Gendered nouns, nonstandard and otherwise

Xilph · Jul 31, 2015

Master of Squirrel-fu said:
Basically, while the Majority does play a part it takes time for it to be accepted, a long time if ever. Just being a popular bit of slang does not a new word make, it just makes popular slang. It has to actually sink into the public consciousness to the point it truly becomes the automatic default use by the vast majority. Even then it still has to be accepted by the linguists who are in charge of teaching these things for to to actually be a proper use of the language, which they are as unlike to do as allow phonic spelling, multiple punctuations, over use of commas, and reintroduce that one letter that makes the 'th' sound.

I'm aware, however that's why I explicitly mentioned it had established itself. As for linguists that's not a real requirement, the primary purpose is in studying language, not defining lanugage. Irrelevant anyway as they would agree that they can be singular I'm sure, even TanaNari agreed it is widely recognized as being able to be used as to refer to an individual, and if it's widely recognized and used which it is then it's a word. I mean the idea of the singular they counting as slang is simply ludicrous to me, I mean other than being looked down upon it seems to have no issues at all and given language is a product of use it doesn't matter what people think of it as long as they use it.

TanaNari · Jul 31, 2015

truebeasts said:
The boat issue is orthogonal to the point at hand

Either one of us is using orthogonal wrong, or I disagree. You do mean "independent of", right? The point is about being fully able to use a word for multiple meanings in our language, and specifically English pronouns running double duty as both gendered and sexless, the way boats and unidentified individuals. This is very much the point of what I'm saying. They can absolutely do both.

truebeasts said:
as is the issue about cows/cattle

Well, on a *literal* level, yeah, this one doesn't relate to human gender. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to relate to a word identifying one thing that quickly comes to mind, and also many other things that might not immediately spark. I like speaking in analogy sometimes, it's a personality quirk of mine.

truebeasts said:
heard that joke...

I remember that. When I first heard it, the "father" who died in the story was the child's priest. If the gender of doctor mom/dad/whatever was mentioned, I don't recall. This was literally decades ago.

Also... that joke very clearly discriminates against gays. Are you saying it's not possible for a boy to have two fathers? What about a step father, does he not count simply because he didn't provide some DNA? Show some sensitivity, dawg.

... Clearly, that was all a demonstration of how there is such a thing as reading too much into something.

truebeasts said:
And yet, that sentence clearly reads as either subversive or absurd

This for example. The he as a neutral is intended to be a "do not know" neutrality. It works less well when you do know... so no, it doesn't fit and it's not expected to- this is using the language unright.

Also... having spent some time in Vegas, I have to say there's not much that seems absurd to me anymore.

truebeasts said:
you get philosophers

Dead men who the vast majority of living people know only the name of and have never actually read anything penned by their hand. More have read translations, but not by much. This is your source of contention? You can't argue what happened in the ancient past for this. Any more someone can use the sacking of Carthage as Casus Belli to invade Rome.

truebeasts said:
Funny how that works.

Yeah. Funny how assholes find flimsy excuses to be assholes. This has nothing to do with language... those men clearly didn't want women in their club. The grammar is not at fault, the people involved are. Again with the things you cannot hold against the modern world. Some of my ancestors were slave owners. I owe no one for this, not even an apology. Some of my ancestors were slaves. I am owed nothing for this, not even an apology. Those who have a claim to those tragedies are long since gone from this world. Leave them there, but do not forget them. Work to ensure no new ones arise.

Approximately half of my ancestors were women. Same logic applies.

You find someone who is racist or sexist. Fine. THAT ONE PERSON is racist or sexist. If the legal system of the society lets them get away with it (at least in any harmful manner... most westerners have the constitutional freedom to be scum, as long as we do it without hurting anyone physically or financially), then that's a much larger problem and needs to be addressed. But the use of 'he' as a neutral pronoun is not part of that.

I especially refuse to use "singular they" in this situation, because it sounds like I'm painting a whole group as wrong instead of one person. Judge a man, and only that man, by his own action and intent.

truebeasts said:
When we treat "male" as an unmarked category

We "corrected" this once. When we applied the word "human" instead of the word "man" to refer to the species. It's been absorbed into the culture, sort of. But it's fundamentally a meaningless change.

pepperjack · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
The he as a neutral is intended to be a "do not know" neutrality. It works less well when you do know...

