The only “baggage” attached to the pronouns "E/em/es” is that they aren’t widely known. Something that seems to be intuitively obvious to you. So I’m really puzzled by your complaint.
Not so much a complaint as how the general public is supposed to be aware of these usages.
As I stated above, I was puzzled by Whack-a-Mole’ behavior as well, but I think it all makes sense once you realize that, with his self-crucifixion in ATMB dying down, Whack-a-Mole simply decided to erect a new cross in the Pit.
In heaven, rolling His eyes at your foolishness. This is really the way you want to proceed, huh?
You got me. I waited a month for just the right Pit thread to start and then waited 150+ posts in to put up my cross.
You know me so well.
What you imagined is that the current fucked-up state of American politics, which includes an unhinged far-right majority on the Supreme Court, in any way represents either (a) a negation of over a century of progress in the empowerment of women, much of it in the last 50 years or so, some of which I listed in the part that you inexplicably failed to quote, as if it didn’t exist, or (b) the rights and empowerment of women in the rest of the civilized world that is NOT affected by the Trump-infested SCOTUS. Nor does this irrelevant tangent about Roe v Wade have any bearing whatsoever on your claim that some mysterious conspiratorial “patriarchy” is controlling the English language.
I’m sorry that you find my challenges to your arguments inconvenient. Frankly I continue to get drawn in because of the sheer wrongness of your arguments, particularly the “patriarchy” part that implies that women are helpless housewives in a male-dominated world who have no impact whatsoever on media, on writing, or on the evolution of language. I’ll say it again: it’s not 1950 any more. Though even then it wasn’t completely true!
I disagree. The meaning of “hamstrung” is more obscure, whereas “crippled” is simple, succinct, and universally understood. Furthermore, to those who understand its literal meaning, it literally means “to cripple (by cutting the hamstrings)”. And to those who understand its figurative meaning, it’s most often used in the context of “rendered completely useless or powerless, or nearly so” which is not the intended meaning in the tech context. So, for several reasons, not at all a good choice.
Given evidence that a significant number of people with disabilities would take offense at someone saying “this IBM line printer model ‘x’ is just a crippled version of the otherwise identical model ‘y’” I would be (a) surprised, and (b) willing to accommodate their wishes. Meanwhile I’ll entertain the possibility that it’s as likely – or more likely – to be the result of the machinations of the kind of self-serving do-gooders that many issue advocacy organizations turn into when they become bloated bureaucracies.
Since I’d already defined the words in this very thread, and lots of other people said they didn’t know them, i don’t get how you don’t know them AND think you are expected to know them. When in fact, if you have read the thread, you now DO know them, and know that it’s not generally common to know them.
How do you generally learn new words? Either you figure it out by context, or you ask someone using it, or you look it up. Any of those work.
This is not what Patriarchy is, any more than Racism is striclty dudes in white robes burning crosses. Implying that anything that doesn’t rise to the level of women barefoot and pregnant is A-OK and unimpacted by patriarchy is extremely unhelpful.
It’s not mysterious, and it’s not conspiratory, but yes, the patriarchy still has a lot of influence over our language.
I don’t hang out with a lot of people with physical disabilities. But i do hang out with a lot of women in male-dominated fields, like coding. And I’ve heard from several that they feel “erased” by male-gendered language when it’s used to describe a group they are part of. I’ve especially seen women complain about being one of the “guys”.
I personally didn’t think starting a sentence addressed to a woman with “duuude” was a big deal. It’s not something i would have moderated, unless the person addressed said she was annoyed. It’s not something that would have annoyed me, had i been so addressed.
But i think you are going WAY too far in the other direction of you think the issues with gendered language have gone away.
Washing Waldo’s feet.
Obviously, I was using hyperbole there, but the relevant point is that Dibble is, in fact, claiming that men predominantly control how the language evolves – this all descended from an argument about whether “dude” and “guys” is gender neutral in the modern lexicon. I have certainly heard young women address a group of other women as “hey, guys …”. Clearly not a formal usage, but it seems to be common among female friends.
Then Dibble tries to bolster his “language patriarchy” argument by inexplicably throwing in something about Roe v Wade, which as I said is both US-specific and irrelevant anyway to the language argument.
And i would suggest that unless you want to live in a cave and only talk to old people, you need to learn new words on a regular basis. I mean, not like kids, who need to learn thousands of words. But learning a new word every week or four seems like it ought to be normal for an intelligent adult. Heck, i routinely need to learn new jargon at work. I can pick up a few words for my general vocabulary, too.
You brought Jesus into this. Not me.
It’s not that “men control how language evolves”. It’s that assumptions that are patriarchal in nature, and that assume that it’s normative to be male, have a great deal of influence on our language, to the detriment of those who aren’t male.
Patriarchy != “Men”.
Exactly this. This isn’t a cabal of “men” doing it on purpose; in fact, many women contribute to or reinforce the patriarchal nature of society as well. One example - teenage girls who say “bruh”.
I’m sorry I missed your definitions.
I skimmed the thread and missed it.
I don’t think they’ve necessarily gone away, I’m opposing the view that in today’s modern world men can be said to predominantly control the evolution of language, and I was arguing specifically about those two words, dude and guys. I do see efforts being made to counter the problem of gendered language, often trying to avoid some of the artificial invented pronouns by either settling for the singular use of “they”, or countering the habitual default use of “he” by substituting “she” instead.
See above, but no one is saying this.
I fully recognize that it’s fucked up how the English language is patriarchal in nature. It really does bug me. I don’t like how “man” is a synonym for “human”. Or how “woman” is just a variation of “man”. Or how generic descriptors for people like “guy” use a male term. It still hear “mailman” and “fireman” used for mail carriers and firefighters.
I especially don’t like it when I have daughters that I want to have every opportunity in life, I want them to feel confident in themselves and feel like they are free to pursue their lives however they like without gender constraints. I don’t want them to feel like they are lesser than men.
But that’s the way our language is constructed. It’s ingrained into how we communicate. I fully support gender-neutral terms. But jumping on people for using those norms is counterproductive and looks like someone just wants to fight someone. It makes you look like an asshole. And it’s not recognizing an important facet of culture… While changing our terminology is one way of fixing these discrepancies, the other way is by changing the definitions of existing terminology. That happens too, and when you fight against that you’re fighting against those improvements. It’s rather ignorant.