Lexical Leavings
by Tom Gally
When using Google to search for examples
of phrases that include personal pronouns, I usually get higher hit
counts with masculine pronouns. This apparent sexism of the World Wide
Web extends across most sentence patterns, including many that have no
obvious gender orientation:"looked at him through the door" 9There are exceptions, though:
"looked at her through the door" 2
"then he told me that" 5,280
"then she told me that" 3,580
"had a book in his hand" 611
"had a book in her hand" 123
"when I first met him" 12,300
"when I first met her" 8,010
"looked at himself in the mirror" 4,560Some Japanese results:
"looked at herself in the mirror" 8,030
"tears ran down his face" 3,200
"tears ran down her face" 3,950
"when he was pregnant with" 8
"when she was pregnant with" 4,630
と彼は言いました 995
と彼女は言いました 966
彼をじっと見た 69
彼女をじっと見た 40
彼に会った時に 101
彼女に会った時に 86
彼の涙が 251
彼女の涙が 687
彼が妊娠していた 0
彼女が妊娠していた 58
(February 23, 2003)