INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: Walkie on July 17, 2020, 06:33:45 PM
-
rather that tie ourselves in knots trying to find PC terms for the increasing multipliciy of recognised sexes and genders, adding extra syllables all over the place so as not exclude females nor anybody else, and even trying to pretty much eradicate the perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word "mann" or "man" from our vocabulary. why the heck don't we roll back the English language and revert to calling everybody "men". Simple!
"adult female human," late Old English wimman, wiman (plural wimmen), literally "woman-man," alteration of wifman (plural wifmen) "woman, female servant" (8c.), a compound of wif "woman" (see wife) + man "human being" (in Old English used in reference to both sexes; see man (n.)). Compare Dutch vrouwmens "wife," literally "woman-man."
It is notable that it was thought necessary to join wif, a neuter noun, representing a female person, to man, a masc. noun representing either a male or female person, to form a word denoting a female person exclusively. [Century Dictionary]
The formation is peculiar to English and Dutch. Replaced older Old English wif and quean as the word for "female human being."
(https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman)
Seriously.
Now some people trying to phase out the gender-neutral word "mankind", just because it no longer sounds gender-neutral to some. I guess "human" will follow. And... :apondering: how about "mandatory"? doesn't that sound a bit suspicious?
Let's just stop the rot and reclaim the word man for the whole of mankind :apondering:humanity :apondering: relatively non-hairy mammals from Planet Earth that usually walk on two legs .
If we must have a word that exclusively refers to the male ones, we can always revert to "weaponman" (or update it to "toolman" ? which carries both senses of "'weapon" succinctly) , or adopt the snappier (and less sterotypical) "werman"". Or I'm sure that Feminists can think of any number of apt and amusing alternatives.
The thing is , these arrogant wermen have sneakily usurped that word man, which rightfully belonged to everybody. And should we just pussyfoot around the issue, quietly drop our own claim to the word (speaking to othe females here) and let them get clean away with it? I think not :grrr: :viking:
-
You do know that this is a lot like the "war on Christmas". Part of the supposed "culture war" that conservatives get all excited about. While most progressives spend like 3 seconds of thought on it once in a blue moon.
-
Eek. I must be a Conservative :zombiefuck:
but . yeah, it's pretty damned clear that these "progressives"(or whoever they are) who keep trying to rewrirte the dictionary only ever put about 3 seconds thought into it. :LOL: But that doesn't stop them getting their knickers in a twist.
My own main interest here is in poetry, TBH . I'd really like to preserve the natural beauty of my native tongue, without being accused of bigotry or some kind of "phobia" (as JK Rowling was when she ridiculed the altspeak, remember? ) . To which end, I would much sooner simplify than complicate. What's more, as someone who considers gender (especially mine) to be largely irrelvant, I actually like being referred to as "man" (just so long as it's understood that i don't necessarily have or even want a penis )
[oh! and also, to my unending surprise, i've noticed any number of ugly and cumbersome changes to English usuage being actually forced through into common parlance, in the name of political correctness. And if I have to waste time on speaking and typing all the extra syllables , well then, might as well waste a teeny bit time on proposing a more elegant alternative to the problem of gender neutrality . Besides which, c'mon it would be fun, calling females "men" and males "wermen" until we all got used to it. ]
-
Tend to use a writing style which is largely avoidant of singular first and second person pronouns, though not entirely, so it seems generally avoiding gender specific pronouns wouldn't be all too difficult to do. Writing is a good way to practice something like that because it allows time to consider how thoughts can be rephrased to negate a need to use them. It only takes two or three months to form a habit, so might try doing this.
-
Eek. I must be a Conservative :zombiefuck:
but . yeah, it's pretty damned clear that these "progressives"(or whoever they are) who keep trying to rewrirte the dictionary only ever put about 3 seconds thought into it. :LOL: But that doesn't stop them getting their knickers in a twist.
You're not a conservative Walkie, I kinda figured that one out already.
And don't get me wrong, if we could transition to neutral pronouns 100% of the time then it will bypass a lot of unnecessary drama.
Some progressives do spend a bit more than 3 seconds thinking about pronouns. Trans rights activists, for example.
A biological male who openly identifies as a woman will likely spend more than 3 seconds thinking about it if someone insists on using male pronoungs in referring to them.
I consider myself progressive and I really don't think about it. I just use whatever pronoun seems like the most polite and respectful pronoun to use.
