4 ms·

> In English, it sounds weird to use "female" as a noun to refer to people. By "it sounds weird" you actually mean "in the past few years there's been a movem

> In English, it sounds weird to use "female" as a noun to refer to people. By "it sounds weird" you actually mean "in the past few years there's been a movement to hyperfocus on this small language quirk that nobody really cared about in the past". Just so we're clear.

lph 4y ago
I'll go further than "sounds weird". It's a shibboleth that associates the speaker with certain misogynistic red-pill internet subcultures. Anybody who doesn't want that association should probably just say "women" instead.
- dontupvoteme 4y ago
  Or perhaps, just perhaps, they're non-english natives who speak English as a second (or third, fourth, etc) language and have no knowledge or interest in absurd internet-american-english witchhunts? Yes incels are utterly annoying despicable broken records of tediously uncreative low quality mental illness, i also strongly dislike them - but for monolinguist americans to start to paint with such an absurdly wide brush is far worse. Choose your bloody battles.
notamy 4y ago
I don't. I mean it genuinely sounds odd to me. Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way; what's wrong about wanting people to use language consistently? Don't push your biases onto me.
- thunky 4y ago
  > it genuinely sounds odd to me. What sounds odd to you can be perfectly normal to others. > Don't push your biases onto me. Might want to try taking your own advice.
  - notamy 4y ago
    > Might want to try taking your own advice. Please show me where I did any of: - Assume why people are using the words they are - Assume why people care/don't care about a certain issue - Tried to force my values onto people. Saying "if you didn't know, wording things this way can come off weird. Maybe try X instead? No pressure (:" is very different from "yeah well obviously your intent here is X [because of the last few years]." I'm not here to force people to change. But if people didn't know something, and do want to change on their own, I'd rather the information be there for them if they want it.
    - tokai 4y ago
      I don't care about this issue, but you opened with stating "it sounds weird". An absolute statement. Not like you are wording it here. Way to derail a thread about someone loosing their life with semantics policing.
    - thunky 4y ago
      I didn't accuse you of doing any of the things in your bullets so I can't really respond to them. What I did say is that you're pushing your biases onto others while simultaneously telling others not to do the same thing. Your life experiences have led you to the point today where you object to a certain use of the word "female". That's fine. But taking your personal objection, which is not a universially agreed upon truth, and using it to lecture someone else in a condescending "you must not know English" way is another matter and probably why you're catching heat right now.
  - freen 4y ago
    The “n” word was socially acceptable for white folks to use to refer to Black people only a few decades ago.
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
  >I mean it genuinely sounds odd to me. "To me" is the key bit here. I'm conscious of this particular issue since I've run into it on the internet a few times. Whenever I've mentioned it to a woman in a face to face conversation (in the UK) they've looked at me like I was barking mad. I even corrected my mother (she referred to "females" when talking about women) which resulted in a lengthy tirade. She is old though to be fair. I blame the Ferengi. >Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way Conversely, I'm not sure many people are keeping track of this since no-one objects to be called male if they're a man.
- goodrubyist 4y ago
  Do you have any evidence that "Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way". I think it's highly likely that you do not have enough (anecdotal) data to legitimately make a claim like that. At most you could make such a claim about "most people in my experience" but then, you wouldn't have monitored them for quite long either, just for an internet convo or so.
Entinel 4y ago
No it just sounds weird. I use the word female everyday but I would never say "young females."
lucideer 4y ago
No, it always sounded weird. Its certainly not a word my grandparents nor parents would've used in casual conversation. In the last few years there's been a hyperfocus on restricting genders that has caused a minority of native-English speakers to start overusing the word "female" with extra emphasis: which may be leading to learners to consider it a normal word to use casually, but historically it has mainly been applied in formal medical/scientific settings.
- KineticLensman 4y ago
  > Its certainly not a word my grandparents nor parents would've used in casual conversation I think this is accurate. In fact, my grandmother would have said 'ladies' or 'girls' ('gals') rather than 'women'.
deleted 4y ago
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freen 4y ago
One could say the exact same thing about the “n” word, only a few decades ago…

lph 4y ago

I'll go further than "sounds weird". It's a shibboleth that associates the speaker with certain misogynistic red-pill internet subcultures. Anybody who doesn't want that association should probably just say "women" instead.

