Here are two sentences from pages 394-5 of Paul Lovinger’s The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style, sentences that come just after Lovinger quoted five examples of a newspaper columnist’s use of a certain word — a word so appalling that he censors it himself:
“Although most writers do not display such voracity for bad language, that clumsy barbarism, ‘s—,’ is polluting the English tongue. A radical weekly uses it regularly along with a grotesque plural version”
Now, let’s stop for a second. Lovinger is not referring to the standard scatological s-word, so perhaps you’d like to take a guess at what this barbaric word is before you continue reading. To encourage you to do so, I’ve placed the answer below the fold.
The answer? Spokesperson.
I sometimes fancy myself inured to prescriptivist exaggeration, because I waste so much of my time reading books claiming the certain death of our once proud culture will result if people are permitted to continue confusing your and you’re. But every dang time I think they can’t beat me, the prescriptivists have to go and crazy it up a notch. For some reason, prescriptivists simply hate gender-neutral language, whether it’s changing titles (spokesperson, chair) or using gender-neutral pronouns (he or she, they). And I just can’t understand the problem.
![[Former White House press secretary and undeniable female, Dana Perino]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Dana-perino-02.jpg "dana-perino")
Don't be barbaric. Refer to Dana Perino as a spokesman.
Let’s look at spokesperson. The alternative is using spokesman for both genders, which would have to have some benefit to offset the fact that it’s really weird to call a woman a man. I don’t think the benefit is aesthetic, since I can’t find any special aesthetic charm in spokesman that spokesperson lacks. Frankly, I think they’re both kind of ugly amalgams, so all you’re doing is switching one awkward word for another. No problem there.
Perhaps, you might charitably say, Lovinger objects to spokesperson solely because it is a modern invention. Spokesman, I’ve just found out from the OED, is an old word, dating all the way back to the 16th century. Spokesperson is of course much newer. But Lovinger objects to spokeswoman as well, and that word’s first attested in the OED in 1654. Then maybe he really resents the extra syllable in spokesperson, which takes so many milliseconds to say? Well, no, because he also objects to the use of chair instead of chairman.
No, Lovinger’s objection is specifically to the gender neutrality of spokesperson. He makes this clear earlier in the book, when discussing the morpheme man:
“That millennia-old syllable was threatened in the sixties and seventies when a radical movement arose to fix what was unbroken and break what was fixed. The mistaken belief that -man- meant male, coupled with the perverse notion that masculinity was ipso facto bad, gave rise to several circumlocutions. They pollute the language to this day.”
I simply don’t understand this complaint. The push for gender-neutral language hasn’t got anything to do with a belief in the inherent badness of men; it’s simply that it’s odd and dismissive to refer to a woman as a man. Lovinger points out that man originally referred to a human being of either gender, and that this meaning is retained in contemporary English. He’s only half-right. Gender-neutral man is still more or less accepted in general, historical, and idiomatic uses like (1a):
(1a) A man cannot live on bread alone.
(1b) A human cannot live on bread alone.
I am able to interpret these two sentences as being equivalent, although I’m helped along by the fact that this is a common idiom. But the ungendered interpretation doesn’t always come through:
(2a) No man has ever had a baby.
(2b) No human has ever had a baby.
I only parse (2a) as a factual statement. I only parse (2b) as a lie. Let me make it even clearer:
(3a) Kenny is a pleasant man and a great father.
(3b) Kathy is a pleasant man and a great mother.
Just look at (3b) and tell me again how mistaken it is to think that man means “male”. The default meaning of man in Modern English is an adult male human. It is only in certain situations that the ungendered interpretation becomes available.
So I ask you, my friends, what’s the beef with gender neutral words? Why do they inspire such vehement and irrational opposition? Honestly, I don’t know. The only remaining explanation I have is some misguided fear that the entire language will be changed if we change a couple of words. And I can understand not wanting to change every word containing the morpheme man. Woperson, for instance, seems a silly replacement for woman. Likewise, I am not convinced that manhole is better off as personhole. Perhaps that’s it; perhaps the anti-neutral grammarians lay awake at night picturing these strange new words laying siege to their dictionaries. But the only people I’ve heard suggest such changes are people who are against gender-neutral language and are trying to make the whole argument sound frivolous by claiming that the neutralizers will have us all saying wopeople if we don’t stand up to them.
