3 ms·

I thought English was pretty heavy in the non-gendered side? There are some words that we remember the gender of, of course. But we don't have the hard separa

by taeric 3y ago

I thought English was pretty heavy in the non-gendered side? There are some words that we remember the gender of, of course. But we don't have the hard separation of verbs and such that apply based on the gender. Consider the French "verb gender agreement" idea. Do we have anything like that in English? I also confess I didn't think of a gender for the sun. The moon brings to mind some characters named Luna, but I wouldn't think of the moon itself being female. And then there are some words that are becoming more directly gendered in the modern world. "Guys," as the easy example. It is also interesting to me that different animals are seen as gendered in odd ways. "Cats" being one that feels more feminine to me. Despite all of our cats being male. My entire family also always refers to the chickens as "he" and "him." Such that we just don't seem to care about the animal sex/gender. (That makes me realize, has gender moved on from something that is applicable to animals?)

ghaff 3y ago
>And then there are some words that are becoming more directly gendered in the modern world. "Guys," as the easy example. I'm not sure it's so much words becoming more gendered as an increased sensitivity to casually applying male-gendered terms to everyone.
- taeric 3y ago
  Right, that is why I said "more" gendered. I don't think many would argue that it wasn't at least somewhat gendered already. (I'm sure there is someone that would, of course.) I thought I had heard some push for words other than "captain" and such, but I can't find anything coherent behind that. None of this changes the rest of what I said, though? English is one of the few languages where I can change a "she" to a "he" or "they" and the rest of the words don't have to change for the sentence to remain coherent. Right?
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Well, singular "they" is historically ungrammatical but most people find that it's a reasonable choice to be gender-neutral for people.
    - taeric 3y ago
      I'm curious on what made it ungrammatical? I'm assuming you mean "they" used to not be singular? That somewhat surprises me, as I've never been distracted by talking about someone with the pronoun "they." Indeed, google tells me that singular "they" traces back to at least 1375? (https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... is a full article on it. Amusing and interesting history of the word.)
      - ghaff 3y ago
        Yes, there is precedent for singular "they" which is one of the justifications for why it's a convenient hack for generically referring to an individual person. But I can assure you that had I done so in school growing up I would have been corrected and told to use he unless the individual in question was clearly a woman. (Or, presumably, had some female-associated role like a nurse.) And where I work now, it's probably only been in our style guide for five years or so. Prior to that we'd have used some other workaround.

by taeric 3y ago

ghaff 3y ago

>And then there are some words that are becoming more directly gendered in the modern world. "Guys," as the easy example. I'm not sure it's so much words becoming more gendered as an increased sensitivity to casually applying male-gendered terms to everyone.

taeric 3y ago
Right, that is why I said "more" gendered. I don't think many would argue that it wasn't at least somewhat gendered already. (I'm sure there is someone that would, of course.) I thought I had heard some push for words other than "captain" and such, but I can't find anything coherent behind that. None of this changes the rest of what I said, though? English is one of the few languages where I can change a "she" to a "he" or "they" and the rest of the words don't have to change for the sentence to remain coherent. Right?
- ghaff 3y ago
  Well, singular "they" is historically ungrammatical but most people find that it's a reasonable choice to be gender-neutral for people.
  - taeric 3y ago
    I'm curious on what made it ungrammatical? I'm assuming you mean "they" used to not be singular? That somewhat surprises me, as I've never been distracted by talking about someone with the pronoun "they." Indeed, google tells me that singular "they" traces back to at least 1375? (https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... is a full article on it. Amusing and interesting history of the word.)
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Yes, there is precedent for singular "they" which is one of the justifications for why it's a convenient hack for generically referring to an individual person. But I can assure you that had I done so in school growing up I would have been corrected and told to use he unless the individual in question was clearly a woman. (Or, presumably, had some female-associated role like a nurse.) And where I work now, it's probably only been in our style guide for five years or so. Prior to that we'd have used some other workaround.