could SL do with a tidy-up?

kvasir · #2

Wikipedia got it right. I'd say again.

I have for awhile preferred Wikipedia over SL for many of the Go related things that I'd imagine to be found in an encyclopedia. It isn't perfect, nothing is, certain topics on Wikipedia are full of nonsense, but usually the Go topics are not. The articles there also get some attention from people who aren't obsessed with Go, maybe it helps with improving language?

Still, I don't think calling these Japanese tournaments "female <tournament-name>" is something invented by SL. I see that the English version of Mainichi has used both forms. I don't know why but it does sound natural to me to call them "Women's <tournament-name>" while it sounds less than natural to use "Amateurs' <tournament-name>". English appears to be full of perceived rules or tabus that often turn out are not shared as widely as one would think, they are often tastes.

gennan · #3

As a native Dutch speaker, I find it difficult to distinguish between "female" and "woman" properly in English. I think that's because the Dutch language doesn't have as much duplication of words with one variant of Germanic origin and another variant of Romance origin, possibly with a subtle difference in meaning.

I'd say that the closest equivalent to "female" (more as an adjective) we have in Dutch, would actually translate to something like "womanly" or "feminine" in English. But we wouldn't use that adjective for a tournament (how can an abstract thing like a tournament be "womanly" or "feminine"?). We could say "ladies'" tournament in Dutch, but it might sound a bit old-fashioned compared to "women's" tournament.

The Dutch terms for "male" and "female" (as adjectives or nouns) for animals are just the diminutive forms of "man" and "woman", which I might attempt to translate very literally to something like "manling" and "womanling" in English (similar to how "duckling" would mean "small duck"). Using those terms for people would be disrepectful in many contexts.

And Dutch is actually one of the languages closest to English. I suppose the subtleties of English are even more challenging for speakers of other languages.

Perhaps many non-native English speakers/writers have some misconception that "female" is a slightly more chic term for "woman", because in English it is often the case that the Romance variant of a word is more chic than the Germanic variant?

aeb · #4

John Fairbairn wrote:

So why is SL littered with Female This and Female That?
I suspect two reasons. One is people copying games from Kin's go site where a Japanese (mis)translates titles into English. The other reason is foreigners in general not appreciating the difference

I think the "Female" versions have been rather standard long ago. In the West there was gobase by Jan van der Steen, but also other sources, like Jan van Rongen and Pieter Mioch used them. Go4go still does, and traces are visible elsewhere, also on Wikipedia. Also Japanese and Korean sites wrote "Female". Later there came a movement towards "Women's", no doubt that will have the future, but such changes in terminology are slow.

Knotwilg · #5

kvasir wrote:

Wikipedia got it right. I'd say again.

I have for awhile preferred Wikipedia over SL for many of the Go related things that I'd imagine to be found in an encyclopedia. It isn't perfect, nothing is, certain topics on Wikipedia are full of nonsense, but usually the Go topics are not. The articles there also get some attention from people who aren't obsessed with Go, maybe it helps with improving language?

Still, I don't think calling these Japanese tournaments "female <tournament-name>" is something invented by SL. I see that the English version of Mainichi has used both forms. I don't know why but it does sound natural to me to call them "Women's <tournament-name>" while it sounds less than natural to use "Amateurs' <tournament-name>". English appears to be full of perceived rules or tabus that often turn out are not shared as widely as one would think, they are often tastes.

Sl certainly has a higher ratio of criticism vs contribution compared to Wikipedia, which is odd because SL is not nearly as hostile to fresh contributors as Wikipedia. I even get requests to change this or that on SL. I'd say, DIY, again.

kvasir · #6

Knotwilg wrote:

Sl certainly has a higher ratio of criticism vs contribution compared to Wikipedia, which is odd because SL is not nearly as hostile to fresh contributors as Wikipedia. I even get requests to change this or that on SL. I'd say, DIY, again.

That is hard to believe. Wikipedia is a highly controversial project.

I do like much of the Go content on Wikipedia. What they have is better sourced, better edited, better maintained and more focused than SL. I'd say it is all around better when looking for encyclopedia content. It is likely that it is some of the most widely read articles about Go in history.