Think about who is best known for talking and pontificating and perseverating about this stuff. Conservative tossers like Jordan Peterson, that's who.
Like same sex marriage, I never spent any thought on whether it's a good idea or not and which side I should support and whether if we allow same sex marriage then next thing you know dogs will be marrying cats, people will be marrying chickens, and so on. I just voted "yes" because it was the right thing to do and love is love. That's it. I saw 2 girls down the dog park today, didn't think much of it and then a bit later I saw how they were interacting and it was obvious that they were a couple. I just thought "how sweet", same as if it were two dudes.
-
My favourite part of the whole rant is "wermen". Not sure if mermen or weremen, but either way I approve.
-
Some progressives do spend a bit more than 3 seconds thinking about pronouns. Trans rights activists, for example.
A biological male who openly identifies as a woman will likely spend more than 3 seconds thinking about it if someone insists on using male pronoungs in referring to them.
Indeed, i've known a few trans people, and if they ask us to think about it a bit more, that;s entirely reasonable. And if they get pissed off when people insist on the wrong pronoun, I'm 100% with them there. Happily for me, most of the trans people that I've known have have had intersts in common with me (that's how I met ém) and been pretty heavily into poetry, psychol;ogy or even both, wth the result that they put a lot more than three seconds thought into what they can reaonably and realistically demand of the English language and other human beings, and thus don't attempt to rewrite the dictionary, just to engage in a dialogue.
Conversely, most supporters of trans rights (or the loudest ones anyway. Prolly just a minoroty really) seem to devote all their brain power to taking offense, wirh zero respect and understanding for language itself and other speakers of language.[/i] They've got hold of the idea that language shapes the way we think, and try to use that concept like a sledgehammer to smash prejudice. Of course, prejudice shapes language a whole lot more than language shapes prejuduce, so you get euphemisms turned intto slurs, and all the negative connotations you thought to escape getting attached to more and more words, and so the dictionary becomes progressively more xenophobic and depressing.
I think we spazzes are better than that, on the whole. :) witness our ownership of the word spazz (The usage of "ghey"in the karma is regretable, mind...except it's prolly tongue-in-cheek). That's a much more constructive (and much less meddlesome) approach, IMO. You don't get away from prejudice except by making people stop and think .
Oh! Here's an aquaintance of mine (won't call her a "friend"" because I've only met her 3-4 times) who likes challenging preconceptions. She's not a great poet , TBH. (the sort who will sometimes stretch language way past its elastic limit just for the sake of making a rhyme *wince*) but has a great personality (if you can cope with extraverts) , and is developing into a damned good performer. I also like that s/he (She identifies as a man in everyday life) clearly thinks a lot, and asks her audience to think.
https://samionside.com/
(https://samionside.com/)
-
My favourite part of the whole rant is "wermen". Not sure if mermen or weremen, but either way I approve.
Thanks :) Yeah, I thought that was a bit of a masterstroke, though i say so myself :green: :roses:
Wermen it is. shoulda made that clearer. The prefix " wer" or ""were " denoted a male in Old English and various other Germanic languages. Aww , let's be lazy and quote Wikipedia:
Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (Old English: wer, Old Dutch: wer, Gothic: waír, Old Frisian: wer, Old Saxon: wer, Old High German: wer, Old Norse: verr).
Etymology and usage:
The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, the words vir (as in virility) and fear (plural fir as in Fir Bolg) are the Latin and Gaelic for a male human.
In folklore and fantasy fiction, were- is often used as a prefix applied to an animal name to indicate a type of therianthropic figure or shapeshifter (e.g. "were-boar"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory, but is now commonly dropped, as in werecat and wererat. This usage can be seen as a back-formation from werewolf (literally, "man-wolf"), as there is no equivalent wifwolf yet attested.
Ofc we're still totally familiar with werewolves etc from folklore, so i probably should have used that "were"" variant, shouldn't I? But then, you wou;dn't be so tempted to pronounce it like "woman". So , OK, my choice of that spelling was quite possibly motivated by sheer devilment >:D.
-
if we could transition to neutral pronouns
That seems like the easiest option. Rather than inventing new words, simply no longer consider them/they/their as plural.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide. Also, "them/they/their" as plural are all useful.
Every forced change of a language is doomed to fail, at least in anything resembling a democracy.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
Also, "them/they/their" as plural are all useful.
Every forced change of a language is doomed to fail, at least in anything resembling a democracy.
