The grammatical absurdity of "all and all"

BarcelonaFeminism is a just cause, one that has led many countries to promote laws favoring equal rights between men and women, while elevating the sense of respect that women deserve, just as men deserve: we are all human.

This word, humans, the movement we have mentioned is still not very bothersome, but there are many that have seemed arbitrary and sexist - without considering that languages have been forged over centuries by all speakers, men and women. For example, the noun everyone - which in 13th-century Catalan had been written "todo el mundo" (totally), a formula that might now seem slightly sexist - is disappearing in favor of a grammatical atrocity: "Todos y todas" (All and all). These two words are adjectives and, on their own, mean nothing, with a few exceptions. If we have to thank a group for a birthday present, luckily we still don't say: "Gracias a todos y todas" (Thanks to everyone and all) - all the whats and alls that? - but rather "Gracias a todos" (Thanks to everyone). Politically correct politicians fall into incorrectness every time they, for the sake of a completely ungrammatical polish, use this famous "todos y todas" (all and all). But, luckily, we recently saw something correct on TV3: "El Gobierno de todos" (The Government of all).

If by a mania one were to think that everyone does not refer to the sum of men and women, then the distinction "everyone" and "totadon" could begin to spread. Or fall into the ridiculousness of always using both adjectives with the usual noun: "All men and all women." In this case, due to the extreme clarification, one would have to add: "And all the boys and girls, and all the old men and all the old women," etc. Then the speeches would never end. The French use the indefinite pronoun where —"Where said, where I speak, where I handle"—and in Spanish they have difficulties in translating it—"It is said, some say", etc.—, but in Catalan the formula nostrada is still alive (we will see how long it will last): "It is said...", that, given the late medieval origin of the word homo, is equivalent to the sum of men and women: human being.

Blessed were the Greeks, who had the word anthropos, which is literally the sum of male and female. And happy Germans, who still have three different words for any occasion: Mann (man), Web (woman) and Mensch (masculine and feminine together, as anthropos).

Could it be possible that a just, legitimate, necessary, and reasonable cause could lead to the perversion of grammar? One woman was the one who fought hardest against this: Carme Junyent, missed.