I don't quite see the relevance of it if Wikipedians are "hostile" to new contributors or not. There is a non sequitur here.

Ultimately, I don't understand the conclusion. Maybe you are being sarcastic? I suppose you are.

Wikipedia already made many good quality encyclopedia articles relating to Go. It is clearly the better wiki encyclopedia on this specific topic. The best thing anyone could do is tell more people about this.

hanspi · #7

John Fairbairn wrote:

So why is SL littered with Female This and Female That?

I suspect two reasons. One is people copying games from Kin's go site where a Japanese (mis)translates titles into English. The other reason is that writ large - foreigners in general not appreciating the difference between International Women's Day and International Female Day while, probably, also being uncomfortable with the irregular plurals and apostrophes of men's and women's.

Or maybe it is a third thing, woman used as an adjective is not used in absolutely every context in English. Especially with "professional", the use of female professional seems to dominate over woman professional. So the 女流 (Joryū) that is found in Woman Kisei, Honinbou, etc, if standing alone, would be translated as female professional. No wonder non-native speakers are confused

So the not-so-proficient Google Translate translates 女流本因坊 as female Honinbo, but 女流本因坊戦 as Women's Honinbo match, whereas the more proficient DeepL uses woman/women's at all times.

dust · #8

kvasir wrote:

Knotwilg wrote:

Sl certainly has a higher ratio of criticism vs contribution compared to Wikipedia, which is odd because SL is not nearly as hostile to fresh contributors as Wikipedia. I even get requests to change this or that on SL. I'd say, DIY, again.

That is hard to believe. Wikipedia is a highly controversial project.

I do like much of the Go content on Wikipedia. What they have is better sourced, better edited, better maintained and more focused than SL. I'd say it is all around better when looking for encyclopedia content. It is likely that it is some of the most widely read articles about Go in history.

I don't quite see the relevance of it if Wikipedians are "hostile" to new contributors or not. There is a non sequitur here.

Ultimately, I don't understand the conclusion. Maybe you are being sarcastic? I suppose you are.

Wikipedia already made many good quality encyclopedia articles relating to Go. It is clearly the better wiki encyclopedia on this specific topic. The best thing anyone could do is tell more people about this.

Knotwilg can answer for himself of course

, but my reading of it was a bit of understandable frustration with the attitude of OP's question "Could SL do with a tidy-up?" - as if there's a ready supply of SL volunteers ready to pick up and take forward the decision of armchair-based commentators on L19.

John Fairbairn · #9

Quote:

Knotwilg can answer for himself of course

, but my reading of it was a bit of understandable frustration with the attitude of OP's question "Could SL do with a tidy-up?" - as if there's a ready supply of SL volunteers ready to pick up and take forward the decision of armchair-based commentators on L19.

If this is meant as barb at me, can I remind you that I have a huge amount of input (ongoing) on SL, not usually by me and not usually acknowledged, but from things I have produced.

Quote:

I think the "Female" versions have been rather standard long ago. In the West there was gobase by Jan van der Steen, but also other sources, like Jan van Rongen and Pieter Mioch used them. Go4go still does,

Two wrongs don't make a right - and four certainly don't. But these foreign people were operating at a time when Go World, produced by an American and Australian were setting the real standard of correctness. Why was it not followed?

Those who have commented on the difficulty of English have a point and may be amused by the following famous poem. You have to be able to say all of it correctly to be considered to have a native standard.