That suggestion wasn't intended to negate the plural usefulness, but instead to consider them both useful as singular and plural. People already use plural pronouns singularly, though it might be considered poor grammar. It also wasn't intended to suggest anything forced. Avoiding the use of I/me/my/you/your seems like a much more difficult task than avoiding gender specific pronouns. Although avoiding all pronouns when referring to people sound even more interesting. It only takes making the decision to do it.
-
if we could transition to neutral pronouns
That seems like the easiest option. Rather than inventing new words, simply no longer consider them/they/their as plural.
not so simple as it sounds, mind
Modern English has been lacking gender neutral third-person pronouns for as long as its existed'. and the lack of them was felt long before it became a political issue. "How the heck should you refer to a person of unknown and unspecified gender in English? " has been a question that's plagued grammaticists since time immemorial, and they've never yet managed to agree . Some said use "he", others said use "they", but the latter is still regarded as grammatically incorrect in many contexts; and neither is ideal, both can cause confusion.
They should have just let lazy-tongued English speakers have their way, back in the 12th century when the Old English He and Heo (he and she) had both got reduced to "E" or ""A"depending on dialect. I don't know about the other cases, but they certainly look promising candidates for that process of eroding distinctions from this table:
Case Masc. sg. Neut. sg. Fem. sg. Pl. all genders
Nominative hē hit hēo hīe
Accusative hine hit hīe hie
Genitive his his hiere heora
Dative him him hiere him
according to Wikipedia:
In 1789, William H. Marshall records the existence of a dialectal English epicene pronoun, singular "ou": "'Ou will' expresses either he will, she will, or it will." Marshall traces "ou" to Middle English epicene "a", used by the 14th century English writer John of Trevisa, and both the OED and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of "a" for he, she, it, they, and even I. This "a" is a reduced form of the Anglo-Saxon he = "he" and heo = "she". By the 12th and 13th centuries, these had often weakened to a point where, according to the OED, they were "almost or wholly indistinguishable in pronunciation." The modern feminine pronoun she, which first appears in the mid twelfth century, seems to have been drafted at least partly to reduce the increasing ambiguity of the pronoun system...[3]
Thus in Middle English the new feminine pronoun she established itself to satisfy a linguistic need.
So "she "got dragged into the English language to clarify distinctinctions. And the Old Norse plurals ( they, their and them) were introduced for much the same reason, apparently.
Why fight the tide of history? Pronouns are apt to wear down to inarticulate grunts , aren't they? especialy those beginning with "h"or "th". We should swoop to take advantage when that happens and seize on the stripped-down versions for the longed-for gender-neutral pronouns. We have plenty of stripped down pronouns in common parlance in the present day, don't we? But they're not "proper English". Why not recognise em as proper English? (see what I did there? ). 'E has made a predictable comeback ( if it ever went away) along with 'ís 'ers etc. Surely all we need to do is make a suitable selection, define them as gender neutral and thus obligate people to pronounce as well as write the initial consonants when they intend to be gender specific.
Again, that could be fun. You'd find he-men making an unprecedented effort to pronounce their aitches , wouldn't you? if that stopped em from being mistaken for girls :hahaha:
What's to ohld us back, except for snobbishness? The new usages would, in fact, be a whole lot more elegant than that ugly and unpopular they/their/them fix.
-
avoiding all pronouns when referring to people sound even more interesting.
interesting for the first few seconds maybe, then tedious in the extreme. eg "Holly put Holly's holly wreath into Holly's car boot, then Holly drove to Holly's friend's house..." etc. It would bring about the swift demise of English literature, methinks :laugh:
-
:lol1:
-
What's to ohld us back,
Would guess general agreement is what holds people back. Non-gender specific pronouns may seem like a solution, but they're not for people who do want to be referred to as a specific gender.
avoiding all pronouns when referring to people sound even more interesting.
interesting for the first few seconds maybe, then tedious in the extreme. eg "Holly put Holly's holly wreath into Holly's car boot, then Holly drove to Holly's friend's house..." etc. It would bring about the swift demise of English literature, methinks :laugh:
Holly put a holly wreath into the car boot and then drove to a friend's house. It's really not that difficult. :laugh:
-
Holly put a holly wreath into the car boot and then drove to a friend's house. It's really not that difficult. :laugh:
Bah! I didn't tell you, but Holly's spouse, Ash also had their car parked outside, and Holly was holding keys to both. Also Holly (whose gender remains unspecified) has now changed their mind and has driven to Holly's Mum's house instead. :P
oh! plus Holly and Ash had each bought a Holly wreath, wouldn't you know it? They only needed one, so Holly figured Holly's was superfluous. :P
-
There are two singular uses of their there. It's not so ugly usage, or even uncommon usage. Now thinking of a time at another forum, when people were discussing how how a certain member was referred to via pronouns. One member chose to always refer by name. Made sense at the time. Sure, writing a whole book could be a considerable challenge, but in general no. Going to definitely give it a try.