I'm pretty sure that this is actually truebeasts' point. It works less well because it's not actually neutral - it's an assumption that the referent is male unless otherwise specified. A truly neutral pronoun would be completely unmarked in this case.

TanaNari · Jul 31, 2015

pepperjack said:
It works less well because it's not actually neutral

It works less well because it's an unfamiliar usage. Like my own use of "unright". Perfectly, indisputably correct use of English grammar rules. But since it's so rarely used that way, people have to do a double take before their brain meats put the pieces together. It is an unright use of the language... it's not right, but it's also not wrong. Totally valid, just the part of us that listens on autopilot can't process it so it forces us to pay closer attention.

And everything's weird when you pay close attention to it. Stare at your hand for a couple minutes, you'll see.

pepperjack · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
It works less well because it's an unfamiliar usage. Like my own use of "unright". Perfectly, indisputably correct use of English grammar rules. But since it's so rarely used that way, people have to do a double take before their brain meats put the pieces together. It is an unright use of the language... it's not right, but it's also not wrong. Totally valid, just the part of us that listens on autopilot can't process it so it forces us to pay closer attention.

This is all true enough. I don't believe it contradicts my point, though.

A person can describe a typical American man putting on pantyhose without being grammatically incorrect, but it would still strike the typical listener as odd - because while some American men indisputably do wear pantyhose, few would picture the typical male citizen doing so.

Valette-Serafina · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
Wow. Such vehemence and failure to accept facts. You'd think this was a personal insult against you.

Your argument is not celestial truth. Back your facts up with something more than a history of sexism and bias.

I am quite insulted that you'd argue something so utterly, obviously wrong. I had extended some faith that you'd construct a solid argument, based on logic. You haven't, instead choosing to argue an absurdity. That is an insult, though it's quite clear that I was at fault for expecting manners from you. My expectations have been appropriately lowered.

They are male pronouns, yes, but not ONLY male pronouns.

A thing cannot be itself and the opposite of itself. This is basic logic.

A gendered noun is a noun that does possess a gender. A genderless noun is a noun that does not possess a gender.
The male pronouns "He", "His", and "Him" possess a gender. They are male. You cannot argue otherwise without being an idiot, so don't.
The female pronouns "She", "Hers", and "Her" possess a gender. They are female. You cannot argue otherwise without being an idiot, so don't.

As both of these sets have gender, they are gendered. Thus, it is self-evident that they cannot be non-gendered.
Thus, they are not suitable for use as gender-neutral nouns. They are not gender-neutral.

You can try and argue otherwise, but you can also try to argue that Achilles cannot outrun a tortoise. Three guesses as to which is the stronger argument.

I dispute that there is only that one meaning. History and general language pattern stands on my side with this one.

Argument from tradition is not very convincing. Find a better argument. Maybe use some actual logic, this time.

GiftofLove · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
And everything's weird when you pay close attention to it. Stare at your hand for a couple minutes, you'll see.

As an artist I can confirm this. Next time you see someone, actually look at them, and see just how weird we actually are.

That said, while I think it's admirable to want to be inclusive to all, nonstandard pronouns are nonstandard for a reason. First, you need to get a majority behind one version, because there are at least six that I can find, and then find a way for it to be used by the general population enough until it melds.

You can't just take your fave one and then get mad at people for not backing you up on, what to them, is a word you made up for no reason.

TanaNari · Jul 31, 2015

Valette-Serafina said:
A thing cannot be itself and the opposite of itself. This is basic logic.

Granted. But for that to work, you'd need to be claiming that being male is, in fact, the opposite of being genderless. Which I suppose is more accurate than saying male and female are the opposites, but it's still a nonsensical stance to take.

But I digress... you have broken my brain here. Near as I can tell, the complete basis of your argument is that a word in English cannot also mean something else in English? Really? THAT is what you're going with? I literally cannot grasp the absurdity of that stance.

Valette-Serafina said:
They are male

True.

Valette-Serafina said:
They are female

True.

Valette-Serafina said:
Thus, it is self-evident that they cannot be non-gendered

Untrue. I mean, some of them in fact already *are* nongendered pronouns. This is like arguing that flying machines are impossible. The observable universe shows you are wrong.

