The Human Being Petition


We all think of ourselves as Human Beings and speak of ourselves as Human Beings…but there is no such word in our “official” language! Nor in our dictionaries, not in our press, not in our governmental documents, not even in our computers which will redline Human Being as “incorrect” if you make the error of using upper case for Human Being.

I made this remarkable discovery in 1980 following the publication of BECOMING….Coming Into Being. It was the first book in the planned trilogy on Human destiny, the other two being THE HUMAN BEING and BEING. This led me to my Webster’s and then to the other dictionaries for a definition of Human Being, to no avail. I learned that we are Homo sapiens, a person, a human being. Under “human” I found “human being,” a person. Under Mankind, I found “the human race, the totality of human beings, men as distinguished from women.”

For the next twenty years, with the help of Pace University in their sponsorship of The First International Conference on the Destination of Human Beings, the United Nations with their sponsorship of upper case for Human Being in the Declaration of Human Rights, a personal visits with the editors of the five dictionary companies and endless correspondence on the subject of a proper noun for us, we stand here today as “human beings,” “a person,” species name: Homo sapiens.

But, the effort continues. We have joined with ThePetitionSite.com to register votes for “The term Human Being, with its proper capitalization, gives dignity and recognition to what is means to be human! See full petition and add you signature at http://www.thepetitionsite.com

Target: Mr. Jesse Sheidlower, Principal Editor, Oxford English Dictionary.