Is there a non-gendered term for manning a station, as in manning the desk? The only ideas I can come up with are "stationed at" the desk or other clunky things. Finding the right gerund would make my day.
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Edwin Ashworth
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Rebecca Palmer
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27Well, I think "manning" is pretty gender-neutral these days. Honestly, I have heard female WNBA coaches exhorting their female players to "make sure you guard your man." (And they were, of course, playing other women, not men. – Robusto Jun 22 '15 at 14:30
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I've been living in Italy for donkey years, but I am aware of the issues surrounding gendered (i.e. biased) language. For example, I understand why waiters and waitresses are commonly called servers in the US, the elimination of the term "male nurse", and policemen/women are often referred to as police officers. But "manning" why is this perceived to be offensive/discriminatory? Do many women feel offended if they are asked to man a station? As a woman, and someone who lives abroad where the issue of gender language is not often discussed, I'm genuinely interested. – Mari-Lou A Jun 23 '15 at 05:23
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9"Manning" is not gender neutral, because its presumption is that the person doing the job in question will be male. The use of "man" in female sports does not make it gender-neutral but rather shows how ingrained gender specific language has become. – Bob Tway Jun 23 '15 at 10:16
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2@Matt Thrower - man (v.) Old English mannian "to furnish (a fort, ship, etc.) with a company of men," from man (n.). Meaning "to take up a designated position on a ship" is first recorded 1690s. / etymonline. – Jun 23 '15 at 10:39
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5Even the Mekon said "Man the guns! Destroy Dare's ship!", when the operators concerned weren't even humans. – Brian Hooper Jun 23 '15 at 10:55
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6@LittleEva I'm not talking about etymology here, but about the perception of the word in modern English. There's nothing over-sensitive about wanting to find a more neutral-sounding alternative. – Bob Tway Jun 23 '15 at 11:04
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3@Mari-Lou - I can't speak for the OP, but I feel neither offended nor discriminated against by the terms “man” or “manning.” Neither is it my intention to piss people off, but it would seem that the whole issue of seeking gender neutral language, and especially the neutering of masculine gendered terms, cuts some folks the wrong way. Maybe it’s the close proximity of the words “neuter” + “masculine,” rather than the search for a less gendered language that accounts for the resistance. ;-) – Jun 23 '15 at 11:21
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2@MattThrower IMO if the "presumption is that the person doing the job in question will be male" then that's very silly presumption and is, furthermore, out of date by at least a half a century (i.e. by one or two generations). Women are as capable of manning a desk as men are. – ChrisW Jun 26 '15 at 10:52
13 Answers
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"staffing" is pretty close to what you are asking.
Is anyone staffing the desk?
yoozer8
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Travis Bear
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1It is used, but most online dictionaries do not include the 'staff' = 'man' (v trans) sense. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 22 '15 at 18:29
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3"Staffing" is more done by one who's assigning people desk duty than by the one at the desk. – cHao Jun 22 '15 at 18:49
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1Merriam-Webster and Collins have to staff as transitive. I guess things have changed since Edwin's comment. – Stuart F May 17 '23 at 08:26
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@Stuart Yes, and there are quite a few hits for "staffing the desk" in the manning rather than providing staff for sense. Good update. – Edwin Ashworth May 17 '23 at 10:57
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"tend"; "tend to"; "tending"; “tending to”; "attend"; "attending to" ... the station/desk/store/shop/bar, etc.
tend verb:
1. Care for or look after; give one’s attention to: [with object] “Viola tended plants on the roof”; [no object] “for two or three months he tended to business”
1.1. US Direct or manage; work in. “I’ve been tending bar at the airport lounge”
1.2. archaic Wait on as an attendant or servant.
tend v.tr.: 1. To have the care of; watch over; look after: tend a child. 2. To manage the activities and transactions of; run: tend bar; tend a store in the owner's absence.
Synonyms: tend (2), attend, mind, minister, watch: These verbs mean to have the care or supervision of something: tended her plants; attends the sick; minded the neighbor's children; ministered to flood victims; watched the house while the owners were away.
tend to v.: To apply one's attention to something; attend to something: I must tend to my chores before I can go outside.
tend (v.1) "to incline, to move in a certain direction," early 14c., from Old French tendre "stretch out, hold forth, hand over, offer" (11c.), from Latin tendere "to stretch, extend, make tense; aim, direct; direct oneself, hold a course" (see tenet).
tend (v.2) "attend to," c. 1200, a shortening of Middle English atenden (see attend).
attend v.intr.