-
Didn't even know it, but in 2019 Webster officially defined they as also singular, and also specifically defined as a non binary pronoun.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/17/merriam-webster-they-nonbinary-pronoun
-
A point to remember is that not all transgender people want to be referred to by neutral pronouns. So maybe stick with traditional gender pronouns and if unsure use them/they/their as singular pronouns until you do know?
-
A point to remember is that not all transgender people want to be referred to by neutral pronouns. So maybe stick with traditional gender pronouns and if unsure use them/they/their as singular pronouns until you do know?
Yes, made that point before. Though this discussion seems more about how people generally speak, and people generally use gender pronouns. It does make sense a trans person might want a specific pronoun, but might not be offended by by them/they/their if people generally didn't use gender pronouns. Courtesy is still courtesy, so matter the general rule.
-
Jack, I couldn't agree more.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
-
Holly put a holly wreath into the car boot and then drove to a friend's house. It's really not that difficult. :laugh:
Bah! I didn't tell you, but Holly's spouse, Ash also had their car parked outside, and Holly was holding keys to both. Also Holly (whose gender remains unspecified) has now changed their mind and has driven to Holly's Mum's house instead. :P
oh! plus Holly and Ash had each bought a Holly wreath, wouldn't you know it? They only needed one, so Holly figured Holly's was superfluous. :P
There are two singular uses of their there. It's not so ugly usage, or even uncommon usage.
I think you mistook my point? The above wasn't meant to be an example of an ugly usage of "their" (I;m sure there are loads of them floating around if you need them) . That was just me providing some additional info to make the task of reconstructing the original sentence without using any personal pronouns (whch would include "their"wouldn't it?) a tad more challenging for you. Seeing as you found it so simple.
Avoiding the use of personal pronouns was your own suggestion, remember? you surely can't fault me for sticking to that theme in my next reply to you? :laugh:
If you want to rewrirte "Holly put Holly's holly wreath into Holly's car boot, then Holly drove to Holly's Mum's house..." with fewer iterations of Holly, but no personal pronouns, i think that info makes it a tad more challenging? Heck. my intoduction of Holly's spouse, Ash, even made the usage of "their" ambiguous, in many places (uninitentionally) and made me a think rather harder about how to phrase the additional info. If its "' not so ugly usage" of their, well that goes to show that i rose to that particular challenge half-way decently. Thanks :( But that wasn't the point.
The point was that you can't now say "a holly wreath" "the car boot" ., because you need to indicate which one of two options. Also, if you write "a Mum" that would be both ambiguous and absurd, as would "the Mum".
Actually, I did once have a friend who would say "the mother"when speaking of their mother. It's not grammatically incorrect . But in that case it was meant as am emotional distancing device, on account of a traumatic relationship. Surely not something that we should impose on Holly, nor anybody else.
-
Holly put a holly wreath into the car boot and then drove to a friend's house. It's really not that difficult. :laugh:
Bah! I didn't tell you, but Holly's spouse, Ash also had their car parked outside, and Holly was holding keys to both. Also Holly (whose gender remains unspecified) has now changed their mind and has driven to Holly's Mum's house instead. :P
oh! plus Holly and Ash had each bought a Holly wreath, wouldn't you know it? They only needed one, so Holly figured Holly's was superfluous. :P
There are two singular uses of their there. It's not so ugly usage, or even uncommon usage.
I think you mistook my point? The above wasn't meant to be an example of an ugly usage of "their" (I;m sure there are loads of them floating around if you need them) . That was just me providing some additional info to make the task of reconstructing the original sentence without using any personal pronouns (whch would include "their"wouldn't it?) a tad more challenging for you. Seeing as you found it so simple.
