Sorry, my fault kaylasdad99!
Can **kaylasdad99 **use this in kaylasdad99’s signature? Or can manson1972? It’s making **manson1972 **giggle at work.
Well said. I don’t think there’d be much of an issue if we could come up with a different word.The article in Thudlow’s link was just clunky and kind of unpleasant to read (not the subject matter, just the use of “they”).
Maybe we, or at least I, just need more exposure to the usage. I’m willing to keep an open mind but at this point it makes for an awkward read,
nm
Go for it.
Now that we’ve shown why ridiculous extremes almost never work, can we move on?
**manson1972 **don’t consider it ridiculous. Stop oppressing manson1972!
No, but motive should be a concern. Your argument is akin to the “What if I want to marry my dog?”-argument against same sex marriage. It’s a “if this norm doesn’t apply, no norms should apply”-argument, and as with the bestiality argument it ignores the reality of the original issue and the real people involved, in favor of an imaginary reality.
manson1972, is either stupid or disingenuous and trolling, and should just go off and bugger manson1972self.
Not true. I fully embrace the rights of people to not be comfortable with the current gender-heavy pronouns that are in use. And I fully support their choices of which pronouns they want used to describe themselves.
Whatever. :rolleyes:
Getting back to the subject, I suspect that I would remember a person’s personal pronouns in about the same amount of time it would take me to remember that person’s personal name.
I’m of the opinion that he’s just having some fun with it (unfortunately driving it into the ground in the process). The source of my opinion? If he really doesn’t find it a ridiculous extreme, there’s no plausible reason for him to have been giggling.
Treating the discussion of the issue as a joke isn’t very supportive.
I find this whole OP to be ridiculous. In the sense of why does someone care what pronouns other people want? What difference does it make to the OP or anyone if they say “he” or “she” or “xe” or whatever? Personally, I don’t know anyone who wants different than the historical pronouns. But if I did, what harm is it to me to say “xe” instead of “she”? None whatsoever. And if I couldn’t remember which one to use, I would just use their name.
Every day we are inching closer to war, and people are mad about learning a new pronoun? Friggin’ ridiculous.
I was giggling at that specific phrase, not the use or non-use of pronouns. Something about it struck me as funny, that’s all.
The answer to the OP should have been everyone saying “shut up. learn a new pronoun. it’s not a big deal”
ok, I got one.
“xzhe”
Must be said with a gagging/horking-up-phlegm sound similar to speaking Hebrew or French, ending in a sort of “eeee-ay” kinda thing.
Please, practice it.
I’m still working on the def but I’ll go now with a non-cis-gendered “they” countered by an X/Y “them” when inflected on its own.
I do totally understand that using singular they is awkward. It’s new. Yes, we’ve used it for an indeterminate person for a long time, but using it for a determinate person is new.
But, the thing is, that’s the only pronoun that has stuck for the non-binary. It’s not like people haven’t tried other pronouns. But they were new words, and so no one would use them. The fact that singular they has a history made it much easier to get adopted into normal usage.
So any suggestion that we should just create another pronoun is misguided. That was already tried and failed. Just google “gender neutral pronouns” to see all the examples that no one uses.
As for those acting like people should just accept “he” or “she.” That’s as much misgendering them as saying a trans woman is actually a man who thinks he’s a woman or a trans man is a woman who thinks she’s a man. You are saying that the person is actually male or female, rather than being non-binary.
I see no reason that this would not be just as hurtful. I see no reason it’s not the same as a gay person being told they aren’t really gay. Or, to relate it more to the white hetcis male demo: what about someone making fun of you and calling you a sissy or girl because you don’t live up to manly ideals?
So, even if you find it awkward, why is that supposed to be more important than these other people? Do you think having to use a word you’re not used to is worse than having someone tell you that you’re not really the gender or sexuality you say you are?
I find it awkward, too, sometimes. I’m a fan of a webcomic that has just introduced an enby (N.B., aka non-binary) character. It can be a bit difficult to talk about them while not including the other people in the comic. But I know there are enby readers and so I do my best to do it right.
It’s not about me. It’s about them.
“hetcis”? Is that the new term?
Slippery slope arguments be damned…
You know, it’s just a matter of time before furries start squawking about species-specific pronouns.
Right. Those new pronouns failed for a simple reason: They were trying to solve a solved problem. And to drag this back to the ostensible original topic, I’m somewhat of a grumpy traditionalist when it comes to language, which is why I thunder against prescriptivism: Not because it’s pedantic, but because it’s innovative, and quite badly so!
You have a language that’s been evolving for thousands of years, in one form or another, and now some crop of prescriptivists wants to graft it to a distant cousin in the same extended family tree. Why? Because that cousin is Latin, and fashionable, and the prescriptivists are so pig-ignorant and status-proud they cannot conceive of the notion that English wouldn’t be improved by fusing it, monstrously, with a different language entirely, creating a Minotaur abomination where splitting an infinitive is something to be abhorred. Utter ignorance, made worse by pretensions to antiquity.
It’s the same story with the singular they, really. It’s a member in good standing in the English language, unfairly and idiotically singled out by people who wouldn’t know a gerund from a genitive and who honestly believe that their innovative rules are traditional and the actual observed usage is evidence of decay. They don’t have history on their side, they certainly don’t have science or evidence on their side, so they shit on the board and parade around like they won the damn game.
Re ‘This person is insisting that they are in fact multiple’
They are insisting no such thing. They are stating that hem/hir, xe, zir etc never caught on as alternate pronouns never caught on and that for various reasons they do not want be referred to by either masculine or feminine pronouns. This is not the royal plural and not pretension.