Editor,

I recently read an article on Military.com that the master chief petty officer of the Navy, Mike Stevens, in response to a SecNav mandate, is forming a board of MCPOs to review the responses from a fleet-wide poll about to be implemented.

The objective is to find recommended solutions for the issue of “archaic or irrelevant job titles” still in use throughout the Navy that “don’t pass the gender-neutral test.”

Apparently rank, rating or other job titles with the suffix “man” are objectionable to some.

I believe I have a perfect solution for this problem — a low-cost fix that can easily be done in this computer age of ours.

Unfortunately, as an elder Navy retiree without any social media accounts, I am hoping that this letter to the editor, if published, about my idea might catch on and be quickly promulgated through appropriate channels.

Here is the answer: Change the letter ‘a’ in “man” to an ‘o’ — a perfectly round, all-encompassing letter. It’s OK if you think, at first, that “It cannot be this simple.”

Using my idea, Seaman changes to Seamon, Airman becomes Airmon, etc. Say the new titles aloud. They have a kind of calypso sound or a modern reggae tone? What you get, mon, is no gender implication. This change fits all, regardless of gender.

The plural “men,” of course, isn’t acceptable. So, you would merely add an “s” to the suffix, e.g.: “mons.” Perfect!

This correction of taking “man” out of a job title with one letter change in the spelling could be applied to resolve a great number of similar gender problems within various organizations in our great nation. Policeman would become policemon, fireman change to firemon and so on.

If this idea of substituting one letter for another to become a gender-neutral word for terms or titles were to take off, it could modernize much of the English language.

Walter “Gunner” Robinson, USN (Retired)

Oak Harbor