Avoiding the use of personal pronouns was your own suggestion, remember? you surely can't fault me for sticking to that theme in my next reply to you? :laugh:
If you want to rewrirte "Holly put Holly's holly wreath into Holly's car boot, then Holly drove to Holly's Mum's house..." with fewer iterations of Holly, but no personal pronouns, i think that info makes it a tad more challenging? Heck. my intoduction of Holly's spouse, Ash, even made the usage of "their" ambiguous, in many places (uninitentionally) and made me a think rather harder about how to phrase the additional info. If its "' not so ugly usage" of their, well that goes to show that i rose to that particular challenge half-way decently. Thanks :( But that wasn't the point.
The point was that you can't now say "a holly wreath" "the car boot" ., because you need to indicate which one of two options. Also, if you write "a Mum" that would be both ambiguous and absurd, as would "the Mum".
Actually, I did once have a friend who would say "the mother"when speaking of their mother. It's not grammatically incorrect . But in that case it was meant as am emotional distancing device, on account of a traumatic relationship. Surely not something that we should impose on Holly, nor anybody else.
Over ten years of attempting to avoid I and you variants has shown they can't always be avoided, though didn't mean to imply always avoiding pronouns is possible, but rather a desire to try avoiding pronouns in general. The new insight of dictionary changes also shifts that idea to them/they/their being completely acceptable singular alternatives when pronouns can't be avoided. Initially assumed the point of the first holly holly holly sentence was to mock the idea of trying, and the second was a continuation of that mockery while also contradicting previous statements implying variants of they shouldn't be used. Though okay. Holly, while holding the keys to both cars parked outside, the other belonging to spouse Ash, decided to drive to Mum's house instead. Both had bought a holly wreath, and since only one was needed, the other was deemed superfluous. It's worth considering, maybe what's been holding ME back is stubbornness and unwillingness to try.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Have already decided. Seriously though, that may be the bigger stumbling point. Not necessarily and individual's personal decision, but the notion of deciding for others.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Well, yeah, that much is obvious. And you could legitimately post a variant of that observation in almost every thread apart from "Did you take your meds today?"
I don't know, ofc, but would hazzard a guess that Jack's curious as to why it's a problem for you wrt this particular issue, and not, say, wrt to what we think should be done about Donald Trump? :laugh:
But to witter on a bit more, I might add that it's pretty cool that language remains (more-or-less) a genuinely democratic phenomenon, with correctness determined by common usage. I mean , once most of us individually adopt a particular parlance , that becomes de facto , correct , and will soon be recognised as correct by academia. And if that makes it hard for any given individual to impose their will on it, that's also cool, ofc.
I also think it's pretty cool that we do have some arbiters of good taste and clarity (eg grammaticists, editors) who have rather more influence than the average bod-in-the-streetwhen it comes to establishing conventions. That's cool because they are people who know and care about language, as it happens. and can help to prevent communication snarl-ups when things change in some stupid and ambiguous direction (eg the spelling of "lose" the sameway as "loose". Maybe they can't stop that; maybe that's the future "'correct' spelling, and then we'll have to check the context carefully whenever we write one of those words, wont we? but they can slow that change down, at the very least. eg. they can ensure you get marked down if you write "looser"in an essay without explaining "looser than what?" or why looseness is a factor )
What isn't cool, IMO , is that political pressure groups are now having an excessive influence, too. So we're getting things like the centuries-old natural drift towards they/their/them as singulars rushed through unnaturally fast, without anybody coming up with alternative plurals. (We do need to discriminate between singular and plural at times. that is, if we want to be understood- which is the whole point of language in the first place isn't it?) If things were left to proceed at their natural pace, such problems would be naturally ironed out. Whilst i don't like to upset transexuals, I don't find "let's all talk a load of acane bollox at each other to avoid upsetting transexuals" to be a good trade off.
Nor do i like that 'people can be maligned as "bigots" when they chose the wrong pronoun. That's upsetting for people too. And that word is indubitably meant to be offensive and judgmental isn't it? which fact supercharges the sting. Do the feelings of non-transexuals no longer matter?
Invented words- even invented pronouns- do take root when they answer a commonly-felt need . "She" certainly took root, didn't it? And we're going to have to be inventive here if we want to have both singular and plural gender-neatral pronouns, and to be able to tell them apart. And inasmuch as we want clear communication, I'm pretty sure that we do want both, even if some of us haven't yet noticed that. The drift towards adopting they/thior/them as singulars got stuck partway because, so long as we also (and even pimarily) regard them as plurals , they are highly ambigous in any number of contexts. So, we evidently need to either invent some singulars (or commissuon some redundant or vulgar singulars) or else nab the plurals, and invent some new plurals.
