the present perfect explained to a French speaker
4
This is the same clip that can be found on the GU podcasting site – it explains why a native English speaker difficult to understand, and questions the validity of the native speaker as a model for International English
“If the person from the hotel rings, tell him we need two double rooms”
– but there’s a good chance that the “person” from the hotel is a woman.
“(…) Yet because the idea of sexism is relatively new, and because different groups have reached different stages of resentment against sex-weighted language, it is not easy to say how far you should go toward purging English of its longstanding favoritism to the male. The title Ms., which does not indicate marital status, is becoming well established as the female counterpart to Mr., and you cannot go wrong by changing stewardess to flight attendant and cleaning lady to housekeeper. Actress and waitress, on the other hand, have so far resisted all pressure to step aside for genderless words; if you used actor and waiter to indicate women, readers would be misled or taken aback. Are mankind, man-made and chairman offensive? More and more readers believe they are. You can substitute humanity for mankind and artificial for man-made, without attracting notice; but chairperson, though it is rapidly becoming common, will still bother some readers. Many people find person-suffixed words clumsy and self-conscious. Before using one, try finding a neutral alternative: not congressperson but representative, not policeperson but officer.”
ref.