The Freshperson Problem

By Anne Curzan. Earlier this week, I had my copy-editor hat on and was working my way through a newsletter for a graduate program at the university. I was fixing typos, inserting and deleting commas (often for the sake of consistency), changing words to avoid repetition, and the like. Then at one point, I watched myself prescriptively cross out the phrase “freshman composition” and reword it as “first-year composition.”I have long been a supporter of nonsexist language reform, from using singular generic they to replacing –man words with nongendered alternatives. Read more...