4 ms·

"a term for a grammatical subclass to join sex in referring to either of the two primary biological forms of a species" Don't try to rewrite grammar to fit tre

"a term for a grammatical subclass to join sex in referring to either of the two primary biological forms of a species" Don't try to rewrite grammar to fit trends. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender

pintable 7y ago
I dunno how many times I've had to explain this to people. Usage and grammar literally aren't the same thing.
- rat9988 7y ago
  Well grammar is agreed on. Usage is something we agree on. Don't disagree on someone on the basis that his usage is wrong. His usage is as worthy as yours.
Angostura 7y ago
You appear to be confusing grammar and biology. Why shy away from the word 'sex' when discussing sex?
- harshreality 7y ago
  Honestly? Because sex is a borderline bad word in polite company, and can get you into trouble if someone misses context and thinks you're talking about sex sex, while gender isn't a problematic word. The United States is so damned puritan in its culture that it's risky to use words that have a normal context that's problematic. [For instance, someone could overhear it out of context and think you're being inappropriate. That may not amount to anything in isolation, but then they might start selectively watching for problematic things you say or do based on their initial mistaken impression, and if you look for something hard enough you're likely to find it.] Also, I've noticed even when I use the word sex in that context, I'm immediately on guard against making any kind of sexual reference or anything that might have double meaning, and that's just exhausting. I'd rather use gender and save myself the trouble. GP quoted the wrong definition, but the right definition is there too, also from Merriam-Webster: 2a: SEX sense 1a the feminine gender
  - manifestsilence 7y ago
    Well here's the thing: if you're talking about socially presented traits of a person, you're talking about gender. If you're needing to use the word sex, it means you're talking about the difference in shape of a person's private parts. The word is exactly as socially acceptable as it seems to be. If you're trying to compare a bunch of people in a room, like to say you should divide up teams by ___, you probably want gender, not sex. It's medical professionals who usually have cause to care about the sex of a person they know. Unless you're dating someone, and then it is sex sex you're talking about...
  - shantly 7y ago
    To support your point: I've seen products avoid using "sex" on a form in favor of "gender", when what they mean is "sex". Like, the difference was brought up in meetings, and they just didn't want to have the word "sex" appear in their program because it seemed more immediately eye-catching and distracting (and they're probably kinda right).
    - tomschlick 7y ago
      To be fair, until recently almost everyone considered gender to be a synonym for sex. Now people are taking "gender identity" and shortening it to be gender and taking exception to people using the synonym as we always have.
      - shantly 7y ago
        I saw the shift to "gender" as the social side of sex way before I ever heard or read the term "gender identity". Though maybe that is what happened and "gender identity" was just very, very niche at the time (like, 25 years ago, probably) such that its descendent term "gender" outran it, so to speak. However, I got the impression that the distinction between "gender" and "sex" predated my encounter of it by decades. Webster's 1913 does appear to regard "gender" as exclusively a grammatical quality, so far as definitions related to this topic go. So the modern usage may not be quite that old. [EDIT] huh, whaddaya know, Garner's Modern English Usage puts the move to "gender" in places where "sex" would previously have been used (to refer to all or to any part of the whole deal, not just the biological bits) as right around when I first encountered it, at least outside an initially-narrow set of academic disciplines. Go figure. It is newer than I thought, by a long shot. I figured it dated to the 60s or so in academia, mainstream by the 80s and I just hadn't encountered anyone who cared to make the distinction until later.
dahart 7y ago
The definition of gender that applies to people is “ the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex”. I don’t see the part you quoted, where is it?
- throw1234651234 7y ago
  ctrl+f
  - dahart 7y ago
    Ah, I see, it’s a quote from the explanation of grammar, not one of the definitions. As the others mentioned, this is explaining grammar, gendered words, not people.
manifestsilence 7y ago
It's not a trend, it's an increase in scientific understanding. Language is fluid, or we would all be speaking some variant of old German on this forum (try reading Beowulf in the original). It's not grammar, it's semantics. Words are social. When one person tries to rewrite the meaning of a word, unless they have significant social clout they are just going to be misunderstood. When many people rewrite the meaning of a word, they change the meaning of that word.
- astine 7y ago
  The problem with this argument is that you are using descriptivist reasoning ("Language is fluid", "Words are social.") to support a prescriptivist conclusion ("There's no such thing as a 'biological gender.'") If historically 'gender' and 'sex' were mostly synonymous but recently people have decided to use the words differently then that's fine, but it doesn't make it wrong for people to still use the words the old way.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > If historically 'gender' and 'sex' were mostly synonymous but recently people have decided to use the words differently then that's fine, but it doesn't make it wrong for people to still use the words the old way. But using the phrase “biological gender” isn't using them in the old way: the way in which they were synonymous is in reference to a idea which conflated sex, gender identity, and socially ascribed gender. If one wants to refer to that meaning, there's really no reason to prefer one or the other, though either will be unclear to many modern audiences without additional explanation referencing the outmoded concept being invoked, because the concept being referred to has lost currency. But if one is discussing the separated concepts, then one cannot honestly use “sex” for the sociological or psychological components or “gender” for the biological component and say it is the “old way”, as the old way doesn't recognize the there being separate components.
    - astine 7y ago
      "But using the phrase “biological gender” isn't using them in the old way: the way in which they were synonymous is in reference to a idea which conflated sex, gender identity, and socially ascribed gender." You just contradicted yourself. If the term 'gender' conflates several ideas, and adding the term 'biological' distinguishes them, then the previous poster hasn't changed the meaning of the word 'gender'. He's incorporated the new understanding but adapted the older language. Either way, the mere fact that nearly every person reading this understood his meaning shows that his expression was adequate to express his meaning.

pintable 7y ago

I dunno how many times I've had to explain this to people. Usage and grammar literally aren't the same thing.

rat9988 7y ago
Well grammar is agreed on. Usage is something we agree on. Don't disagree on someone on the basis that his usage is wrong. His usage is as worthy as yours.