There's this thing known as the homonym. Look it up. I'll use my favorite.

Pussy is a word meaning a cat. It means cat. To argue otherwise would make you an idiot. True.

Cats are not human and cannot be human. True. (Sorry, furverts, maybe some day your dreams will come true).

Therefor, the word pussy cannot be applied to humans (untrue- in fact, it applies to humans in two very distinct ways- one to refer to certain parts of the female anatomy... the other to call someone a weakling or coward...).

He is a perfectly valid nongendered word and has been for literal centuries. You arguing otherwise isn't a matter of logic or reason. It's a matter of disagreeing with historical facts. You may not LIKE that it's a nongendered as well as gendered word- that is your right. But you can't dismiss the fact that they are.

I don't like Jersey Shore. But I can't claim it doesn't exist. Or, I can, but it makes me delusional. Much like the furverts, I must hope that one day my dream comes true.

UrsaTempest · Jul 31, 2015

First, my native language already gender-neutral when we need to refer to individual. So when I use he as gender-neutral, I mean it.

Second, while I agree with all Valette points...

Umm.

How to say this...

I'm honestly too lazy to change my habit.

pepperjack · Jul 31, 2015

Valette, I love you, but that argument doesn't work for me. I can imagine a hypothetical pronoun system that included a pronoun that could be either male or neutral (along with a pronoun that could be either female or neutral, because why not). The fact that the evidence suggests that 'he' is not that pronoun doesn't detract from the hypothetical possibility of its existence.

The question of whether that imaginary pronoun would retain its optional neutrality in the face of time, usage, and linguistic pragmatics is a discussion for another time and place.

truebeasts · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
Either one of us is using orthogonal wrong, or I disagree. You do mean "independent of", right? The point is about being fully able to use a word for multiple meanings in our language, and specifically English pronouns running double duty as both gendered and sexless, the way boats and unidentified individuals. This is very much the point of what I'm saying. They can absolutely do both.

Well, on a *literal* level, yeah, this one doesn't relate to human gender. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to relate to a word identifying one thing that quickly comes to mind, and also many other things that might not immediately spark. I like speaking in analogy sometimes, it's a personality quirk of mine.

It is unrelated in the sense that "the word 'she' is sometimes used to refer to inanimate objects" does not prove that "the word 'he' can equally be used to refer to human men and human women." You're trying to prove too much by the analogy.

I remember that. When I first heard it, the "father" who died in the story was the child's priest. If the gender of doctor mom/dad/whatever was mentioned, I don't recall. This was literally decades ago.

Also... that joke very clearly discriminates against gays. Are you saying it's not possible for a boy to have two fathers? What about a step father, does he not count simply because he didn't provide some DNA? Show some sensitivity, dawg.

... Clearly, that was all a demonstration of how there is such a thing as reading too much into something.

See, most of the people I've heard struggle with that joke guess right off the bat that the child's parents are gay and thus he has two dads. The point isn't that it's not possible for a kid to have two fathers--the point is that people tend to automatically think of "neutral" categories that are usually referred to in the masculine as implicitly excluding women. I am not sure how you misinterpreted this argument so thoroughly.

This for example. The he as a neutral is intended to be a "do not know" neutrality. It works less well when you do know... so no, it doesn't fit and it's not expected to- this is using the language unright.

Except that 'he' fails to actually express uncertainty about the person's gender, due to being actually a pronoun that is used for men. So when you use it, people assume that you are talking about men.

Dead men who the vast majority of living people know only the name of and have never actually read anything penned by their hand. More have read translations, but not by much. This is your source of contention? You can't argue what happened in the ancient past for this. Any more someone can use the sacking of Carthage as Casus Belli to invade Rome.

Okay, I have been resisting playing this game, but let me quote you to yourself:

TanaNari said:
You really need to work on both your reading and historical comprehension.

TanaNari said:
Besides, this using 'she' to refer to vehicles came from the naval traditions of the Mediterranean. Cultures that, quite literally, *worshiped* these vessels. That they used 'she' in this implies a great deal of reverence and love for the feminine. Since the male pronouns get to be shared with common materials and base animals, while the feminine pronouns referred to the great sources of life and death. The oceans, the storms in the ocean, and the vessels that sail said ocean and bring back food and wealth from the great beyond. All that is loved, feared, mysterious and magical.