1. To be present, as at a scheduled event. 2. To take care; give attention: We'll attend to that problem later. 3. To apply or direct oneself; take action: attended to their business. 4. To pay attention: attended disinterestedly to the debate. 5. To remain ready to serve; wait.
attend (v.) c. 1300, "to direct one's mind or energies," from Old French atendre (12c., Modern French attendre) "to expect, wait for, pay attention," and directly from Latin attendere "give heed to," literally "to stretch toward," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + tendere "stretch" (see tenet). The notion is of "stretching" one's mind toward something. Sense of "take care of, wait upon" is from early 14c. Meaning "to pay attention" is early 15c.; that of "to be in attendance" is mid-15c. Related: Attended; attending.
man (v.) Old English mannian "to furnish (a fort, ship, etc.) with a company of men," from man (n.). Meaning "to take up a designated position on a ship" is first recorded 1690s. Meaning "behave like a man, act with courage" is from c. 1400. To man (something) out is from 1660s. Related: Manned; manning.
The search for a non-gendered terminology is a worthy quest. Where suitable, gender neutral terms are available but under-employed, using them enhances their currency and furthers that quest. Like any other human endeavor, neutering gendered terms can be taken to extremes and become rather counter-productive (manhole=personhole; man-eater=person-eater), but that is not the case here.
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Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Matt E. Эллен Jun 25 '15 at 09:15
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A note on the neutrality of "manning":
"Manning" is (or at least has been) gender-neutral. Only in recent history has "man" taken on a gendered connotation. Before, "wer" was a prefix that meant male (as used in "werewolf"), and "wif" meant female (which eventually led to the word "woman" from "wifman"). The use of "man" as gender-neutral appears today in the words "mankind," "human," and of course "manning." Therefore, "manning" is a suitable gender-neutral term.
However, if you still want an alternative, "tending" or even "working" would work. For example, "manning the help desk" vs. "tending the help desk" (though it sounds strange) or "manning the register" vs. "working the register."
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3Agree in general with your historical remarks. However, "human" is not etymologically related to "man," it's an unrelated word that comes from Latin. Also, I'm not sure why you put it in a spoiler tag. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/human – herisson Jun 23 '15 at 02:14
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1"Recently" being "in modern English, as opposed to a different language called Anglo-Saxon or Old English that started mutating into Middle English nearly 1000 years ago" ;-) But I do agree with the basic premise that the noun is far more strongly gendered than the verb, and that we shouldn't let this mislead us into thinking that the verb also is strongly gendered. It doesn't literally mean "occupied by a male man", it just follows typical English-language negligence that some want to better. – Steve Jessop Jun 23 '15 at 11:44
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4What is the source of this block quote? Block quotes are reserved for direct quotations and citations for direct quotations are required. – Jun 23 '15 at 21:32
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4-1 because I think most of the English-speakers I interact with from day to day would read "manning" as a gendered term. Providing an argument that "manning" didn't used to be or shouldn't be heard as gendered is interesting, but I doubt it will help the OP achieve their goals. – Vectornaut Jun 24 '15 at 05:36
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All right. Would it be okay to remove that block quote, since it doesn't help answer OP's question? – Blahgory Jun 27 '15 at 21:01
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"Covering" is often used by my wife (a registered nurse) in exactly the way of "manning the help desk" in that it denotes responsibility without implying specific activity.
One issue this question raises is that of being more precise in thinking about who is doing what. "Manning the help desk" for instance often refers to a rotating role where a group of people share a responsibility in turn. This is somewhat different than what would have been meant by "manning the USS Enterprise". In that context "covering", "working", "attending" may all have an appropriate use.
bknights
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Consider re-working the sentence to include the phrase on duty. For example:
Is there anyone on duty at the IT help desk today?
please delete me
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Sawbones
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If they're taking care of things at X, you could say they're 'handling X today' or 'will be handling X'.
Although it specifically refers tot he act of holding or moving something with your hands, it can also mean keeping an activity under control, or doing a task that needs to be done.
Zibbobz
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Depending on the exact nature of the duty: "guarding", "watching", "minding", "running", but they each suggest something more specific and active than is required by "manning", which just means to turn up and be there.
"Occupying" is close to a synonym, but slightly suggests that you aren't merely present, you're preventing someone else from occupying the same desk.
"Tending" is most commonly used for bars, not desks, but you might make it work.
"Staffing" can mean "to do the duty", or "to ensure someone's on it, not necessarily yourself", or "to provide staff". So it has an appropriate meaning but is potentially more general. As far as I know it's nevertheless the "standard" alternative in this context.
