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> Sometimes avoiding those connotations are exceptionally hard That is 100% an anglo-saxon world problem since most European languages either differentiate bet

by thefz 6y ago

> Sometimes avoiding those connotations are exceptionally hard That is 100% an anglo-saxon world problem since most European languages either differentiate between words for skin color and color name, or using the color name to describe skin color isn't considered racist at all. I would stretch it even to mark it as an US-only problem.

falcolas 6y ago
Instead, European languages have a tendency to gender everything. I imagine that’s an untapped “problem” in some folks’ eyes that will boil over sooner or later.
- anon98356 6y ago
  I was recently in France and was told by a local this was actually an issue with the covid outbreak. There is a department that decides on the gender of new words and they determined covid (or some variant on that) to be feminine.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > There is a department that decides on the gender of new words TIL. Fascinating. > covid (or some variant on that) to be feminine. And here I was hoping that I was being too pessamistic.
    - RugnirViking 6y ago
      Gramatical gender has very little to do with the words it describes. For example, in a particularly confusing twist: féminisme (feminism) is a masculine noun, wheras masculinité (masculinity) is feminine. It's mostly due to the pronunciation and spelling of the word ending. Although in this case, the Académie Française decided feminine because COVID is an acronym, and the last word of that acronym is disease, and disease is a feminine word (la Maladie) because of how it is spelled.
  - JNRowe 6y ago
    Presumably, the folk at the Académie Française¹. Every couple of years they release a statement that causes a flurry of changes in the documentation of a few projects I've worked on. Always in really curious ways too, exchanging words that are common to French people in our industry with words uncommon to everyone. I kind of appreciate the quirkiness of the whole thing. ¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française
  - jobigoud 6y ago
    The issue with Covid is that we all started to say LE covid for a few months until June/July or so, maybe because we say LE coronavirus, and then they come and tell us we must say LA Covid.
- thefz 6y ago
  It's not that we gender everything, I am Italian and my language does not have the neutral pronoun. Everything is either masculine or feminine.

by thefz 6y ago

falcolas 6y ago

Instead, European languages have a tendency to gender everything. I imagine that’s an untapped “problem” in some folks’ eyes that will boil over sooner or later.

anon98356 6y ago
I was recently in France and was told by a local this was actually an issue with the covid outbreak. There is a department that decides on the gender of new words and they determined covid (or some variant on that) to be feminine.
- falcolas 6y ago
  > There is a department that decides on the gender of new words TIL. Fascinating. > covid (or some variant on that) to be feminine. And here I was hoping that I was being too pessamistic.
  - RugnirViking 6y ago
    Gramatical gender has very little to do with the words it describes. For example, in a particularly confusing twist: féminisme (feminism) is a masculine noun, wheras masculinité (masculinity) is feminine. It's mostly due to the pronunciation and spelling of the word ending. Although in this case, the Académie Française decided feminine because COVID is an acronym, and the last word of that acronym is disease, and disease is a feminine word (la Maladie) because of how it is spelled.
- JNRowe 6y ago
  Presumably, the folk at the Académie Française¹. Every couple of years they release a statement that causes a flurry of changes in the documentation of a few projects I've worked on. Always in really curious ways too, exchanging words that are common to French people in our industry with words uncommon to everyone. I kind of appreciate the quirkiness of the whole thing. ¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française
- jobigoud 6y ago
  The issue with Covid is that we all started to say LE covid for a few months until June/July or so, maybe because we say LE coronavirus, and then they come and tell us we must say LA Covid.
thefz 6y ago
It's not that we gender everything, I am Italian and my language does not have the neutral pronoun. Everything is either masculine or feminine.