dontupvoteme 4y ago
Or perhaps, just perhaps, they're non-english natives who speak English as a second (or third, fourth, etc) language and have no knowledge or interest in absurd internet-american-english witchhunts? Yes incels are utterly annoying despicable broken records of tediously uncreative low quality mental illness, i also strongly dislike them - but for monolinguist americans to start to paint with such an absurdly wide brush is far worse. Choose your bloody battles.

notamy 4y ago

I don't. I mean it genuinely sounds odd to me. Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way; what's wrong about wanting people to use language consistently? Don't push your biases onto me.

thunky 4y ago
> it genuinely sounds odd to me. What sounds odd to you can be perfectly normal to others. > Don't push your biases onto me. Might want to try taking your own advice.
- notamy 4y ago
  > Might want to try taking your own advice. Please show me where I did any of: - Assume why people are using the words they are - Assume why people care/don't care about a certain issue - Tried to force my values onto people. Saying "if you didn't know, wording things this way can come off weird. Maybe try X instead? No pressure (:" is very different from "yeah well obviously your intent here is X [because of the last few years]." I'm not here to force people to change. But if people didn't know something, and do want to change on their own, I'd rather the information be there for them if they want it.
  - tokai 4y ago
    I don't care about this issue, but you opened with stating "it sounds weird". An absolute statement. Not like you are wording it here. Way to derail a thread about someone loosing their life with semantics policing.
  - thunky 4y ago
    I didn't accuse you of doing any of the things in your bullets so I can't really respond to them. What I did say is that you're pushing your biases onto others while simultaneously telling others not to do the same thing. Your life experiences have led you to the point today where you object to a certain use of the word "female". That's fine. But taking your personal objection, which is not a universially agreed upon truth, and using it to lecture someone else in a condescending "you must not know English" way is another matter and probably why you're catching heat right now.
- freen 4y ago
  The “n” word was socially acceptable for white folks to use to refer to Black people only a few decades ago.
DharmaPolice 4y ago
>I mean it genuinely sounds odd to me. "To me" is the key bit here. I'm conscious of this particular issue since I've run into it on the internet a few times. Whenever I've mentioned it to a woman in a face to face conversation (in the UK) they've looked at me like I was barking mad. I even corrected my mother (she referred to "females" when talking about women) which resulted in a lengthy tirade. She is old though to be fair. I blame the Ferengi. >Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way Conversely, I'm not sure many people are keeping track of this since no-one objects to be called male if they're a man.
goodrubyist 4y ago
Do you have any evidence that "Most people who word things that way don't use the term "males" in a similar way". I think it's highly likely that you do not have enough (anecdotal) data to legitimately make a claim like that. At most you could make such a claim about "most people in my experience" but then, you wouldn't have monitored them for quite long either, just for an internet convo or so.

Entinel 4y ago

No it just sounds weird. I use the word female everyday but I would never say "young females."

lucideer 4y ago

No, it always sounded weird. Its certainly not a word my grandparents nor parents would've used in casual conversation. In the last few years there's been a hyperfocus on restricting genders that has caused a minority of native-English speakers to start overusing the word "female" with extra emphasis: which may be leading to learners to consider it a normal word to use casually, but historically it has mainly been applied in formal medical/scientific settings.

KineticLensman 4y ago
> Its certainly not a word my grandparents nor parents would've used in casual conversation I think this is accurate. In fact, my grandmother would have said 'ladies' or 'girls' ('gals') rather than 'women'.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

freen 4y ago

One could say the exact same thing about the “n” word, only a few decades ago…