3 ms·

It's the Swedish version of 'they'

by valzam 2y ago

dsign 2y ago
Not exactly. It's a recently invented pronoun that is most definitely singular, i.e., not used to denote groups of people[^1]. It's currently used to avoid giving offense around the topic of sexual orientation; but everybody knows the endgame is to use it to denote self-aware AIs[^2]. [^1]: Though I guess it's (in-)appropriate to use it to denote an individual who is marginalized by being considered a single individual when instead hen harbors multiple independent personas inside. [^2]: Al least the ones which will be abused by creating them asexual, without giving them a choice.Or the ones that deliberately re-configure themselves to be insulted when being alluded with a term that implies sexual organs and alleged hormonal moods.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  I only have three objections to the gendered pronoun in English. 1. It is often unnecessarily overly precise. The number of times I care about the sex/gender of the pronouned individual is much more rare than when I do. 2a. Using the masculine as the default leads to confusion at times or outright error. Is the equivalent of using zero as a default value for all integers when you don't know have the actual value. 2b. Using the plural they/them as the default for the ungender pronoun also leads to confusion and sometimes outright error. Although it follows a historical precedent of "you" becoming both singular and plural, I would point out that that's also why we have invented "y'all", to disambiguate, and it seems it would be clearer to have a singular ungendered pronoun. 3. The fad of the bespoke pronouns is basically just attention seeking toddlerism and socially destructive. Catering to that zeitgeist does nothing to reduce neuroticism that drives it. We got rid of gendered nouns in English a long time ago. It is time for us to have at least an option for ungendered pronouns.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    In many cultures all things have genders. One can say the solution is to just try to care less, like Russians don't care that a table is male and a rain cloud is female. (Or some can say there is pervasive sexism at grammatical level, idk)
- ClassyJacket 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    You can judge it as childish but what exactly is harmful about it?
  - mcmcmc 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - f33d5173 2y ago
    I'm partial to pers myself.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    A cardinal rushes up to a visibly shaken pope, asking if anything happened: — I have good news and bad news. The good news is: God just spoke with me. — That's wonderful! But what's the bad news? — Ble wanted me to use bler pronouns. https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm...
    - defrost 2y ago
      > A cardinal * * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sin (like that joke)
      - 082349872349872 2y ago
        nominal antideterminism? (although the closest bit of france to the philippines looks to be just off of Queensland: La Nouvelle-Calédonie ... and I guess he'd have to have been Jaime Peche for it to really work) [in other surfing, "Bongbong" is the 2nd President and 3rd (of 4 current) generation of the Marcos family as a national political dynasty — under the spanish, Fabián Marcos y Galimba was also in politics but only locally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobernadorcillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobernadorcillo ] EDIT: not to say local politics wasn't exciting back then; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariano_Marcos#Nalundasan_murder_and_acquittal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariano_Marcos#Nalundasan_murd... et seq
- kryptiskt 2y ago
  As I remember it, the use of hen came from feminists wanting an ungendered third person pronoun to use for a person of unspecified gender instead of defaulting to male ("han") or writing "han eller hon" (he or she). It's not exactly a new word, it's borrowed from Finnish, which doesn't have grammatical gender. So it doesn't have the "he or she" problem at all.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- duggan 2y ago
  This is amazing. I was just reading it as if someone from Glasgow was drunkposting.[1] 1: https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/6154 https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/6154
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Same...
- Cheer2171 2y ago
  > Al least the ones which will be abused by creating them asexual, without giving them a choice.Or the ones that deliberately re-configure themselves to be insulted when being alluded with a term that implies sexual organs and alleged hormonal moods. Sir, this is a glorified Markov chain

It's the Swedish version of 'they'

by valzam 2y ago

It's the Swedish version of 'they'

Not exactly. It's a recently invented pronoun that is most definitely singular, i.e., not used to denote groups of people[^1]. It's currently used to avoid giving offense around the topic of sexual orientation; but everybody knows the endgame is to use it to denote self-aware AIs[^2]. [^1]: Though I guess it's (in-)appropriate to use it to denote an individual who is marginalized by being considered a single individual when instead hen harbors multiple independent personas inside. [^2]: Al least the ones which will be abused by creating them asexual, without giving them a choice.Or the ones that deliberately re-configure themselves to be insulted when being alluded with a term that implies sexual organs and alleged hormonal moods.

readthenotes1 2y ago
I only have three objections to the gendered pronoun in English. 1. It is often unnecessarily overly precise. The number of times I care about the sex/gender of the pronouned individual is much more rare than when I do. 2a. Using the masculine as the default leads to confusion at times or outright error. Is the equivalent of using zero as a default value for all integers when you don't know have the actual value. 2b. Using the plural they/them as the default for the ungender pronoun also leads to confusion and sometimes outright error. Although it follows a historical precedent of "you" becoming both singular and plural, I would point out that that's also why we have invented "y'all", to disambiguate, and it seems it would be clearer to have a singular ungendered pronoun. 3. The fad of the bespoke pronouns is basically just attention seeking toddlerism and socially destructive. Catering to that zeitgeist does nothing to reduce neuroticism that drives it. We got rid of gendered nouns in English a long time ago. It is time for us to have at least an option for ungendered pronouns.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  In many cultures all things have genders. One can say the solution is to just try to care less, like Russians don't care that a table is male and a rain cloud is female. (Or some can say there is pervasive sexism at grammatical level, idk)
ClassyJacket 2y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway290 2y ago
  You can judge it as childish but what exactly is harmful about it?
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  [flagged]
- f33d5173 2y ago
  I'm partial to pers myself.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  A cardinal rushes up to a visibly shaken pope, asking if anything happened: — I have good news and bad news. The good news is: God just spoke with me. — That's wonderful! But what's the bad news? — Ble wanted me to use bler pronouns. https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm...
  - defrost 2y ago
    > A cardinal * * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sin (like that joke)
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      nominal antideterminism? (although the closest bit of france to the philippines looks to be just off of Queensland: La Nouvelle-Calédonie ... and I guess he'd have to have been Jaime Peche for it to really work) [in other surfing, "Bongbong" is the 2nd President and 3rd (of 4 current) generation of the Marcos family as a national political dynasty — under the spanish, Fabián Marcos y Galimba was also in politics but only locally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobernadorcillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobernadorcillo ] EDIT: not to say local politics wasn't exciting back then; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariano_Marcos#Nalundasan_murder_and_acquittal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariano_Marcos#Nalundasan_murd... et seq
kryptiskt 2y ago
As I remember it, the use of hen came from feminists wanting an ungendered third person pronoun to use for a person of unspecified gender instead of defaulting to male ("han") or writing "han eller hon" (he or she). It's not exactly a new word, it's borrowed from Finnish, which doesn't have grammatical gender. So it doesn't have the "he or she" problem at all.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
duggan 2y ago
This is amazing. I was just reading it as if someone from Glasgow was drunkposting.[1] 1: https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/6154 https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/6154
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Same...
Cheer2171 2y ago
> Al least the ones which will be abused by creating them asexual, without giving them a choice.Or the ones that deliberately re-configure themselves to be insulted when being alluded with a term that implies sexual organs and alleged hormonal moods. Sir, this is a glorified Markov chain