5 ms·

I wonder what the motivation was. Anarchism is mentioned elsewhere, so if I wonder if that’s a motivating factor here. At any rate, I appreciate that people are

by CSSer 4y ago

I wonder what the motivation was. Anarchism is mentioned elsewhere, so if I wonder if that’s a motivating factor here. At any rate, I appreciate that people are trying their best to be respectful. Personally, I’d also prefer to use “she” if that’s alright with her (it?). This becomes confusing quickly when we’re also trying to use it abstractly to refer to arguments and concepts.

ConfuSomu 4y ago
it uses both pronouns: she/her and it/its, as written on her website[1]. [1]: https://maia.crimew.gay/ https://maia.crimew.gay/
- CSSer 4y ago
  Sure, but that’s not what the page says. The Wikipedia article says that. The page says “it/she”. From what I’m familiar with, the order is usually “singular/plural” and when multiple are preferred I’m used to seeing it written as you notated it here as pairs in a list e.g. she/her, him/his, they/them, it/its, xe/xim, etc, in a list. I guess I can infer that’s the intention, however, which is fair enough. But that really didn’t have much to do with what I was discussing. That was a separate argument about how we use “it” to refer to objects as a rule. Humans are objects, but we also generally prefer to think of them as objects of a higher order variety. In conversation, we take advantage of this to parse and interpret context more quickly. Choosing to do otherwise makes it more difficult to know if the “it” I just used in this sentence is Maia, some other object, or an abstract point I’m making in this discussion. Anyway, that’s why I prefer she/her.
ripdog 4y ago
I totally understand wanting to be respectful, but respect goes both ways. She needs to respect the fact that her odd pronouns are literally breaking the English language for people who want to use them.
- Larrikin 4y ago
  I personally think that the ultimate end game for pronouns in English will be creations of new ones with no connotations (so easy to apply like names) that get incorporated into the language or more likely an eventual move to a single pronoun that applies to everyone. Chinese, for example, only differentiates in written form so would be an easy adjustment. They is every high schoolers preferred choice in essays before English teachers complain. I'm not sure how the under 20 is adjusting but in my groups of mid 20 to late 30 nobody is trying to disrespect anyone by not using preferred pronouns, but it just slips out from decades of usage, and people just end up replacing pronouns with the person's actual name after multiple times apologizing. The having to remember multiple names when meeting someone just doesn't seem tenable long term.
  - Faark 4y ago
    > more likely an eventual move to a single pronoun that applies to everyone Oh god i hope. As a german, we have pronouns for all nouns. So far no societal backlash against those, but they just seem totally useless to me (beside maybe a teeny tiny bit of "forward error correction"). You just have to learn them. Surest way to spot an immigrant. Then there is job titles. In the US, "nurse" seems to be used for both genders, but the words origin is female. Yeah, we have that as well for many jobs. Others usually have suffixes. Ofc we want to be welcoming to all. You can imagine the job listings...
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    That's more or less what singular they is, surely?
  - throwaway98797 4y ago
    zhe is a great non-gender pro-noun
- Miner49er 4y ago
  That's a problem with the English language though. There's not a singular only version of "they" and there probably should be.

by CSSer 4y ago

ConfuSomu 4y ago

it uses both pronouns: she/her and it/its, as written on her website[1]. [1]: https://maia.crimew.gay/ https://maia.crimew.gay/

CSSer 4y ago
Sure, but that’s not what the page says. The Wikipedia article says that. The page says “it/she”. From what I’m familiar with, the order is usually “singular/plural” and when multiple are preferred I’m used to seeing it written as you notated it here as pairs in a list e.g. she/her, him/his, they/them, it/its, xe/xim, etc, in a list. I guess I can infer that’s the intention, however, which is fair enough. But that really didn’t have much to do with what I was discussing. That was a separate argument about how we use “it” to refer to objects as a rule. Humans are objects, but we also generally prefer to think of them as objects of a higher order variety. In conversation, we take advantage of this to parse and interpret context more quickly. Choosing to do otherwise makes it more difficult to know if the “it” I just used in this sentence is Maia, some other object, or an abstract point I’m making in this discussion. Anyway, that’s why I prefer she/her.

ripdog 4y ago

I totally understand wanting to be respectful, but respect goes both ways. She needs to respect the fact that her odd pronouns are literally breaking the English language for people who want to use them.

Larrikin 4y ago
I personally think that the ultimate end game for pronouns in English will be creations of new ones with no connotations (so easy to apply like names) that get incorporated into the language or more likely an eventual move to a single pronoun that applies to everyone. Chinese, for example, only differentiates in written form so would be an easy adjustment. They is every high schoolers preferred choice in essays before English teachers complain. I'm not sure how the under 20 is adjusting but in my groups of mid 20 to late 30 nobody is trying to disrespect anyone by not using preferred pronouns, but it just slips out from decades of usage, and people just end up replacing pronouns with the person's actual name after multiple times apologizing. The having to remember multiple names when meeting someone just doesn't seem tenable long term.
- Faark 4y ago
  > more likely an eventual move to a single pronoun that applies to everyone Oh god i hope. As a german, we have pronouns for all nouns. So far no societal backlash against those, but they just seem totally useless to me (beside maybe a teeny tiny bit of "forward error correction"). You just have to learn them. Surest way to spot an immigrant. Then there is job titles. In the US, "nurse" seems to be used for both genders, but the words origin is female. Yeah, we have that as well for many jobs. Others usually have suffixes. Ofc we want to be welcoming to all. You can imagine the job listings...
- rsynnott 4y ago
  That's more or less what singular they is, surely?
- throwaway98797 4y ago
  zhe is a great non-gender pro-noun
Miner49er 4y ago
That's a problem with the English language though. There's not a singular only version of "they" and there probably should be.