And let’s think about why more people back spokesperson than woperson. Just as the ability of the word man to be gender-neutral varies from context to context, so too does the neutrality of the morpheme man vary from word to word. Let me offer a few examples of how this works for me. If man is a stressed syllable, the word feels less neutral than if man is an unstressed syllable (spokesMAN vs. SPOKESman). If the word refers to a person, the word feels less neutral (spokesman vs. manhole). If the word can be readily decomposed into morphemes, it feels less neutral (spokesman vs. woman). If the word is very common, it feels more neutral, since people tend to overlook the literal meanings of common compound words. One last consideration is how easy it is to get a gender-neutral version of the word. I have to admit that congressperson has always sounded very strange to me, so I still do occasionally use congressman in generic cases, but I do so with a very unstressed final syllable.
So manhole is more acceptable to me than spokesman because manholes aren’t people. Woman is fine because it’s not readily decomposed, it’s extremely common, and its final syllable is unstressed. Spokesman isn’t, because it refers to a person, is readily decomposed, and isn’t very common. Different people can choose where they draw their lines, but it’s silly to simply reject all gender-neutral words out of hand, and it’s silly to think that spokesperson sends us down a slippery slope.
Motivated Grammar 
42 comments
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August 23, 2010 at 8:26 am
NV
There’s another explanation for this sort of animus — dread at the fall of patriarchy. Really, it’s a more logical explanation than any based on language.
August 23, 2010 at 8:30 am
Karen L
I do think you missed the obvious. Patriarchy.
August 23, 2010 at 8:35 am
Alan Palmer
The sex of a spokesperson is really irrelevant; to use “spokesman” or “spokeswoman” doesn’t convey any useful information. A spokesperson is essentially a mouthpiece for someone else, or for a corporation, government department, or whatever. There are some cases where a person’s sex might be important to the reader, but not in this case. I’ve no problems with gender-neutral words, although I agree that some modern constructs can be clumsy.
August 23, 2010 at 8:39 am
Fun and Fit
Well argued, with good examples! Keep fighting the good word fight!
August 23, 2010 at 8:46 am
Vance
The sex of a spokesperson is really irrelevant
I hope so! What follows, though, is debatable. Alan seems to conclude that it means that we can easily interpret “spokesman” as neutral. We could just as well argue, though, that it means that changing the word to “spokesperson”, to avoid the appearance of gender-specificity, should be uncontroversial.
“Conveying useful information” is not the only criterion we use in choosing our words. Among many others, I would highlight the (Gricean?) virtue of not implying false or useless information, such as that the press agent is male, or that press agents are male by default.
August 23, 2010 at 10:50 am
Chrissy
I know the main beef of this blog is prescriptivism rather than patriarchy, but thanks, Gabe, for taking on issues that lie at the intersection of the two (which I think is huge). And thanks to the readers who take the opportunity to name patriarchy when they see it.
I like Alan’s point – words can imply that gender is relevant in cases when in fact it is not. There is no reason for job titles to be gendered in either direction if the focus is on the task, not the gender of its executor. In terms of being non-sexist, “spokeswoman” is little better than “spokesman.” I hope we’ll live to see more gendered words go the way of authoress, avatrix, poetess, sculptress, and usherette.
August 23, 2010 at 11:48 am
mike
>”I know the main beef of this blog is prescriptivism rather than patriarchy”
True, but much of prescriptivism is sociological, not linguistic. Gabe’s attempts to provide a linguistic basis for disbelieving prescriptive claptrap is great, but it’s a little bit like trying to reason someone out of a religious belief. If people already believe that the world is in decline, language — specifically, how people use language differently — is just one more symptom. (viz Robert Fiske’s ludicrous motto for the Vocabula Review, “A society is generally as lax as its language”, an assertion I can’t begin to get a grip on.)
August 23, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Deborah
Hi – I’m very glad to have just found your blog via Twitter. This stricture in my Financial Times Style Guide may interest you:
“‘Spokesman’ and ’spokeswoman’ are best avoided, ‘spokesperson’ is abominable.”
I found that ‘Spokesperson’ is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a neutral alternative to spokesman or spokeswoman’. No mention is made of the extent to which the word may or may not cause moral revulsion.
The Financial Times Style Guide ends its homily with the following:
“If you can name a spokesman, do so.”
