If you shared that in a non-Go forum, I really wonder what would people think/imagine from the âRecognising an Eyeâ bookmark
I have to say that I am having trouble understanding the problem some people have with how OTHER people identify and en-gender themselves ⊠how is that someone elseâs business is beyond me.
You meet someone for the first time, you greet them with the gender they seem to have. (thatâs fair since you only have visual data for the greeting)
If they are ok with that, allâs well, you probably got it right.
If they tell you âplease refer to me as this genderâ, you do the polite and reasonable thing and use that and allâs well.
In what world is it considered polite or reasonable to ignore someone else and go ânah, Iâll call you whatever I likeâ?
This is bizarre to me⊠why not show some respect to the people you are talking to?
It is what it is but over here itâs common with nicknames. Itâs gotta stick, and most of the times theyâre given not assumed. Like one person from highschool wanted to be Vasya but he just didnât look like one, it just didnât work, and yeah, everyone called him Sergey because thatâs his name, and he looked like his name. Not that he insisted much. So itâs kind of social negotiation.
And letâs not forget that the way you call someone when theyâre present and not are often very different, heh.
Whatâs more bizarre to me is that people want these things to matter. Ok, nicknames can be insulting. But pronouns? In what world does it matter if I call you he instead of ze? It should matter less, not more. But noo, letâs make every little thing matter. Politeness levels in languages are annoying too. Whateverâs going on in Japanese with them should be rethought. Because it just divides people, like oh, I gotta use respectful language because youâre so much better than me, creates unnecessary boundaries. In Russian itâs milder but still noticeable. Too bad itâs not gonna be fixed in my lifetime.
To me itâs funny because the slogan âstop gender!â doesnât make much sense and it even hints at opposing gender distinction, which is probably not at all what they intend to say.
It would be similarly funny if climate change deniers would protest with signs saying âstop climate!â, or if antivaxxers would protest with signs saying âstop covid!â.
I actually understand nicknames more, because they are usually making fun of someone actively, so you know whatâs going on. You either like the nickname or confront the people that use it, but at least you are getting to the bottom of this. Some people from school still call me a variation of my name and I do not mind it because it is funny and unique.
Pronouns, as you said, are much less important or actively insulting:
So, exactly for that reason, if someone says âlook it bothers me when you use pronoun X, please use pronoun Yâ whatâs the problem with doing so?
With a nickname, if you came up with it and the other person got mad, you might want to stick with it to annoy them. It is childish behaviour and children do that all the time: You made a nickname, someone got offended, now you want to keep using that, because you were the one that made it. but at least it makes some sense in that childish sort of way.
With a pronoun, you never actively tried to offend that person you just met. They are not your friend or your classmate or whatever. So, just use the pronoun they identify as, whatâs the problem?
Unless it is something weird and you think they are trolling you ( e.g. bug pronouns - I do not know if they are real) and you think that they are trying to embarrass you, I do not see why someone wouldnât comply with such a request.
I agree in the sense that they feel weird when you are not that old to use some of those polite forms or not that old for people to use them on you.
People calling me âmisterâ in a shop/queue while I am dressed in a T-shirt and shorts will never stop being funny.
Using a pronoun may be a way of saying that you accept a personâs transidentity, i.e. you accept the fact that they may behave like the opposite sex, for instance use the dresscode of the opposite sex. It wouldnât matter so much if it were socially acceptable for (biological) males to wear makeup and skirts, for instance.
G. K. Chesterton agreed with you more than 100 years ago, which is when this trend started. I canât find the exact quote at the moment, but he said something to this effect: The only thing worse than the decline of major morals is the elevation of minor morals.
The issue with morals that I have, is that much of it is not universal at all. Many morals are highly dependent on culture, which is very different at different places and also changes over time.
Yeah, scrubbing toilets is marginally a better ârite of manhood passageâ than some tribes that invented bungee jumping with a rope made of plants, but just barely. There are some army toilets that will make you question the existence of intelligent life on the planet
If you want a practical advice in case you do get drafted eventually, whenever you hear about cleaning chores it is VERY important to volunteer first ⊠that way you get to choose the chore.
There are three standard bathroom cleaning chores in the army: sponges for the wash-stands and wiping the mirrors and walls, brooms and mops for the floor and finally cleaning the stalls (usually left to the people with the mops).
