Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirtel
Whereas "man" has never meant "human" in many other languages, but always and exclucively a male human. So it may be pretty natural for people for whom English is not a first language to not know "man" once meant "human in general".
For example, I only know this because I've read older English classics. In Estonian, there have always been three separate words for "man", "woman" and "human". No one has ever addressed a mixed group in Estonian as "men", unless they deliberately wanted to address only males.
How do you know the poster who used "Men" didn't mean to exclude women? They never said they meant "Men" to include any gender. They never explained what they meant at all.
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It means/has meant "human in general" in all Germanic languages. It's still used in that general sense to express the general "one"/"you" in many of them - "one/you shouldn't use screens in bed".
Estonian isn't Germanic or Indo-European, so there's no reason to assume that it would function similarly to English. (Which isn't to say that one wouldn't expect it anyway, as having knowledge of linguistics and/or different language families isn't the norm.)
But of course you are right in regards to modern English. Anybody addressing a group as "men" should reasonably be expected to be excluding any women present.