So if there's any sexism in the origin at all, it's very much a feminism- placing the female separate, yes, but separated in the form of divinity. "Mother Earth" and all that paganistic tradition. There's your origin in a nutshell: "you are the source of life itself, you are different, you are special, you must be sheltered and protected".

TanaNari said:
I was also reminded that, in addition to ships, the feminine is used to refer to whole Countries. Something I never actually forgot, simply didn't think of earlier. Well, patriotism being what it is in the majority of the English speaking world, that's a show of reverence to the feminine unto itself.

TanaNari said:
I dispute that there is only that one meaning. History and general language pattern stands on my side with this one.

And this is where you prove you're not ready to have an actual conversation.

Instead jumping to insults and ignoring my points. Hell, you even ignored the first six or so paragraphs of what you quoted, stating that 'he' was gender neutral from the eighteenth century all the way to the 1960s.

... And we both know the 1960s change was political shit, not natural linguistic evolution.

So, let's be clear here. Either you can claim that the historical usage of the words you're talking about is super important, that the origin of calling boats "she" is meaningful, and that the evolution of the language in the last fifty years (not exactly recent, there) doesn't count because it was politically motivated, or you can whine about how no one cares about what happened in the ancient past and it's all irrelevant. Pick one, because "it's fine when I do it, but not when someone who disagrees with me does" is pure bullshit.

Also, this is probably going to be my last exchange with you on this topic. I've said what I had to say, and honestly I think at this point you're being deliberately obscurantist. Agree or disagree, but make an argument, don't do the thing where you keep equivocating about what you're actually saying in the hope that no one will notice.

GiftofLove said:
That said, while I think it's admirable to want to be inclusive to all, nonstandard pronouns are nonstandard for a reason. First, you need to get a majority behind one version, because there are at least six that I can find, and then find a way for it to be used by the general population enough until it melds.

Yeah, there are too many neutral pronouns, but getting the majority behind a single one is like herding cats. It seems like it's going to end up being singular they, which I kind of wish it wouldn't, but hey, better than nothing, I guess.

pepperjack said:
I'm pretty sure that this is actually truebeasts' point. It works less well because it's not actually neutral - it's an assumption that the referent is male unless otherwise specified. A truly neutral pronoun would be completely unmarked in this case.

Yes, exactly. A "neutral" pronoun that leads the vast majority of people to assume it refers to a man, because that's how it's used in 99% of language otherwise, is not gender neutral.

Master of Squirrel-fu · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNariOn your point about He and Him being gender neutral pronouns, I disagree. They are Gendered pronouns... That are used as gendered-neutral pronouns. It's more like how a wrench isn't a hammer but when you don't have one and need to smash some nails you can re-purpose the wrench into a very crude and inefficient one. It's still better to have a hammer, but if you had one in the first place you wouldn't be having said problem in the first place, ne?

Edit: Fuck Mcdonalds wifi for destroying my formatting, ON THE LIST!

TanaNari · Jul 31, 2015

truebeasts said:
You're trying to prove too much by the analogy

As I recall. I was talking about the ability for both to refer to nongendered traits. Perhaps it was over reaching, but it's not like that alone was my argument. Anything's easy to take apart if handled peacemeal instead of as a whole and in context. So, y'know, do please stay in the context of the posts when you quote me. Otherwise you can misrepresent my words to be almost any fucking thing you want.

truebeasts said:
I am not sure how you misinterpreted this argument so thoroughly

I didn't. I pointed out how it was a flawed argument to begin with.

truebeasts said:
the point is that people tend to automatically think of "neutral" categories that are usually referred to in the masculine as implicitly excluding women

That's your point? That doesn't seem like a flaw in the use of the word "he". That seems like a flaw in the cultural indoctrination of who can be a doctor. These two things are entirely unrelated. After all, if it were a "nurse", people would automatically assume female even if the setup were reversed and the father was the nurse.

Is that a problem? Yes, absolutely without a doubt. But the flaw is not in the use, or lack thereof, of the word "he". It's a flaw in the use of the word "Doctor".

truebeasts said:
but let me quote you to yourself:

Are you going to do it in context?

... Nope.

