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This was such a great read. I am not a linguist, let alone a philologist, but I had this thought. The modern use of "gender" to mean social aspects of sex (or

This was such a great read. I am not a linguist, let alone a philologist, but I had this thought. The modern use of "gender" to mean social aspects of sex (or sex) and the historical use of "gender" to mean sex are still actively used. In a very real sense, these are exclusive and oppositional categories, so any ambiguous use of "gender" in contemporary English should be interpreted as auto-antonymal use. That is, depending on what the speaker means, their meaning could be interpreted in exactly the opposite way. Auto-antonyms are rare in English, but the obvious ones (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples) do not cause confusion. I would suggest that outside of specific professional settings—philosophy, biology, medicine, linguistics—"gender" is almost exclusively an auto-antonym. Perhaps this contributes to the nearly impossible discourse on the subject.

kgeist 5y ago
Here in Russian, the word for gender literally means "kind" or "genus", it's not related to gender/sex.
- vehemenz 5y ago
  We do have the same meaning in English, but it's been obsolete for a while. From the Oxford English Dictionary: †2. a. A class of things or beings distinguished by having certain characteristics in common; (as a mass noun) these regarded collectively; kind, sort. Obsolete. In earliest use: genus, as opposed to species (see note at genus n. 1).
- Tagbert 5y ago
  That is the origin of the word gender. It only relatively recently came to be applied to sexual roles and identity.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > It only relatively recently came to be applied to sexual roles and identity. OED has it being used equivalent to “sex” (in the sense of male v. female categories) back to 1474, which is not all that recent. It’s only recently that models splitting “sex” (physical traits), “ascribed gender” or just “gender” (socially recognized role), and “gender identity” (self-identified social role) as distinct things with distinct names have come into use, but “gender” wasn’t plucked out of linguistics alone for its use in regard to such models, but from its longstanding use as another label for “sex” as a categorization axis. (That it was also used in linguistics, which might be viewed as social, may be why it got picked for the social aspects and “sex” for the physical, I suppose.) [0] https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/77468 https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/77468
alexfrydl 5y ago
I think bad faith misrepresentations like this are the primary source of the supposed “impossible discourse” on the “subject.” What “subject” by the way? Who are the specific people who use this supposedly confusing, brand-new meaning of the word “gender,” who are so impossible to talk to?
- vehemenz 5y ago
  Bad faith might be part of it. I think bad faith is more conducive when neither side of an argument are able to communicate clearly enough for the other. If that's the case, then a better understanding of English is the remedy, not formulating needlessly metaphysical conceptions of gender. But I still think there is more going on. The subject in question is gender and gender identity. To begin with, even educated folks operating in good faith do not have a particularly coherent account of either. As I suggest, part of this could be due to the particulars of the English language—the auto-antonymity of "gender"—but mainly I think it's conceptual confusion.
  - alexfrydl 5y ago
    Okay, gotcha. So who are the two sides of this argument, and what are they arguing about exactly? I'm just trying to get clarification on who it is in particular that needs to stop “formulating needlessly metaphysical conceptions of gender” (i.e. making things up) and accept your biologically-grounded definition instead. Who are these strange, confusing people who even “educated” people can't understand?
    - implements 5y ago
      Essentially the two sides are arguing about: The concept of sex as a social category should be replaced by gender. An individual’s gender arrises from a strong innate subjective feeling, and is presented by a socially recognised performance of masculinity or femininity. Contrast with: The concept of sex is a biological category linked to bodily role in the reproductive process. An individual’s gender is just what sex they are.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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denton-scratch 5y ago
Auto-antonyms: "literally", meaning literally "not literally" (i.e. meaning figuratively). See M-W on "literally". If you don't already know what the word means, you won't find out from M-W. They define the word using the word itself; recursion is divine, but it's an impentrable tangle because they're defining that word recursively, while saying it means the opposite of itself. It's like self-modifying code. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  The colloquial meaning of “literally” isn’t quite “not literally”; it’s more of a generic intensifier.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    That's not what M-W says. They've gone the whole hog, and said that one meaning of "literally" is "not literally".
    - School-Cotton 5y ago
      Dictionaries are trailing a moving target and are not always perfectly accurate.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > That's not what M-W says. M-W is [EDIT: or would be, see below], in that case, simply in error. The OED gets the colloquial use right: “Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’.” It also traces it back to at least 1769, which should shut up those people treating it as some new corruption. https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/109061 https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/109061 EDIT: On actually reading the M-W link, the characterization upthread is false: it doesn't say it means “not literally” but that it is “used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible”. This seems to just be a poorer wording of the OED take, especially in light of the extended discussion of that usage that is presented below thr definition proper.
leephillips 5y ago
The use of “gender” to mean anything aside from the grammatical category is similar to the use of “god”, as analysed by AJ Ayer in Language, Truth, and Logic. Ayer points out that when people talk about “god” they have no coherent idea in mind, but are simply making a noise with their mouths. Therefore, he concludes, no statement that refers to “god” can have meaning, including describing oneself as an atheist. When I hear people making the “gender” noise I know that they, too, are babbling.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  This is insufferable. Your sentence contains the word "god" -- does that make it meaningless? No, because of the use-mention distinction.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Your point is not intended to be serious is it? My comment also includes the word “gender”. As we both understand the use-mention distinction, what, exactly, is insufferable?
    - thewakalix 5y ago
      Atheism is the negative space defined by 'belief in a god'. The position that 'god' is incoherent is in that negative space. Atheism is no more incoherent than your own comment, just for including the quoted word 'god' in its description. Wasn't Ayer an atheist, anyway? I think you might be misrepresenting him. Edit: Well, there's a subtlety here. The set of beliefs that concern god is an incoherent category (for the sake of argument), but the set of beliefs which concern 'god' is not. (I also think that theism is a fairly coherent category, one which describes people more than beliefs, but that's a different argument.)
      - leephillips 5y ago
        Because you didn’t read the book so you think I’m lying about what he said? He held various opinions about these issues through his life, as one would expect from an active thinker. But in the book I mentioned he specifically says that it is incoherent to claim to be an atheist or an agnostic, because both these descriptions implicitly refer to the “god” non-concept. And no, you can’t define a negative space by using a word that doesn’t refer to anything. EDIT: As you’ve seen fit to edit your comment while I was replying to it, I’m done.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The modern use of "gender" to mean social aspects of sex (or sex) and the historical use of "gender" to mean sex are still actively used. In a very real sense, these are exclusive and oppositional categories No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. (There are factions which are opposed on normative relations between the two categories, with one holding that the physical category should definitely determine the social one and one not holding to that view, but that doesn't make them antonyms; it does make them potentially confusing if care is not taken to assure what sense “gender” is being used in in a particular context.)
- vehemenz 5y ago
  > No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. I'm only talking about the usage of "gender." This an empirical linguistic question. Some people literally mean sex, others literally mean everything but. As a native English speaker, I see both frequently. Hop on Twitter and you can see both within 30 seconds. This doesn't preclude additional usages among laymen and academic disciplines. In the sense that nature is the opposite of nurture, "gender" used in the "everything but" way is completely at odds with sex. Likewise when a male identifies their gender as "female" or as a "woman," we get a different understanding of their gender depending on the meaning of "gender" used. At best we might say that male isn't quite the opposite of female, but in terms of reproduction, those are the exclusive roles. I feel satisfied enough to call these meanings opposites, and "gender" looks similar enough to other auto-antonyms. We have two very different evaluations of "gender" that can shift the meaning of an entire sentence to mean the opposite thing.

