I don’t mean to be tart, but let me be the judge of what I’ll be telling you next. The conservatists’ cries of despair are inevitably a case of the argument being thrust in new and interesting directions without my encouragement, or even consent. For the first example I actually do agree the word 'manholecover' could be changed, but I find it narrow minded to say the least to assume there is only one alternative option, which indeed sounds clunky. If we're going to start renaming things, let’s use a little critical analysis. What makes it so exclusively a manhole? I'm not talking about female sewage workers, which I'm sure exist - I'm talking about ladders, ropes, tubes, machinery, brushes and whatever else needs to go down to do the work. Surely they could be called workholes, sewerholes, streetholes or even just holes? Doesn't the name streetholecover sound perfectly concise and accurate?

An argument I often hear against editing certain value judging facets of English is that the extra vowel involved in 'person' (and even the plosive 'p') causes unnecessary disruption and extra lengthening of sentences that could otherwise be brief and exact with the poignant, elegant, naturally formed: 'man' (I'm sure there's more than a smidgen of the deeply buried associations I would like to see quashed in that particular argument). This has to be one of the greatest examples of linguistical twaddle I've ever come across. There is no quota on the number of syllables one can use. Speakers and writers use their skills every day to craft the language into beautiful arrangements of appropriate length, already taking into account a plethora of contradictory rules, grammar points, ever changing standards and fashions. An extra vowel is hardly going to push them over the edge and have them passing out with the additional effort.

To take the specific argument of the term ‘mankind’ as an example, this word certainly brings up an image of a male - a caveman to be precise, another reason to iron it out -which is simply not representative of the current race. Critics retort that there has to be one image or another and having it as a woman would be equally unrepresentative. I agree completely. I think when referring to the human race, the mental image that appears should be of both; the male and the female, standing side by side, because after all, each is nothing without the other. I suppose people will tell me imagining two figures is more effort than imagining one.

These people whine that ‘personkind’ doesn’t sound right. Of course it doesn’t, it’s new. And yet there are plenty of examples where 'person' as a prefix is in common use, and people don't go round lamenting about how much easier it would be without that pesky extra plosive syllable. Think how strange these would sound if you replaced 'person' with 'man': Personal space. Personality. Personification. It just goes to show, that it is what we are used to that sounds 'right'. In any case, it’s quite easy to quieten this argument, let’s not use personkind, let’s just not use any kind of ‘kind’ at all. Instead we’ll use one of the ready-made alternatives: people or demos (I originally suggested ‘humans’ or ‘humanity’ before seeing my error, and on closer inspection even ‘person’ has a male element to it).

Now to address the issue of using him/her – in more situations than just referring to houses. I find it quite worrying this is even brought up, as it boils down to the difference between distinction and discrimination, and I would hope more people would be familiar with the difference.  If the house belongs to a single man, I am passing on extra information by saying 'his house’. The house only belongs to one person, and that person is male, so the information is accurate. However it would be a completely different issue if a woman and a man bought a house together and I constantly referred to it as 'her house'. I'm sure after a while the man would get a  bit narky and point out that I could just as easily say 'their house' (not even a superfluous syllable). In this case, there are two parties involved, and by using language which specifies one party, you are excluding the other and therefore giving false information, i.e. that a man was not involved in the situation. It breaks Grice's first maxim of conversation; that of quantity. If I told you I had one sister and you later found I had six of them, you might be unimpressed if I were to deny I had told you any lie. I simply hadn't told you as much information as you might reasonably expect, and yet you would still feel misled – as I believe the term ‘mankind’ does when referring to men and women, but ‘his/her’ does not when referring to a single person’s possession.

Of course declaring that the language needs to change is about as ridiculous as saying it’s not a big deal. Continents drift, storms rage and language changes and there’s very little any individual demos can do about it. Nor would they have the right to prescribe what words others should use. So my argument is built on matchsticks, which self-ignite and crumble to ashes, resting on the real, living, independent language which will not be pushed around. But you know. I was just saying.