Quote:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

The poem's author mercifully omitted quite a few other weirdos. You might care to find, say, more -ough sounds, for example. And how do you say housewife here. The lady who works at home is ordinary house + wife in the "normal" way, but if a soldier's sewing kit (the sort of freebie you get on business class flights or in hotel rooms) is meant, it is hussif. My guess is that educated native speakers would "hiccup" at only one or two words at most. Children about 12? Maybe up to a dozen? Children learn things like why 'fish' can be spelled ghoti as per George Bernard Shaw: gh as in rough, o as in women [yes, that's relavnt here!] and ti as in palatial. We also amuse kids with place names on car rides. Sevenoaks is Snooks. Beauchamp is Beecham, and so on. And the letters -ln- are pronounced three different ways in the adjacent places Alnwick, Alnmouth and River Aln. (Alnwick Castle will be known to Harry Potter fans.) And you thought go was hard?

mhlepore · **#10**

My first reaction is that many sporting events have a broad range of participants, and using "women" instead of "female" makes sense. At a local tennis tournament, you may see categories such as: under 12 boys, under 12 girls, under 18 boys, under 18 girls, men, women, senior men, and senior women.

In go, one tends to reach professional status as a teen (or earlier!), so how much does it make sense to think of these professionals as men and women. Perhaps this is completely irrelevant to the actual reason, but it was my first thought.

aeb · **#11**

John Fairbairn wrote:

Quote:

I think the "Female" versions have been rather standard long ago. In the West there was gobase by Jan van der Steen, but also other sources, like Jan van Rongen and Pieter Mioch used them. Go4go still does, ...
Also Japanese and Korean sites wrote "Female".

Two wrongs don't make a right - and four certainly don't. But these foreign people were operating at a time when Go World, produced by an American and Australian were setting the real standard of correctness. Why was it not followed?

My guess is that Jan van der Steen followed Nihon Ki-in.
One still sees URLs like http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/female/ and http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/fhoninbo.

Of course, strictly speaking, a female Honinbo is a woman who won the Honinbo, while the Women's Honinbo is the person, presumably a woman, who won the Women's Honinbo Tournament.

gowan · **#12**

"Female" refers to a sex or gender quite generally. We even have male and female trees! Woman/Women only refers to people. When I see in go writings expressions like female honinbo I immediately assume the author is not a native speaker of English. Using female instead of woman seems somewhat crude to me, but it is certainly easily understood. We have two, at leasst, versions of English, British and American, and every English speaking country has its quirks that are not commonly understood.

hanspi · **#13**

It seems that the sex (female) vs gender (woman) debate rages in all sports. Here's a good article about this:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10 ... ccess=true

Knotwilg · **#14**

Not to mention that it remains utterly weird to separate the competitions. In physical sports this makes total sense, since women by nature are not competitive in men's tennis for example, while having role models is important for both sexes to play high level sports. In Go, a woman can perfectly compete with men, only there are and remain very few who choose to do so. Separating the competitions doesn't seem to have closed any gap. Perhaps we should abolish women's tournaments? It shows more respect and is consistent with the generally accepted intellectual equality of the sexes. We don't have university for women exclusively either.

John Fairbairn · **#15**

Quote:

Not to mention that it remains utterly weird to separate the competitions. In physical sports this makes total sense, since women by nature are not competitive in men's tennis for example, while having role models is important for both sexes to play high level sports. In Go, a woman can perfectly compete with men, only there are and remain very few who choose to do so.

In Japan, women were never excluded from other go tournaments but were given their own extra tournaments for a couple of reasons. One was to guarantee them a decent income and so encourage them to join and and stay. Another reason was to appeal to a specific fan base. There have long been women-only clubs throughout Japan, and they have their own (amateur) tournaments. These get reported on in Kido yearbooks, for example.

Things may be changing (and maybe should change more) but a recent phenomenon, extensively reported in Go World, is the female-only Dream Salons supported by the well-known Japanese J-pop singer and actress Tojima Hana who styles herself as a go fan and "go ambassadress".

Quote:

We don't have university for women exclusively either.

Yes we do. They exist certainly in Japan, and I'm pretty sure in America, too. In England, we have long had Somerville College at Oxford University and Girton College at Cambridge University, for example. And girls-only and boys-only schools were common when I was young. Girls-only schools are becoming more entrenched now here because of Muslim influence.

kvasir · **#16**

hanspi wrote:

It seems that the sex (female) vs gender (woman) debate rages in all sports. Here's a good article about this:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10 ... ccess=true

Quote:

We are aware that some of the recommended revisions may sound strange in contemporary English (and other languages), but this is a matter of habit.[...]