kgeist 5y ago

Here in Russian, the word for gender literally means "kind" or "genus", it's not related to gender/sex.

vehemenz 5y ago
We do have the same meaning in English, but it's been obsolete for a while. From the Oxford English Dictionary: †2. a. A class of things or beings distinguished by having certain characteristics in common; (as a mass noun) these regarded collectively; kind, sort. Obsolete. In earliest use: genus, as opposed to species (see note at genus n. 1).
Tagbert 5y ago
That is the origin of the word gender. It only relatively recently came to be applied to sexual roles and identity.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It only relatively recently came to be applied to sexual roles and identity. OED has it being used equivalent to “sex” (in the sense of male v. female categories) back to 1474, which is not all that recent. It’s only recently that models splitting “sex” (physical traits), “ascribed gender” or just “gender” (socially recognized role), and “gender identity” (self-identified social role) as distinct things with distinct names have come into use, but “gender” wasn’t plucked out of linguistics alone for its use in regard to such models, but from its longstanding use as another label for “sex” as a categorization axis. (That it was also used in linguistics, which might be viewed as social, may be why it got picked for the social aspects and “sex” for the physical, I suppose.) [0] https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/77468 https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/77468

alexfrydl 5y ago

I think bad faith misrepresentations like this are the primary source of the supposed “impossible discourse” on the “subject.” What “subject” by the way? Who are the specific people who use this supposedly confusing, brand-new meaning of the word “gender,” who are so impossible to talk to?

