[MickeyC]

I was interested to learn from reading a history of the English language that it does not always deserve the sexist rap it often gets. For example, the word 'man' was originally not gender-specific but rather just short for 'human'.

From a gender standpoint, there were two types of 'men'. One was a 'wombed-man' or woman. The other was a 'weaponed-man' or 'weapman'. Over the years, the 'weap' got dropped and 'man' eventually became associated with males.