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100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or
by ohyoutravel 10y ago
100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa.
Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group.
That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.
- jrockway 10y agoRight, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
- JBReefer 10y agoI don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions. Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.
- jrockway 10y agoSo, go back to the beginning of the comment thread; it's about how a bot that only speaks English is "dystopian". English doesn't have gendered words, so we can quite easily fix the problem with almost no effort at all.