3 ms·

Do any literary buffs understand the gendering going on here? Do authors generally have an optional convention of just choosing? Do animals get "she" just like

Do any literary buffs understand the gendering going on here? Do authors generally have an optional convention of just choosing? Do animals get "she" just like watercrafts do? I appreciate the consistency of choosing the same pronoun for all the animals...

zwkrt 5y ago
I assume the ellipsis implies you do not appreciate the pronoun chosen.
- vmception 5y ago
  it means a lot of things that can mostly be summarized as "why" appreciate wouldn't be the right word, I don't have an actual feeling towards it, but I'm open to joining some consensus' that I find convenient, so that relies on the author's choice or convention being articulated
yodsanklai 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Animals I'm a non-native English speaker, but with the SJW thing in the US, nothing about genders really surprises me. As a rule of thumb, I'd say that putting some "she" here and there never hurts and always beats consistency. Not sure if that's what's at play here. Maybe they just want to "personify" the animals to make the story more touching.
- brippalcharrid 5y ago
  Yes, and I'd build on that to say that the author is anthropomorphizing the subjects in an attempt to give the story emotional resonance; the choice of the female pronouns also seems to be specifically aimed at eliciting empathy from the reader.
nescioquid 5y ago
> When the Virginia opossum feels threatened, she plays dead. Well, the opossum is named "Virginia", so it is only natural to use "she". As a comic in all seriousness, though, the usage here did confuse me because I thought the implication was that only female opossums exhibited this behavior. Better style would have been to use "it" and not wade into the scrum around which pronoun to use when human gender is indefinite.

zwkrt 5y ago

I assume the ellipsis implies you do not appreciate the pronoun chosen.

vmception 5y ago
it means a lot of things that can mostly be summarized as "why" appreciate wouldn't be the right word, I don't have an actual feeling towards it, but I'm open to joining some consensus' that I find convenient, so that relies on the author's choice or convention being articulated

yodsanklai 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Animals I'm a non-native English speaker, but with the SJW thing in the US, nothing about genders really surprises me. As a rule of thumb, I'd say that putting some "she" here and there never hurts and always beats consistency. Not sure if that's what's at play here. Maybe they just want to "personify" the animals to make the story more touching.

brippalcharrid 5y ago
Yes, and I'd build on that to say that the author is anthropomorphizing the subjects in an attempt to give the story emotional resonance; the choice of the female pronouns also seems to be specifically aimed at eliciting empathy from the reader.

nescioquid 5y ago

> When the Virginia opossum feels threatened, she plays dead. Well, the opossum is named "Virginia", so it is only natural to use "she". As a comic in all seriousness, though, the usage here did confuse me because I thought the implication was that only female opossums exhibited this behavior. Better style would have been to use "it" and not wade into the scrum around which pronoun to use when human gender is indefinite.