Angostura 7y ago

You appear to be confusing grammar and biology. Why shy away from the word 'sex' when discussing sex?

harshreality 7y ago
Honestly? Because sex is a borderline bad word in polite company, and can get you into trouble if someone misses context and thinks you're talking about sex sex, while gender isn't a problematic word. The United States is so damned puritan in its culture that it's risky to use words that have a normal context that's problematic. [For instance, someone could overhear it out of context and think you're being inappropriate. That may not amount to anything in isolation, but then they might start selectively watching for problematic things you say or do based on their initial mistaken impression, and if you look for something hard enough you're likely to find it.] Also, I've noticed even when I use the word sex in that context, I'm immediately on guard against making any kind of sexual reference or anything that might have double meaning, and that's just exhausting. I'd rather use gender and save myself the trouble. GP quoted the wrong definition, but the right definition is there too, also from Merriam-Webster: 2a: SEX sense 1a the feminine gender
- manifestsilence 7y ago
  Well here's the thing: if you're talking about socially presented traits of a person, you're talking about gender. If you're needing to use the word sex, it means you're talking about the difference in shape of a person's private parts. The word is exactly as socially acceptable as it seems to be. If you're trying to compare a bunch of people in a room, like to say you should divide up teams by ___, you probably want gender, not sex. It's medical professionals who usually have cause to care about the sex of a person they know. Unless you're dating someone, and then it is sex sex you're talking about...
- shantly 7y ago
  To support your point: I've seen products avoid using "sex" on a form in favor of "gender", when what they mean is "sex". Like, the difference was brought up in meetings, and they just didn't want to have the word "sex" appear in their program because it seemed more immediately eye-catching and distracting (and they're probably kinda right).
  - tomschlick 7y ago
    To be fair, until recently almost everyone considered gender to be a synonym for sex. Now people are taking "gender identity" and shortening it to be gender and taking exception to people using the synonym as we always have.
    - shantly 7y ago
      I saw the shift to "gender" as the social side of sex way before I ever heard or read the term "gender identity". Though maybe that is what happened and "gender identity" was just very, very niche at the time (like, 25 years ago, probably) such that its descendent term "gender" outran it, so to speak. However, I got the impression that the distinction between "gender" and "sex" predated my encounter of it by decades. Webster's 1913 does appear to regard "gender" as exclusively a grammatical quality, so far as definitions related to this topic go. So the modern usage may not be quite that old. [EDIT] huh, whaddaya know, Garner's Modern English Usage puts the move to "gender" in places where "sex" would previously have been used (to refer to all or to any part of the whole deal, not just the biological bits) as right around when I first encountered it, at least outside an initially-narrow set of academic disciplines. Go figure. It is newer than I thought, by a long shot. I figured it dated to the 60s or so in academia, mainstream by the 80s and I just hadn't encountered anyone who cared to make the distinction until later.

dahart 7y ago

The definition of gender that applies to people is “ the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex”. I don’t see the part you quoted, where is it?

throw1234651234 7y ago
ctrl+f
- dahart 7y ago
  Ah, I see, it’s a quote from the explanation of grammar, not one of the definitions. As the others mentioned, this is explaining grammar, gendered words, not people.

manifestsilence 7y ago

It's not a trend, it's an increase in scientific understanding. Language is fluid, or we would all be speaking some variant of old German on this forum (try reading Beowulf in the original). It's not grammar, it's semantics. Words are social. When one person tries to rewrite the meaning of a word, unless they have significant social clout they are just going to be misunderstood. When many people rewrite the meaning of a word, they change the meaning of that word.

astine 7y ago
The problem with this argument is that you are using descriptivist reasoning ("Language is fluid", "Words are social.") to support a prescriptivist conclusion ("There's no such thing as a 'biological gender.'") If historically 'gender' and 'sex' were mostly synonymous but recently people have decided to use the words differently then that's fine, but it doesn't make it wrong for people to still use the words the old way.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If historically 'gender' and 'sex' were mostly synonymous but recently people have decided to use the words differently then that's fine, but it doesn't make it wrong for people to still use the words the old way. But using the phrase “biological gender” isn't using them in the old way: the way in which they were synonymous is in reference to a idea which conflated sex, gender identity, and socially ascribed gender. If one wants to refer to that meaning, there's really no reason to prefer one or the other, though either will be unclear to many modern audiences without additional explanation referencing the outmoded concept being invoked, because the concept being referred to has lost currency. But if one is discussing the separated concepts, then one cannot honestly use “sex” for the sociological or psychological components or “gender” for the biological component and say it is the “old way”, as the old way doesn't recognize the there being separate components.
  - astine 7y ago
    "But using the phrase “biological gender” isn't using them in the old way: the way in which they were synonymous is in reference to a idea which conflated sex, gender identity, and socially ascribed gender." You just contradicted yourself. If the term 'gender' conflates several ideas, and adding the term 'biological' distinguishes them, then the previous poster hasn't changed the meaning of the word 'gender'. He's incorporated the new understanding but adapted the older language. Either way, the mere fact that nearly every person reading this understood his meaning shows that his expression was adequate to express his meaning.