Steve Jessop
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How about:
Please watch the desk.
Cover the desk.
Keep an eye on the desk.
Can you work reception?
Will you handle the phones?
Grab those calls, would ya?
Can you cover reception, monitor the phones, and make sure everything runs smoothly?
etc etc
There are thousands of different things you could say to avoid the term "man," depending upon the context you're facing. That being said, if "manning" is the perfect and precise word, you should use "manning."
Kyle Cyree
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Instead of a "manned mission" or "manning a station" please consider a "crewed mission" or "crewing a station". The Navy has an interesting expression if you want to tell some to "man their station and get to work." You tell them to "Turn to, Shipmate." I suppose you could to tell someone to "work your station."
Sordidatus
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What are they doing at the desk? Maybe you can describe their job (e.g. "answering the phone" or whatever) rather than that they're simply occupying the desk.
If their job is mostly just to be there, maybe say "holding the fort".
Fig. to take care of a place while someone who is usually there is gone, such as a store or one's home. (From western movies.) I'm going next door to visit Mrs. Jones. You stay here and hold the fort. You should open the store at eight o'clock and hold the fort until I get there at ten.
Maybe this is just an American idiom, I don't know.
If it's the fact that it's a desk that's important, there's an idiom about being a "desk jockey" you could work into the sentence (instead of implying something about being a "desk man").
ChrisW
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In UK military parlance, for completely different reasons, UAVs are 'Uninhabited air vehicles' rather than 'unmanned air vehicles'. Though saying someone 'inhabits' a desk would be rather strange.
'unmanned' traditionally meant 'cowardly' (see the phrase unmanned by fear) rather than the opposite of manned.
Pete Kirkham
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3"'unmanned' means 'cowardly' rather than the opposite of manned." - In 30 years I've never come across this usage by anyone who is not named 'George R R Martin'. – Nye Jun 24 '15 at 10:42
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1Is there any evidence that unmanned means cowardly? It appears to be sheer invention. UAVs are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - just ask google. Usage comparisons – GreenAsJade Jun 24 '15 at 13:02
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@GreenAsJade I used to work for BAE SYSTEMS designing UAV control algorithms. The RAF doesn't put its documents on the public internet, so you're not likely to find them in Google. The 'unmanned' usage is certainly more popular, but there's plenty of hits for "uninhabited combat aerial vehicle" etc. – Pete Kirkham Jun 26 '15 at 10:10
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Just because BAE calls a thing by a name doesn't make it language. The usage that I can find of uninhabited aeriel vehicle is negligible. for example and ... – GreenAsJade Jun 26 '15 at 12:22
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your suggestion. Engineers at BAE are doubtless just as capable as anyone else of inventing terms - that doesn't make them language :) – GreenAsJade Jun 26 '15 at 12:23
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@GreenAsJade People inventing terms for concepts is exactly what language is; there are quite a few common terms which have escaped from from RAF jargon to common use, but I whole heartedly agree that this phrase is not one of them. You'll find more hits in research paper than books. – Pete Kirkham Jun 26 '15 at 12:37
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Inventing terms is certainly what drives to the evolution of language. A key point is that just because a term was invented,doesn't make it language yet. To be fair, the first part of your answer qualifies this point, by giving the context in which that term has usage - no-one could argue with this fact. I wonder if the observation about unmanned is also intended to be within that context? Either way: the fact that the usage is limited to BAE probably relegates it to a comment rather than an answer to the question - as you yourself said, 'inhabits a desk' sounds strange. – GreenAsJade Jun 26 '15 at 23:30
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unman verb: -manning, -manned (transitive) 1. to cause to lose courage or nerve; 2. to make effeminate; 3. to remove the men from. (Collins) – Jun 27 '15 at 09:42
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I was always taught that the 'man' in 'manning a desk' had its origins in 'managing', not 'man/men/male', which meant it was not a sexist term and was an unnecessary overcorrection to change it. My workplace recently requested that we 'person a desk', which grated with me because it sounds awful and doesn't fit with the phrase's origins (at least as I was taught them). But perhaps the definition I was given in my youth was well-meaning but incorrect.
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1Perhaps sadly, opinion rather than lineage is the deciding factor over whether a given term is pejorative. And your company's opinion seems clear on this one. Though I agree, 'person a desk' sounds gauche enough to be considered a violation of Orwell's Sixth. – Edwin Ashworth May 17 '23 at 11:01