The later you get on the volunteer list, the higher the chance you get to be last and getting the worst end of the stick (literally). You want to be on the wash-stand crew.
For anything else, never volunteer and pretend that you are barely intelligent enough to speak.
For cleaning though? Always be first in line. ALWAYS!
Edit and P.S.
And never take a shower without wearing plastic slippers. Or use a pillow without putting a towel on it.
Unless you fancy fungal infections that is âŠ
In French, they started writing nouns and adjectives in a politically correct way*, but I find it counter-intuitive and I think that when you want to promote a âfeel goodâ way of doing things, you should avoid causing confusion and frustration.
The language is the expression of unwritten social rules. Whatever we do with the grammar, gender-based issues will not be solved until society decides they must be solved.
I may be biased because Iâm too lazy to add exta dots, but I canât see how this helps with gender issues.
*They use the âmedian periodâ eg. âles musicien.ne.sâ
ETA
In Greek, some professions donât have a female version. Mayor is âÎŽÎźÎŒÎ±ÏÏÎżÏâ, man or woman. The word âΎηΌαÏÏÎŻÎœÎ±â used to be the mayorâs wife and, when it is used today, it tends to be slightly derogative.
What is more important? To call the female mayor âΎηΌαÏÏÎŻÎœÎ±â or to ensure her right to get elected?
The correct typography is âles musicien·ne·sâ but is not used by the majority of people. It may be considered as an abbreviation of âles musiciennes et les musiciensâ that some people may prefer, and itâs part of a so-called âinclusive languageâ which consists of avoiding masculine terms when referring to a group of people of both genders, and finding feminine equivalents of words which are traditionally masculine. For instance:
Already in 1958, the general de Gaulle said âFrançaises, français, aidez-moiâ. Saying âFrançais, aidez-moiâ would have had the same meaning, but de Gaulle wanted to insist on the fact that was talking to everyone, men and women. The current president often uses âcelles et ceuxâ instead of âceuxâ.
âministreâ ,âmaireâ used to be masculine nouns. Not so long ago people said âmadame le ministreâ, but now âla ministreâ and âla maireâ are both acceptable.
new words like âdirecteureâ, âprofesseureâ, âdocteureâ,âŠ
trying to use neutral terms, like âla personneâ instead of âlâhommeâ, âles droits humainsâ instead of âles droits de lâhommeâ.
I hadnât thought it would become a trend, but in the last years my inbox is full of dotted words, from all kinds of companies, organizations and schools. I guess it is catching.
Are those new pronouns (ol, elils, iel) becoming mainstream as well? Should I start using them in earnest or they are like hashtags, trendy but meaningless?
which is a complicated way of saying that official documents from the government shouldnât use median dots.
Concerning the new pronouns like âielâ, they are mainly used by people and organizations which are very politically engaged in favor of gender equality and inclusion of LGBT, but are almost never used otherwise.
I donât know Russian, but I wonder if feminized words sound silly because you are not used to them, or if particular properties of your language make them sound silly?
Thatâs a diminutive, a language construct that we also have in Dutch. MĂ€dchen just means âsmall/young maidâ. Somewhat similar as John => Johnny in English. Diminutives are always neutral gendered words, hence âDAS MĂ€dchenâ (or âHET meidje/meisjeâ in Dutch).
Diminutives are very common in Dutch (more so than in German). I heard those are also common in Russian?
The language used by unity is c#, a .NET language that can commonly be decompiled, but comments and whitespace wonât be present in the compiled code, so it cannot be recovered by decompilation.
Obfuscation of the compiled code would make it harder to understand the decompiled c# code, but I guess most programmers wonât bother to obfuscate their programs.
In Dutch it is the diminutive that makes the word neutral, and in German as well AFAIK.
For example, the woman = de vrouw in Dutch, die Frau in German, both feminine words.
But the diminutives are neutral: het vrouwtje in Dutch, das FrÀulein in German.
But the idea that children are neutral is also present. The child = het kind in Dutch and das Kind in German.
Edit: fun fact, the feminine and masculine articles in Dutch merged into one gendered article de, while German kept separate articles der and die. For most Dutch gendered words, I have no idea if the word was originally masculine or feminine.
Here, in this thread, we observe again the natural process of meandering that leads the wild denizens of the ogf back into the familiar domain of linguisticsâŠ
but at least it makes some sense in that childish sort of way.
