Tyler Uebele

The Problem

For thousands of years, in hundreds of languages lacking proper neuter pronouns, patriarchal societies have been leaning on the male form of words when the gender of the subject is ambiguous, mixed, or unknown. To make matters worse, it would seem that people with a proper male, female, and neutral word for human (such as Old English had: wer, wyf, man) trend toward abandoning this precision for modern confusion. From scripture to conversation, and history to fiction, our world's collection of information is riddled with gender ambiguities that have led some people to take some extreme if not questionable measures to address the problem.

Despite our rich (read complex) language heritage, modern English has left us with a multi-use male-and-neuter word for person: man. Only the female has an unambiguous word for their person-hood: woman. It is widely accepted that the origin of woman is wife + man. While there are some that resist the current form of woman because of this, and other efforts to solve this problem, I suggest an alternate approach: a new gender un-neutral for male human.

A Possible Solution

I don't think we'll see a return of our Old English word for male human, wer, though it would be a simple solution. Thus a new word may be required. Such a word should properly compliment the current and accepted term for female human. One thought would be to make the word compliment the origin of woman. In this case, that would be to combine husband + man, which would also re-enforce the neutrality of man as referring to either the neuter, or the whole of mankind. Unfortunately, that would render as human which is already taken as a word for all of mankind.

For this reason, I propose moman (mo-man), and it's plural, momen. Just as momen compliment women in life, they ought in language. A first thing to notice is the complimentary forms of the words: mo is symmetric with wo; opposite, but complimentary in form. A second observation is the relation to the phrase "male man", which indeed makes the form appropriate, and the definition auto-inclusive. Beyond that, there are some potent glyphically symbolic treasures tucked into moman. (Additionally, in a conversation about this I had two-years-ago-tomorrow, some anatomically symbolic references were given me that I will leave to the readers' imagination.)

A Symbolic Side-Note

Some interesting (albeit unnecessary) symbolism can be found in the form of women and momen. When written in the pointed form, our "double-u" becomes more of a "double-v", or the appearance of two (open) chalices, an ancient symbol of femininitity. Just as this is appropriate for women, a word meaning females, The same could be done for males. We see the corresponding thing occur when when drawing "M" in pointed form: the appearance of two (open) blades, an ancient symbol of masculinity. Thus, momen is drawn with ancient symbols for male, and women with ancient symbols for female. Additionally, when seen together (with W and M in their rounded forms) another pleasant coincidence is revealed:
As though a metaphor for life, symbolizing the potential realized when male and female come together.

The Chase

I believe moman is an appropriate term in our age for male human, as it resolves our lack of gender-specific term for such in an elegant and symbolic way (in this form, other forms, such as pronouns are another discussion). This does, however leave us with a wealth (or debt) of usages of the still generic man. It may also be beneficial to abandon man and use human as a gender-neutral that all English speakers already understand. We can save man as a form of super-generic, a term for the whole of us, mankind.

While we may not be able to resolve the written confusions of past ambiguity, we can clean up the future communication of all man: women and momen alike.