What, even if he’s a woman?
I’m a great believer in making the language we use as inclusive as possible. (It’s a topic I cover fairly regularly on my blog). Thanks for this post and best wishes. More power to your elbow. Deborah.
August 23, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Emily Michelle
I’ve never really cared much about gender and language. If someone called me a spokesman, I wouldn’t feel like that diminished my femininity or my worth as a person. Now, if the person followed that up with, “Because a woman couldn’t possibly be smart or capable enough to do a man’s job,” then I’d be annoyed. But I’ve personally never felt that was the message behind spokesman or congressman or chairman.
—
In terms of being non-sexist, “spokeswoman” is little better than “spokesman.” I hope we’ll live to see more gendered words go the way of authoress, avatrix, poetess, sculptress, and usherette.
—
I actually consider the decline of authoress, poetess and aviatrix a bit of a tragedy (usherette, however, is a hideous word and I’m not sorry to see it go). What’s wrong with saying “I fly planes and I’m a woman”? I realize that in most cases there’s no reason to bring it up, and it would indeed be unfortunate if people judged someone prematurely because she was a woman, but I’m a little sorry to see gender being hidden in language. I’m proud to be a woman; why can’t I be an authoress? (Besides, of course, the fact that I don’t write books.)
August 23, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Michelle
I greatly approved of the use of gender neutral terms were appropriate. However I frequently find the use of ‘person’ in place of ‘man’ awkward. Why? Because it comes often across as not being natural, of being deliberately inserted when a person really want’s to say ‘man’ but wants to show political correctness. It makes me feel like the person really thinks the role should be filled by a man.
I find that people who really want to use gender – neutral language usually do so by finding a more appropriate term. For example, most people would not use the term ‘police person’. Police officer is much better.
Spokesperson can be a bit harder, but there are usually alternative, gender neutral terms: lobbyist, media advisor, company representative, etc.
August 23, 2010 at 4:58 pm
alexthesane
Lovinger is somewhat correct, in that -man has not always referred to male persons. Proto-Germanic *Mann and Proto-Indo-European *manus both meant “human”. My theory is that is the source of “generic man”. However, since Old English werman was shortened to just man, the morpheme does take on the connotation of maleness even when it was not originally intended to do so. Arguments from etymology don’t justify prescriptivism in modern usage.
August 23, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Tom S. Fox
I wouldn’t have figured it out if you hadn’t put the solution in the tags.
August 24, 2010 at 12:13 am
Alon
@alexthesane: no need to reinvent the wheel. The etymology and history of the word within the Germanic languages is well-attested, and the use of “man” to mean chiefly an adult male human is as old as the word itself, explained in excruciating detail in the OED. While Germanic languages other than English have retained a non-gendered meaning, it has evolved differently (e.g., German Mann vs Mensch, Swedish man vs människa).
August 24, 2010 at 9:30 am
Gabe
Thanks for all the great comments, everyone! I’m especially glad that a lot of people have made explicit what I had left implicit: namely, that the most reasonable explanation for let’s-leave-all-words-masculine camp is a desire to maintain the patriarchy.
Regarding the discussion about gender-specific words like aviatrix, because they are so rare nowadays, I think it’s difficult to use them without seeming like you’re being cute, and by extension, belittling. But that depends a lot on who you are and how you’re writing. I think it would seem much less belittling coming from a woman than from a man. In this way, the female-specific words are sort of like how various marginalized groups (minorities, gay people) have co-opted words that were previously insults into within-group identifiers. It works well if you’re someone like Emily Michelle, and you’re using in a situation where the gender of the person is a focal point, a “I’m/She’s an author and a woman, deal with it” kind of usage. It doesn’t work well if you’re me, or if (as Alan, Vance, and Chrissy noted) the gender has no reason to be brought up. I guess what I’m thinking is, female-specific words are a good thing if you use them right. And who can’t appreciate the beauty of the word aviatrix?
Vance, you raise a good point — the Gricean Maxim of Quality says that one should not say things that are false or lack adequate evidence, and using spokesman for either someone known to be a woman or someone of unknown gender will break that maxim.
Deborah, if the FT says spokesman/woman are to be avoided and spokesperson is abominable, what is suggested in their place?
And, unrelated: Tom, I never realized anyone ever looked at the tags. I’ll have to start putting Easter eggs in them.