vehemenz 5y ago
Bad faith might be part of it. I think bad faith is more conducive when neither side of an argument are able to communicate clearly enough for the other. If that's the case, then a better understanding of English is the remedy, not formulating needlessly metaphysical conceptions of gender. But I still think there is more going on. The subject in question is gender and gender identity. To begin with, even educated folks operating in good faith do not have a particularly coherent account of either. As I suggest, part of this could be due to the particulars of the English language—the auto-antonymity of "gender"—but mainly I think it's conceptual confusion.
- alexfrydl 5y ago
  Okay, gotcha. So who are the two sides of this argument, and what are they arguing about exactly? I'm just trying to get clarification on who it is in particular that needs to stop “formulating needlessly metaphysical conceptions of gender” (i.e. making things up) and accept your biologically-grounded definition instead. Who are these strange, confusing people who even “educated” people can't understand?
  - implements 5y ago
    Essentially the two sides are arguing about: The concept of sex as a social category should be replaced by gender. An individual’s gender arrises from a strong innate subjective feeling, and is presented by a socially recognised performance of masculinity or femininity. Contrast with: The concept of sex is a biological category linked to bodily role in the reproductive process. An individual’s gender is just what sex they are.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

denton-scratch 5y ago

Auto-antonyms: "literally", meaning literally "not literally" (i.e. meaning figuratively). See M-W on "literally". If you don't already know what the word means, you won't find out from M-W. They define the word using the word itself; recursion is divine, but it's an impentrable tangle because they're defining that word recursively, while saying it means the opposite of itself. It's like self-modifying code. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

School-Cotton 5y ago
The colloquial meaning of “literally” isn’t quite “not literally”; it’s more of a generic intensifier.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  That's not what M-W says. They've gone the whole hog, and said that one meaning of "literally" is "not literally".
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    Dictionaries are trailing a moving target and are not always perfectly accurate.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > That's not what M-W says. M-W is [EDIT: or would be, see below], in that case, simply in error. The OED gets the colloquial use right: “Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’.” It also traces it back to at least 1769, which should shut up those people treating it as some new corruption. https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/109061 https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/109061 EDIT: On actually reading the M-W link, the characterization upthread is false: it doesn't say it means “not literally” but that it is “used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible”. This seems to just be a poorer wording of the OED take, especially in light of the extended discussion of that usage that is presented below thr definition proper.

leephillips 5y ago

The use of “gender” to mean anything aside from the grammatical category is similar to the use of “god”, as analysed by AJ Ayer in Language, Truth, and Logic. Ayer points out that when people talk about “god” they have no coherent idea in mind, but are simply making a noise with their mouths. Therefore, he concludes, no statement that refers to “god” can have meaning, including describing oneself as an atheist. When I hear people making the “gender” noise I know that they, too, are babbling.

thewakalix 5y ago
This is insufferable. Your sentence contains the word "god" -- does that make it meaningless? No, because of the use-mention distinction.
- leephillips 5y ago
  Your point is not intended to be serious is it? My comment also includes the word “gender”. As we both understand the use-mention distinction, what, exactly, is insufferable?
  - thewakalix 5y ago
    Atheism is the negative space defined by 'belief in a god'. The position that 'god' is incoherent is in that negative space. Atheism is no more incoherent than your own comment, just for including the quoted word 'god' in its description. Wasn't Ayer an atheist, anyway? I think you might be misrepresenting him. Edit: Well, there's a subtlety here. The set of beliefs that concern god is an incoherent category (for the sake of argument), but the set of beliefs which concern 'god' is not. (I also think that theism is a fairly coherent category, one which describes people more than beliefs, but that's a different argument.)
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Because you didn’t read the book so you think I’m lying about what he said? He held various opinions about these issues through his life, as one would expect from an active thinker. But in the book I mentioned he specifically says that it is incoherent to claim to be an atheist or an agnostic, because both these descriptions implicitly refer to the “god” non-concept. And no, you can’t define a negative space by using a word that doesn’t refer to anything. EDIT: As you’ve seen fit to edit your comment while I was replying to it, I’m done.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> The modern use of "gender" to mean social aspects of sex (or sex) and the historical use of "gender" to mean sex are still actively used. In a very real sense, these are exclusive and oppositional categories No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. (There are factions which are opposed on normative relations between the two categories, with one holding that the physical category should definitely determine the social one and one not holding to that view, but that doesn't make them antonyms; it does make them potentially confusing if care is not taken to assure what sense “gender” is being used in in a particular context.)

vehemenz 5y ago
> No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. I'm only talking about the usage of "gender." This an empirical linguistic question. Some people literally mean sex, others literally mean everything but. As a native English speaker, I see both frequently. Hop on Twitter and you can see both within 30 seconds. This doesn't preclude additional usages among laymen and academic disciplines. In the sense that nature is the opposite of nurture, "gender" used in the "everything but" way is completely at odds with sex. Likewise when a male identifies their gender as "female" or as a "woman," we get a different understanding of their gender depending on the meaning of "gender" used. At best we might say that male isn't quite the opposite of female, but in terms of reproduction, those are the exclusive roles. I feel satisfied enough to call these meanings opposites, and "gender" looks similar enough to other auto-antonyms. We have two very different evaluations of "gender" that can shift the meaning of an entire sentence to mean the opposite thing.