This I think is true. You can have the habit to be very precises or accurate about the meaning of certain words and not others. It could be perceived as pedantic if the more precise terminology is too different from common usage. On the other hand if this more precise terminology isn't distinct enough from regular usage, then this becomes a futile exercise. I don't really buy into the papers argument that recommendations that sound strange and may seem banal are as useful as the paper argues, but that is about scope, if you were already looking for recommendations about how to be more precises then that is different. Also, the paper points out that the recommendations don't work at all for languages other than English, this makes the recommendations somewhat redundant.

What the paper is talking about is precise usage of language but the paper ignores that it isn't arguments about accurate expressions or what serves the common good that is important when sports organizations communicate. Take the example of what the IOC calls "gender verification" which really should be called "female sex verification", like the paper mentions, but this is not what the IOC wants to communicate. With the rather disturbing history of adjudicating female athletes' sex with naked parades, medical examinations, chromosome tests (which I read were unreliable to the level of being pseudo-science) and hormone level tests, it is understandable that a euphemism was needed. Gender verification is a good euphemism, it sounds like it could be as simple as checking someone's passport, when it of course isn't that. Gender verification also implies, literally, that the gender is checked, not at all that there may be a medical test procedure that some women athletes can not reasonably pass. The IOC and the federations that have gender verification (I believe most, by far, don't) just don't wish to be more precises and that is why they use a phrase that neither evokes a description of the actual process nor that women athletes' can fail the verification without being involved in foul play. This is just one example of why it may not always be useful for everyone to use more accurate expressions or even to avoid misunderstandings; one may though find this use of a euphemism objectionable. Therefore, I find the argument unconvincing in the paper, it fails to consider that the sports movement and its organizations may have goals and motives that are their own and can't simply be subsumed by generic arguments about the common good and that clarity in communications would always be desired, it ignores that more accurate or appropriate communication may not be desired if it is not what the communicator wishes to communicate.

Anyway, interesting paper to share.

==edited noticed some missing words

jlt · **#17**

Now I'm wondering if a transgender or intersex go player has already participated in a women's/female go competition, and what is the attitude of go federations in that case.

kvasir · **#18**

jlt wrote:

Now I'm wondering if a transgender or intersex go player has already participated in a women's/female go competition, and what is the attitude of go federations in that case.

I don't know if it is always the case but the women's side tournament at EGC has sometimes been open to anyone that presents themselves as a woman.

John Fairbairn · **#19**

Quote:

Now I'm wondering if a transgender or intersex go player has already participated in a women's/female go competition, and what is the attitude of go federations in that case.

There was a strong player in the Hoensha (I'll leave her name out of it to avoid misuse) who left few game records to posterity yet many tales are told about her. The way these stories are framed all suggest she was different in some way. It's rather like the old euphemism used in obituaries: "he never married."

For example, we are told she was the daughter of a samurai and, reflecting that, she was strict and dauntless, could split coals for her bath with her bare hands, was skilled in karate, kendo, tea ceremony, calligraphy, judo and the lute, and was Japan's leading female exponent of the halberd. She remained a spinster and always lived alone.

You can draw your own conclusions, but I'd like to add that she was also very popular as a teacher and had many distinguished pupils.

hanspi · **#20**

I guess the gender and trans-gender topic must be discussed for different sports independently. Why do we have different championships for men and women? In boxing it is very clear, genetically, men will totally dominate.

But in Go? Here I think we have a SOCIAL reason for having far fewer women.

So in summary, the proper way would probably be to call boxers "female heavyweight champion" but Go players "Women's Kisei", to not allow trans-women to box in the female heavyweight championship, but allow trans-women to play in women's Go tournaments.

I know such discussions very well from another corner, decades ago I was in a paralympics team (cross-country skiing), and I later followed it closely when handicapped sprinter Oscar Pistorius wanted to participate in the 2008 olympics but could not because his prosthethics gave him an unfair advantage. Essentially the whole thing seems to boil down to: as long as you do sports for fun, it is easy to find solutions, but as soon as money is involved, everything becomes very regulated, and far less human.

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