August 24, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Phil
@Emily Michelle, if you can’t write books, perhaps you’d like to become an actress instead. Or an actor. While we’re at it, perhaps women should abandon motherhood for parenthood. Arrrrgggghhhh!!!!!
August 25, 2010 at 4:00 am
Alan Palmer
Alan seems to conclude that it means that we can easily interpret “spokesman” as neutral.
I don’t see how Vance read that into what I wrote. All I said was that the sex of a mouthpiece is immaterial, and that I have no objection myself to “spokesperson”, but some other gender-neutral constructs seem clumsy.
The word has been in common use for around 40 years now, so it’s about time the AP Stylebook and people like Lovinger took note of actual usage, not their personal preferences. They are quite free to decide not to use a word if they dislike it, but to attempt to dictate to others what they should say is indefensible.
August 25, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Daniel
Alan: I agree with you when you say that Lovinger should not attempt to dictate to others what they should say, but have to disagree with you regarding the AP Stylebook. After all, the whole point of a stylebook is dictate what others should say, and IMO the reason for it (to have all articles coming across the wire be consistent in their writing style) is, unlike most such attempts, legitimate.
Michelle: I agree with you that simply replacing “-man” with “-person” sounds awkward. It is the one form of gender-neutralization that I find worse than keeping the non-neutral language.
I must admit I’m at a bit of a loss for a preferable alternative to “spokesman”. None of the synonyms I’ve seen for it in this thread quite capture the same meaning in my opinion. Part of the difficulty is that it’s an unusual example of the “-man” construction. Most such examples (policeman, fireman, chairman) have a noun preceding “-man”. (Yes, I know “chair” is used as a verb meaning to serve as a chairman, but this is a back formation from “chairman”, not the source of the word.) But “spokesman” has an ungrammatical past tense instead. I suppose that, on the authority of “chair” as a gender-neutral equivalent for “chairman”, we could simply use the word “spokes”. But whereas “chair” has a certain elegance to it, “spokes” sounds slangy.
September 10, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Raimundo
My inner 13 year old is all for referring to them as both manholes and womanholes.
September 10, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Lomez
Why do so many people hate gender-neutral words?
Because they grate on the ear, and because political correctness is not sufficient reason to edit the dictionary, and because gender-neutral words create unnecessary anxieties, similar to when you have to decide whether to write African-American or just black, which anxiety becomes doubly intense when you have to say these words out loud. Plus, there are people like my sister, who would be incensed to be called a policewoman, since her job and the expectations for her to perform her job, are the exact same as the male policemen she serves with. Finally, all this talk about “maintaining the patriarchy” sounds whiny and is, in my humble, at cross-purposes with project of making English as expedient and unambiguous a language as possible.
September 10, 2010 at 9:07 pm
Tom Buckner
Maybe this situation calls for a new coinage. How about “spokist” or “spoker”? The former, especially, seems to roll off the tongue more easily than “spokesman,” never mind “spokeswoman” or “spokesperson.” And it has the virtue of not being easily confused with any other common word.
November 22, 2010 at 10:00 am
Karen L
Finally, all this talk about “maintaining the patriarchy” sounds whiny.
WOW. Lomez could use a little http://www.derailingfordummies.com/. Notably overemotional, oversensitive, and enjoy being offended.
December 20, 2010 at 5:23 am
chrissomerry
Vistor coming through! @ Tom Buckner, shouldn’t that be *speaker rather than *spoker, since spoke is the past tense of speak? :)
I’m in the -man is good enough camp. Bring back “were” for “man” and “wife” for “woman”, like back in the good days of the Middle Ages (you know, before electricity, clean water or hospitals… Ok, not so good days). Of course then we’d have to have female werewolves being wifewolves, but I don’t know of any female werewolf stories around as is.
And then we can finally do away with that silly “husband” word, or neutralise the gender of it or something.
In the end though, I’ve got a feeling that that entire process might just end up making us speak Middle English again, and while I’m ok with that I’m sure many aren’t ;)
February 21, 2011 at 4:31 am
Johnny Unger
@Gabe: Love the blog, have been busily passing on various posts to friends, relatives, colleagues and students.
