Quote:
Originally Posted by worth
That would be great, except the reasoning is wrong. SONS does not refer to a male. If it did, it would have an apostrophe. It would read "in all they sons' command"
"Sons" in fact refers to the collective. The citizen of Canada, and therefore is already inclusive, so changing the anthem makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. It is not gender biased to begin with!
http://www.calgaryherald.com/columni...440/story.html |
While I agree that changing the anthem is stupid, your reasoning doesn't make sense.
You're claiming that "Sons" doesn't refer to males because it doesn't have an apostrophe?? That's not relevant.
The apostrophe is to show posession, not infer the gender of the "sons".
So yes, you're correct that the line doesn't mean "Canada is commanded by all it's sons", but rather "Canada commands True Partriot Love, in all of it's sons". But the issue people have is not with the literal interpretation of who commands what in who, but rather the gender of the people who are being commanded.
While I agree that in this case "sons" is meant to refer to all Canadian citizens, the apostrophe argument is completely irrelvant, as the apostrophe is only relevant as to wheter the line means "We command Canada", or "Canada stirs up patriotism in all of us", and has absolutely no bearing on the gender of who it's supposed to reference.