How to get people to agree on any one particular solution is a bloody great big problem. Yeah. Maybe lobbying for one particular solution and calling people bigots when they fail to fall in line is the only fast way forward. I don't like it , though. And I like it even less that the proposed solution only adresses half the problem and leaves us no better off, linguistically.
Oops! ranting again :hitler:
-
Over ten years of attempting to avoid I and you variants has shown they can't always be avoided, though didn't mean to imply always avoiding pronouns is possible, but rather a desire to try avoiding pronouns in general. The new insight of dictionary changes also shifts that idea to them/they/their being completely acceptable singular alternatives when pronouns can't be avoided. Initially assumed the point of the first holly holly holly sentence was to mock the idea of trying, and the second was a continuation of that mockery while also contradicting previous statements implying variants of they shouldn't be used. Though okay. Holly, while holding the keys to both cars parked outside, the other belonging to spouse Ash, decided to drive to Mum's house instead. Both had bought a holly wreath, and since only one was needed, the other was deemed superfluous. It's worth considering, maybe what's been holding ME back is stubbornness and unwillingness to try.
Intersting rely. Thanks :) :plus: (virtually)
Over ten years of attempting to avoid I and you variants has shown they can't always be avoided, though didn't mean to imply always avoiding pronouns is possible, but rather a desire to try avoiding pronouns in general.
I'd noticed that you avoid first person singular. I knew somebody else who did that. I found their prose really difficult to read, and when I asked why they avoided pronouns , was told it was basically, for the sake of concision.
I don't find yours difficult to read. Not sure if that's because you're more proficient with language , or I'm now more used to it?
Also it seems you have motives other than concision? am curious.
Initially assumed the point of the first holly holly holly sentence was to mock the idea of trying
Well, yeah. Was making fun of the idea, cos I like making fun >:D , can't deny that. But making a serious point, nonetheless. i.e. I really do believe that such constraints would be utterly unworkable., in general. But if you personally want to stretch them as far as they'll realistically stretch , and enjoy the challenge, I see no harm in that. Not mocking you as a likeably quirky individual , just the idea. Was impressed by your adept responses.
I think that any attempt to demand such proficiency and stubborn determination of everybody would fail utterly, and result in outrageous grammatical constructions all over the place . But appreciate that's not your intention (though it sounded that way at first)
-
I'd noticed that you avoid first person singular. I knew somebody else who did that. I found their prose really difficult to read, and when I asked why they avoided pronouns , was told it was basically, for the sake of concision.
I don't find yours difficult to read. Not sure if that's because you're more proficient with language , or I'm now more used to it?
Also it seems you have motives other than concision? am curious.
Practice. In the beginning it was more difficult to read. Brevity is also important in writing, but unrelated to pronouns. It's probably a couple reasons; the main one being a desire to practice projecting as impersonal which was helpful in creating a persona to use in a professional setting where text communication is primary. Part of the reason could simply be something to do. In the past, once chose to blog as a removed first person present tense narrator, for the purpose of writing about past memories. It's hard to know how a third-first person present tense narration of the past comes across to the reader, but it was interesting to do.
-
As a man that is all that I can be in the end.
It is to bad that it has in this world that the word man has a negativity with some people.
People that are Political Correct are wrong. There will never be perfect world, in a imperfect world.
So people that think this do not understand this.
-
Kevv's back!
-
My favourite part of the whole rant is "wermen". Not sure if mermen or weremen, but either way I approve.
Thanks :) Yeah, I thought that was a bit of a masterstroke, though i say so myself :green: :roses:
Wermen it is. shoulda made that clearer. The prefix " wer" or ""were " denoted a male in Old English and various other Germanic languages. Aww , let's be lazy and quote Wikipedia:
Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (Old English: wer, Old Dutch: wer, Gothic: waír, Old Frisian: wer, Old Saxon: wer, Old High German: wer, Old Norse: verr).
Etymology and usage:
The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, the words vir (as in virility) and fear (plural fir as in Fir Bolg) are the Latin and Gaelic for a male human.
In folklore and fantasy fiction, were- is often used as a prefix applied to an animal name to indicate a type of therianthropic figure or shapeshifter (e.g. "were-boar"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory, but is now commonly dropped, as in werecat and wererat. This usage can be seen as a back-formation from werewolf (literally, "man-wolf"), as there is no equivalent wifwolf yet attested.
