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In a translation I have said "I feel the vigour of man", and a bit later I have to refer to the creator of "man", but I am unsure whether I should say

his creator

or

its creator

I take the term translated man to have the general sense "humankind" in this passage. For humankind I guess I'd use its, but I am less sure with man.

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  • The usual practice is to use masculine pronouns in reference to generic man. –  Aug 12 '14 at 14:03
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    It's a complete no-no to use it as a pronoun standing for man, regardless of whether you mean male human being or mankind in general. But the question itself (is "man" usually considered gender-neutral or not?) is an Off Topic subjective issue. – FumbleFingers Aug 12 '14 at 14:03
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    You would not say "the vigor of man" and later "its creator", because the former personalizes and latter depersonalizes. You've got a couple of (non-awkward) choices: "the vigor of mankind" followed by "its creator", or "the vigor of man" followed by "his creator". If you're concerned with gender neutrality or political correctness (depending on your point of view), you might be best served by avoiding the whole area, and use "humankind", or "humanity". –  Aug 12 '14 at 14:05
  • And there is always their creator, of course. Although admittedly, in this case it somehow doesn't feel right. – oerkelens Aug 12 '14 at 14:10
  • @FumbleFingers I'm confused, you say this question should be closed as subjective (I assume this would be the "primarily opinion based" reason as ELU has no "subjective" custom OT reason). But you voted to migrate (the revision history attributes the migration to you; apologies if you didn't vote as such). Why not simply vote to close as subjective? Surely moving the question doesn't change that... – Esoteric Screen Name Aug 12 '14 at 15:00
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    @Esoteric: I do sometimes flag ELU questions requesting migration, but I'm pretty certain I didn't do that here, regardless of what that "history" implies. I'd have closevoted for the same reason (subjective) on either site, unless I was simply endorsing someone else's closevote citing "translation/writing advice" as the reason. – FumbleFingers Aug 12 '14 at 15:35
  • @guillefix: At the risk of seeming hostile, I've closevoted again now the question is on ELL (it's still primarily opinion-based). FWIW, in British English it's more than a bit old-fashioned to refer to *humanity* as "Man", or to refer to "humanity's creator" except in a specifically religious context (which is itself not so common these days). And if you're only interested because you're trying to translate something, that's probably Off Topic too. – FumbleFingers Aug 12 '14 at 22:55
  • This question asks whether its can standardly bind to man, or if his must be used. This has only one answer and Primarily Opinion Based is inappropriate. –  Aug 13 '14 at 09:44
  • @FumbleFingers Yeah I am not sure why this is so opinion based, although I think I see why this may go to ELL instead of ELU. Also I am translating a poem, I know man sounds old-fashioned. – guillefix Aug 13 '14 at 16:03
  • @snailplane: Per the implications of my first comment, the man/its conjunction is effectively General Reference (certainly it was on ELU, so far as I'm concerned). But that's not the question posed in the question title, which is the one I'm saying is POB. – FumbleFingers Aug 13 '14 at 16:33
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    @FumbleFingers Well I think my problem was also that I thought the two questions were actually one :P – guillefix Aug 13 '14 at 16:38
  • It just means you're misinterpreting the OP's question, which unfortunately due to the design of migration they'll have no chance to rectify, so the question will never get edited into a state that pleases you and reopened, even though what they're asking is clear to me, on topic, and not a matter of opinion. Too bad, really. –  Aug 13 '14 at 16:45
  • @guillefix: I fully understand that. Although I don't think I did flag a request for migration, I would have endorsed anyone else commenting to that effect while the question was on ELU. And if the question had been asked on ELL in the first place I wouldn't have closevoted. In fact, I've actually retracted my closevote now it's here. But regardless of what snailplain says, I think this is currently not a very good question (there are two parts; one trivial, and one POB). You really ought to edit the question (text or title) to clarify exactly what you're asking. – FumbleFingers Aug 13 '14 at 17:21

1 Answers1

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Commenters concur:

The usual practice is to use masculine pronouns in reference to generic man. –Anonym

It's a complete no-no to use it as a pronoun standing for man, regardless of whether you mean "male human being" or "mankind in general". —FumbleFingers

You would not say "the vigor of man" and later "its creator", because the former personalizes and latter depersonalizes. You've got a couple of (non-awkward) choices: "the vigor of mankind" followed by "its creator", or "the vigor of man" followed by "his creator". If you're concerned with gender neutrality or political correctness (depending on your point of view), you might be best served by avoiding the whole area, and use "humankind", or "humanity". –Dan Bron

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