A small point about your & Vance’s comments about Gricean maxims: They are made to be broken. That is, we often appear not to communicate in the most relevant, truthful, informative and clear way possible. The reason for this is that we want to impart additional meanings that are not immediately apparent from the words themselves, unless we consider the context in which they were spoken. Consider the following exchange, between two journalists attending a press conference:
A: The spokesman is about to start.
B: What, you mean the spokesperson?
From this we would (probably) not assume that B is confused about whom A is referring to, and is seeking clarification, because they can both see the (male) spokesperson on the stage. Rather, we might infer that B objects to A’s use of the masculine form, even though B never says this explicitly.
In Gabe’s example (using ‘spokesman’ to refer to a woman or an unknown spokesperson) might tell us that the speaker holds traditional views, or that the person being referred to is someone different that we expected (i.e. not the female spokesperson standing at the front of the stage, but the male spokesperson who is about to come on from the wings).
In summary, Grice’s best-known legacy should not be seen as a manual for how best to communicate, and should not be used to justify particular usages. Rather, it is a guide to interpreting when additional meaning is being communicated, as signalled by speakers *not* following the maxims.
July 13, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Peter J. Francis
Back in my student radical days we would simply call a person a “spoke.” But despite the proliferation of spokes, we never had a wheel. There’s no stopping this language rolling along!
September 13, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Trisha Mason
Uh, sewer hole works for manhole, more accurately descriptive anyway(s). And as for spokesman, why not ‘speaker for’ as that is what a spokesperson is, a speaker for someone else.
I am thoroughly in the gender neutral camp as I want our daughters and sons to here jobs spoken of in a way that makes them accessible to all children when they grow up. I want to be a firefighter when I grow up or a police officer or a Congressional Representative. And I despise the term “male nurse”. It is too much like the term “female doctor” that I heard as a child, as if she were an alien life form.
I do think that our prejudices and thoughtless stereotyping closely follow our language. It is a small change to make, only a few words out of thousands, but I think it brings us just a little closer to thinking of each other as fellow human beings, rather than us and them.
September 13, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Trisha Mason
If I could spell I would be really proud of myself. I want kids to ‘hear’. You would think spellchuck would correct for my meaning rather than just my correctly spelled words.
October 16, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Steve
Even spokesperson is not gender neutral. Person has SON at the end who is a male child. We should be using spokes per-daughter.
October 17, 2011 at 1:41 am
Caomhghín
What about the case of Irish and Scottish surnames beginning with mac (son of) or Slavonic surnames ending in ski or sky (son)! Should it be acceptable to feminists that when certain relevant surnames are Anglicised only the male version is adopted?
October 17, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Trisha Mason
Interesting thought, in Iceland the traditional sir names of -sson and -ssdottir are beginning to be challenged by some women to create and use neutral names. And this is also happening in Russia, women challenging the -ova ending of a sir name indicating female gender in favor of a neutral name. I think in the coming generations we will see more movement toward names that do not make automatic gender distinction just as we have in some first naming, Terry, Kim, Madison, etc.
I immediately went with the title Ms when it was introduced. It was a real improvement not to have to give away whether I was married or single as does the title Mr. And for all the idiocy that my state, Texas, has produced over the past few years, I admire our naming law that states that you can basically pick your name (as long as it is not numbers, derogatory, an unpronounceable symbol or done to hide from the law) and name yourself no matter what your marital or familial status. First or last name or both. So if you are tired of being Adam Jennifer Joshua Kaitlyn Smith then you can go down to the courthouse and become Tantric Transcendental Meditation Jones instead.
I know, off the subject, my apologies. But I don’t think that we achieve human equal rights until we attain gender equal rights and words, names and titles make a world of difference in that respect. I think that in the future the awkward appellations will be replaced with better substitutes and people will think it quaint and old fashioned to see words like stewardess instead of Cabin Attendant. I am such a Pollyanna.
October 19, 2011 at 5:08 am
Caomhghín
Maybe male and female will never become citizen-equal – I’ll settle for citizen-co-equal!
January 9, 2012 at 10:24 am
profling
I will use spokesperson when women start calling themselves “wopersons.” The -person suffix is fake, and what’s more, it ends in “son.” Haha!
January 10, 2012 at 3:35 am
Johnny Unger (@johnnyunger)
@profling: I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not just trolling.