Ofc we're still totally familiar with werewolves etc from folklore, so i probably should have used that "were"" variant, shouldn't I? But then, you wou;dn't be so tempted to pronounce it like "woman". So , OK, my choice of that spelling was quite possibly motivated by sheer devilment >:D.
Actually, I was shitposting, :-[ I much prefer to take a sideways step into fantasy than wrangle over the particulars of language. Also I have no problem with "men" as a generic term for humankind. It reads to me as obviously archaic but not insulting. I'll stick with my therianthropes and Dekan culture, where "boy" means adult male or female and "nip" means boy (or girl).
-
As a man that is all that I can be in the end.
Being a man in the end sounds naughty. :zoinks:
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Not at an individual level. But language does change and everyone who uses the language can play a small part.
In Australia we already use a lot of gender neutral words. Like "spokesperson" instead of "spokesman". Enough people decided to be part of the changes already made, and it happened.
-
As a man that is all that I can be in the end.
Being a man in the end sounds naughty. :zoinks:
If you wanted to be. :heisenberg:
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Have already decided. Seriously though, that may be the bigger stumbling point. Not necessarily and individual's personal decision, but the notion of deciding for others.
Well, exactly. It's not how it works.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Not at an individual level. But language does change and everyone who uses the language can play a small part.
In Australia we already use a lot of gender neutral words. Like "spokesperson" instead of "spokesman". Enough people decided to be part of the changes already made, and it happened.
True. But those are all fairly new words and I would argue that the gender pronouns go deeper. The use of "they" as a pronoun is in addition to "he" and "she" because both of the latter remain in good use.
Finnish does not have gender pronouns, only a single "hän" used for both "he" and "she". Most people will say "se" (meaning the neutral "it") in everyday speech, though, and so they replace one neutral word with another.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Not at an individual level. But language does change and everyone who uses the language can play a small part.
In Australia we already use a lot of gender neutral words. Like "spokesperson" instead of "spokesman". Enough people decided to be part of the changes already made, and it happened.
True. But those are all fairly new words and I would argue that the gender pronouns go deeper. The use of "they" as a pronoun is in addition to "he" and "she" because both of the latter remain in good use.
Finnish does not have gender pronouns, only a single "hän" used for both "he" and "she". Most people will say "se" (meaning the neutral "it") in everyday speech, though, and so they replace one neutral word with another.
True, but I don't see what the age of a word has to do with it.
We can change how we use language. I read an article right at the beginning of the controversy over pronouns and I've adopted the advice that I read in that article from that point on, i.e. if gender is not obvious, I try to use they/their/them as singular (which is perfectly valid in 2020) until I know the preferred gender pronoun. The reality is that if you make a mistake it's almost never an issue, unless you are deliberately trying to make it an issue as some long-winded public intellectuals are prone to do.
Each response to this thread, for example, is about a hundred times the mental energy that I would normally devote to this issue in a year.
-
lol, barely anyone wants to take "man" used in various words away, and I'm VERY open to people having different pronouns and generally have got quite progressive over the years. Very few people, even the most progressive people, think or care about it. A lot of it is performative nonsense to remove words that's barely problematic to begin with, that's why.
Gender neutral pronouns like they/them have existed for centuries, though. They have a use in this context.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Despite people literally doing so since the birth of time. See how old English compares to modern English. Why do you think it has changed so much? Language is fluid and is subject to change by many factors, and social and political means have always been part of that.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Despite people literally doing so since the birth of time. See how old English compares to modern English. Why do you think it has changed so much? Language is fluid and is subject to change by many factors, and social and political means have always been part of that.
You are missing my point. We can't simply decide that we'll redefine this or stop using that. It's not how languages evolve. Yes, languages change all the time but not through conscious decisions.
-
True, but I don't see what the age of a word has to do with it.
Was referring to established use where there's little need for change.
-
The problem, of course, is that we can't because none of us gets to decide.
Not sure what that's supposed to mean.
That none of us gets to decide how to change the language.
Despite people literally doing so since the birth of time. See how old English compares to modern English. Why do you think it has changed so much? Language is fluid and is subject to change by many factors, and social and political means have always been part of that.
You are missing my point. We can't simply decide that we'll redefine this or stop using that. It's not how languages evolve. Yes, languages change all the time but not through conscious decisions.
I just pointed out that in fact people have changed it consciously. It always has been a factor.
-
The problem is that you make it sound as conscious change, and that is simply not true.
