At 23:57 2/26/1998 -0600, Richard Lawson wrote:

From: Nicholas Leifker
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 1998 10:08 PM

"Fuzz" has very strong, pejorative connotations.
 Not the kind I like to see.

I thought of 'Fog', but that's even worse.

I agree.

Challenge for you: Come up with a word that is only
one syllable, would be in Ranma's vocabulary, and
would accurately convey the sensation of your
old personality fading away to be replaced by a
different one.

Fizz.  That's close to the original, pretty neutral, and still enough to
make Kodachi pause.

Why does personality have to change with a change in chromosomes?  It's

It doesn't have to, but sometimes it can.  I mean, some people even get
personality changes with a haircut or a wardrobe makeover (i.e. feeling more
shy in clothes that make you stick out, feeling more confident when you look
cooler, etc.).

this premise that I disagree with.  Yes, someone in Ranma's situation is
going to have their overall personality change.  But it's not
Jekyll-and-Hyde; not one personality when male, another when female.  And
you're implying that male is Hyde, female is Jekyll with this description.

Some people claim that the body partially determines personality through sex
hormones.  Considering that:
both genders have all sex hormones (just in different proportions, and while
some women with rare illnesses have no testosterone it's impossible to stay
alive without estrogen),
male hormone levels fluctuate more randomly than female,
and women have their hormones at the "most masculine" during menstruation
when we're not fertile (it's a slight change compared to the average over
the cycle, not a Jekyll-Hyde type thing),
it's not likely that Ranma could ever avoid the "fuzz" even if she stayed
female for the rest of her life since the male and female ranges of hormone
influence overlap so much.

Okay, I mave a better idea than "fizz".  Maybe instead of "fuzz", Ranma
could say "permanent PMS" and hope that Kodachi isn't one of the girls who
never gets PMS anyway, or gets premenstrually happier.

Richard, I don't like PC.

Nick, this isn't about PC.  It was never about PC.  It was about Ranma
seeming to state that male is evil.  I would have responded to "female is
evil" in the same way.  No one is inherently evil due to race, color, or
creed.  That's not PC; it's common sense.

And don't forget, the assumpion that "male is not evil" existed centuries
before both common sense (as Richard puts it) and PC became common.