There are in fact some alternative forms of ‘women’, proposed by Feminists in the 1970s and beyond, e.g. ‘womyn’ and ‘wimmin’. However, these did not find their way into common usage. As for ‘persons’, you seem to assume that this consists of two morphemes: ‘per’ and ‘son’, when in fact it probably derives from Greek propsopona via Latin persona and then Anglo-Norman – not much to do with ‘son’, which is of Germanic origin. All this information is available in the OED.
So much for etymology, but what is really important is how words are used, not what they used to mean or how they came into the language. When a word is ambiguous, and is commonly understood to exclude half the population (there are countless studies into how this works with sexist usages like the ‘generic’ use of ‘man’), I see this as a clear rationale for avoiding its use in my own language, and making others aware that it is potentially problematic. Of course the final decision is yours: do you want to be part of the problem, and contribute to keeping society unequal, or do you want to encourage positive social change through language use?
January 10, 2012 at 3:38 am
Johnny Unger (@johnnyunger)
Sorry, that should have been Greek prosopon (πρόσωπον) – my Ancient Greek skills are not what they once were!
February 22, 2012 at 11:46 am
Frank Schultz
The way I got over my issue with gender-neutral-word issue was to ask myself how I would feel if these words were applied to me: “weatherwoman,” “sportwoman,” “chairwoman,” and if when gender was unknown the words “her” and “she” were the only ones used. Of course, we men are find with those words because they apply to us! And of course gender neutral words sound odd, but so did the word “google” when I first heard it. I believe this is an issue of thoughtfulness and not using gender neutral words is a thoughtless and rude thing to do. It says a lot more about the writer than those who complain about it.
May 7, 2012 at 3:40 pm
kitchenmudge
I still don’t like turning pronouns plural just to make them gender-neutral, but in this case the solution is very easy. Among my group of political activists, the word is simply “spokes”.
February 13, 2015 at 9:31 am
Otis
A spokesman IS gender neutral. This insistance on gender neutrality or specific naming of gender is ridiculous. We are ALL HUMAN. Not huMEN and huwomen.
February 13, 2015 at 9:54 am
johnnyunger
…proving that in 2015 people still say stupid things about gender-neutral language!
March 29, 2016 at 10:23 pm
student3543
Thank you for this interestingly-worded and well-considered article. I once knew Mr. Lovinger, and looked up his name thinking to maybe contact him. He often seemed to me to be quaintly clueless. Reading this, I feel a bit angry – he had no idea how hurtful it can be to a little girl to be made to speak and become part of a language which dismisses her. He had no idea how some of those new concepts and words of the sixties and seventies did indeed “fix” parts of “broken” souls. Thanks for not going backwards with so many young people who again seem to have no idea…
September 11, 2018 at 12:19 pm
Enver Hoxha
You’re an idiot. ‘Spokesman’ is not a compound. What is a ‘spokes’? HUH? It’s a fused compound and cannot be dissected into ‘spokes’ and ‘man’. The ‘man’ in the word is not ‘MAN’.
September 11, 2018 at 2:39 pm
johnnyunger
… aaand in 2018 as well!
September 11, 2018 at 3:43 pm
Enver Hoxa
The word ‘man’ has no gender, nor does the word ‘woman’. Nor does the suffix ‘man’. Learn something before you speak!
July 19, 2020 at 10:20 am
afantasia
We do have the -ee suffix that could be used on the examples given: spokesee, chairee, and congressee. Ad-hoc -ee deivations are already common practice in law, and normal use is rather natural (e.g. absentee, attendee, employee) so it might be a viable way to sidestep fuss. Of those three, I find “spokesee” is hardly worse than the alternatives. The others feel quite alright, with chairee being suitable for the niche that absolutely refuses to use “chair” and congressee being (I find) an general improvement. Exposure/experience is what makes whichever way is used feel normal, but that usually comes after a period of active effort & deliberate use, eitherway.
And for the person who I give the benefit of the doubt in presuming that they are not a troll: spokesperson is a compound formed of spoke and person, the s is a binding letter introduced between the stems, perhaps originally to avoid confusion with “spoke” as in a wheel’s spoke or just to improve the flow. Meanwhile, “man” and “woman” do very much have gender, being that gender is synonymous with genre, and that we thus address the kinds/categories in which those words are applied (typically ones that carry a semantic context denoting biological sex). I would hope that this was just accidentally skimmed over in any your own reading, and that the blog article was as well, since the neutrality of “man” as per common usage is covered.