-
Gender neutral pronouns like they/them have existed for centuries, though. They have a use in this context.
If might repeat myself?
Invented words- even invented pronouns- do take root when they answer a commonly-felt need . "She" certainly took root, didn't it? And we're going to have to be inventive here if we want to have both singular and plural gender-neatral pronouns, and to be able to tell them apart. And inasmuch as we want clear communication, I'm pretty sure that we do want both, even if some of us haven't yet noticed that. The drift towards adopting they/their/them as singulars got stuck partway because, so long as we also (and even pimarily) regard them as plurals , they are highly ambigous in any number of contexts. So, we evidently need to either invent some singulars (or commission some redundant or vulgar singulars) or else nab the plurals, and invent some new plurals.
How to get people to agree on any one particular solution is a bloody great big problem. Yeah. Maybe lobbying for one particular solution and calling people bigots when they fail to fall in line is the only fast way forward. I don't like it , though. And I like it even less that the proposed solution only adresses half the problem and leaves us no better off, linguistically.
TL;DR? or have we just reached that point when a forum discussion naturally goes round in circles as new voices join in? (not altogether disconnected from TL;DR though, i guess)
I mean, it's implicit in my post (and several otherS) that they have a use. Indeed they have been used as singulars, at need, for centuries. So we can take that much as read. What we need is a bunch of non-binary third-person singular pronouns that work in all contexts without ambiguity. That's not just "grammar snobbery". Ambiguity can kill. And in this particular instance, could potentially lead to mass shootings where only one person was supposed to be to be shot, couldn't it?
Never mind if they/them/their are accepted as singulars by grammaticists. . It doesn't follow that we can apply them as singulars willy-nilly and still be understood. Some discretion is required. If the idea is to use them indisctminately, then we''ll just have to stop stop using they/them/their as plurals. But then we'd have to invent new plurals. Seems simpler to invent new singulars...and/or or go back to that 11th C "e" (or "a" ) for he /she. That has the advantage that it's already been contracted to the limit and can't be contracted any further, so could potentially remain stable for millenia :) without causing any confusion.
The only reason e didn't endure was because the powers-that-were (back inthe 12th C.) felt a need for gender-specific pronouns . Hence he and she were born, and e fell out of use.
That demonstrates that you certainly can change these things by means of conscious decision. But you can;t control the way common usage will wear words down (especially pronouns), so it makes sense to anticipate that. Given that "them" has already been shortened to 'em , which sounds an awful lot like 'ím, i'd say we're backing a sure-fire loser taking them as an official replacement for him. Thus far, we've been able to avoid ambiguity (when it matters) by pronouncing those words more carefully. But if "them"becomes identical in meaning to "him" in all contexts, then that no longer works.
-
The problem is that you make it sound as conscious change, and that is simply not true.
But... it is a factor. Not the only factor, but definitely one of the large ones. Even in cases where it doesn't involve "PC" speak eg. trying to appear more prestigious, polite or professional. This trickles down to common vernacular.
Why do you think people started saying "heck" instead of "hell" and is commonplace in the likes of the US even to this day? It was a conscious decision, and still is. People decided "hell" was a bit offensive and changed it as such - ironically this came from conservative christians!
You claim people have no decision or say in changing language, when in fact they do it all the time.
-
The problem is that you make it sound as conscious change, and that is simply not true.
But... it is a factor. Not the only factor, but definitely one of the large ones. Even in cases where it doesn't involve "PC" speak eg. trying to appear more prestigious, polite or professional. This trickles down to common vernacular.
Why do you think people started saying "heck" instead of "hell" and is commonplace in the likes of the US even to this day? It was a conscious decision, and still is. People decided "hell" was a bit offensive and changed it as such - ironically this came from conservative christians!
You claim people have no decision or say in changing language, when in fact they do it all the time.
People have a say in how they use language but not how others use it. Having said that, if enough people do the same thing, change can happen. My point in this thread remains that it's not as easy as saying "let's reclaim the use of the word 'man'".
I agree with you re the word "heck", of course, but I'd still say that changing a language is, by and large, not a conscious process. If religion hadn't been such a big factor in everyday lives, heck probably wouldn't be in use at all. Context matters.
BTW, I found this when googling "heck etymology": https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2012/08/14/gosh-darn-it-to-heck/
-
Heck is where you go if you don't believe in gosh.
-
And then you're darned.
-
Heck is where you go if you don't believe in gosh.
:laugh: