The phrase
"masculine terms" means using words or language that are typically associated with or relate to males.
Full definition
In English, standard practice has been to
use masculine terms when both genders, or either gender, is intended.
Wydick also notes that it's equally distracting to use «clumsy efforts to
avoid masculine terms», or... [more]
The burden of proof lies on the one who wants to take the two
masculine terms generically, and so far, you have offered no proof other than your desire to not understand them as referring to two men.
But Jesus immediately follows the two
masculine terms with two feminine ones (which can not be generic).
Jesus was using clear parallelism to make a point about the two
masculine terms.
I agree that the two
masculine terms could be taken as generic.
I can say that the first person of the Trinity must be understood as Father, but the ELCA publishes liturgies and educational materials that avoid
the masculine term.
Despite the presence of some feminine images of deity in the Bible, there is no question but that God is view overwhelmingly in
masculine terms.
While surveying shoppers, the researchers simply changed the name of the car from the traditional, environmentally friendly name to «Protection,» which is
a masculine term in China.
The musings of an early 20th - century mystic appear an indecorous preface to the latest paintings by John Walker (b. 1939), whose work has been characterized across decades in unsentimental,
masculine terms as sinewy, forceful, bold, decisive.
As Richard Wydick suggests in his excellent Plain English for Lawyers, «many readers, both women and men, will be distracted and perhaps offended if you use
masculine terms to refer to people who are not necessarily male.»
One thing I have noticed though, is that our clients will sometimes say they want a male attorney, or they will use
masculine terms, along the lines of «I need a real bulldog of an attorney,» or «I need a man who will be a bulldog.»