Typing Test

10:00

How does one remove gendered associations from titles? Until recently, this would have been a question, because power was wielded mainly by men of rank and authority. It felt natural to say founding fathers or chairman. But because language shapes thought, there been a conscious effort to un-gender language. English has tried hard to shed ingrained biases with unisex words like flight attendant, actor, police officer and so on many are now in common usage. ICC replaced batsmen with batter. Other languages have their own challenges. While Hindi already has gender-neutral personal pronoun in woh rather than he or she, every noun has its own gender, and it is nearly impossible to root out this pattern. As is the practice now with German, Romance and Slavic languages, one option is to create words that challenge the generic masculine, especially for titles. Therefore, while Rashtrapati is the right word to address a woman president in Hindi, there no reason we should think about and find a genderneutral word to describe the country highest constitutional post. Mamata Banerjee did well to sack Partha Chatterjee from her cabinet and from party posts but, in political terms, she had little choice. The ex-minister, who now also suspended from Trinamool, and his aide seem to have had a very simple view of hoarding ill-gotten cash store them in apartments, thereby making law enforcement job easy. Even in this country, where political brazenness about corruption is common, footage of trunks of cash being carted out still moves public opinion. Banerjee, always ready to battle the Centre, its agencies and BJP, is also a smart politician who knew Chatterjee had become an embarrassment and a liability. BJP, trying to rediscover its mojo in Bengal after TMC roundly beat off its challenge, will sniff an opportunity here. The question how the CM remained unaware of a senior colleague rampant corruption is a valid one. And Chatterjee sacking may revive questions on TMC cadres and leaders alleged practices on extorting money from businesses. There are, however, two broader inferences that apply to Indian politics in general. All parties must recognise that the chances of an embarr How does one remove gendered associations from titles? Until recently, this would have been a question, because power was wielded mainly by men of rank and authority. It felt natural to say founding fathers or chairman. But because language shapes thought, there been a conscious effort to un-gender language. English has tried hard to shed ingrained biases with unisex words like flight attendant, actor, police officer and so on many are now in common usage. ICC replaced batsmen with batter. Other languages have their own challenges. While Hindi already has gender-neutral personal pronoun in woh rather than he or she, every noun has its own gender, and it is nearly impossible to root out this pattern. As is the practice now with German, Romance and Slavic languages, one option is to create words that challenge the generic masculine, especially for titles. Therefore, while Rashtrapati is the right word to address a woman president in Hindi, there no reason we should think about and find a genderneutral word to describe the country highest constitutional post. Mamata Banerjee did well to sack Partha Chatterjee from her cabinet and from party posts but, in political terms, she had little choice. The ex-minister, who now also suspended from Trinamool, and his aide seem to have had a very simple view of hoarding ill-gotten cash store them in apartments, thereby making law enforcement job easy. Even in this country, where political brazenness about corruption is common, footage of trunks of cash being carted out still moves public opinion. Banerjee, always ready to battle the Centre, its agencies and BJP, is also a smart politician who knew Chatterjee had become an embarrassment and a liability. BJP, trying to rediscover its mojo in Bengal after TMC roundly beat off its challen