Alrighty then. *Cracks knuckles* Let's restore the edited context and see how that looks when I'm done.

truebeasts said:
that the origin of calling boats "she" is meaningful

Discussed specifically during a portion of the conversation dealing with historical details and the origin of language as a whole. Not merely English, but basically all of Europe and the Mediterranean. And for the purposes of that portion of the conversation, this was absolutely true. Fundamentally meaningless for the purposes of modern language, but that part was someone arguing the ancient past, an me educating them on the flaws in their assumptions. At least in part. That thought path kinda died before reaching any satisfactory conclusion.

truebeasts said:
evolution of the language in the last fifty years

In talking about the valid uses of the language (English, specifically) and the claim made that 'he' cannot be used as a gender neutral pronoun, where I was proving that it not only could, but it had for centuries. For the purposes of that portion of the conversation. True. I provided a historical basis for my claim- which is a valid thing to do dealing with possible vs impossible- to prove it's already happened.. And since 'he' is still in use as a valid genderless pronoun, well, all claims that it's not are invalid. This was part of proving that. Only part, mind you, you did only grab the snip that you thought would make me look bad after all.

Note that these two portions of the conversation, while related, are not necessarily about the exact same subject. Context must be applied or the intent is lost. Basically- I'm accusing you of deliberately misquoting me.

truebeasts said:
what happened in the ancient past and it's all irrelevant

In the context of blaming people for doing horrible things to other people, when both the people who did it and the people who it was done to are dead. In which case, as long as we remember our history and take care to avoid perpetuating the same sins upon others, it most certainly is not relevant. The moral crimes committed via the use of our language structure are moral crimes, not language crimes.

truebeasts said:
Pick one

Pick one what? None of these three sentiments are contradictory to one another. They are, when in context, mere portions of a comprehensive philosophical and logical whole. See the parable about the three blind men and the elephant. You make assumptions that the small portions you can observe, being different from one another, means that the whole is flawed. Instead of recognizing that perspective means everything.

Deliberately so, I'm fairly certain.

... If I were feeling particularly contrary, I'd quote the Song of Myself. But I'm still choosing to ignore your insults, so I'll keep from being that flippant here.

truebeasts said:
but make an argument

I have been the whole time. I've addressed the points as brought up, in the context that they applied at the time. Where their (and this is a plural!) arguments change, my counter arguments change as well.

truebeasts said:
A "neutral" pronoun that leads the vast majority of people to assume it refers to a man, because that's how it's used in 99% of language otherwise, is not gender neutral

By that definition, doctor is not gender neutral. Nor for that matter 'engineer' or 'nurse' or 'mechanic' or 'secretary'. Or 'teacher' as opposed to 'professor'.

Any case that might be made that 'he' is polluting the cultural mindset by making people immediately thing 'male' when hearing other neutrals kinda falls hard on its face when you realize there's plenty of words that automatically draw the mindset of 'female' first.

Valette-Serafina · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
Granted. But for that to work, you'd need to be claiming that being male is, in fact, the opposite of being genderless. Which I suppose is more accurate than saying male and female are the opposites, but it's still a nonsensical stance to take.

Possessing gender renders a word gendered. The opposite of gendered? Genderless, or without gender. This is really very basic.
Possessing gender ≠ Genderless.

A negative quantity is not a positive quantity, and vis versa.
Male, female, it doesn't matter which. If it's either, it's not genderless. A box cannot be empty if there's something in it.

This is basic logic.

But I digress... you have broken my brain here. Near as I can tell, the complete basis of your argument is that a word in English cannot also mean something else in English? Really? THAT is what you're going with? I literally cannot grasp the absurdity of that stance.

I'd say something rude, but I'm sure you're exaggerating. I'm quite confident that you're capable of following my logic, and either choosing to ignore it or attempting some form of ad hominem.

Untrue. I mean, some of them in fact already *are* nongendered pronouns. This is like arguing that flying machines are impossible. The observable universe shows you are wrong.

Basic logic tells me otherwise. We have covered this, and argument by consensus will not sway me. You should know better than to use it.

There's this thing known as the homonym. Look it up. I'll use my favorite.

Pussy is a word meaning a cat. It means cat. To argue otherwise would make you an idiot. ~~True.~~

Wrong. Pussy, as an abbreviation of pussy-cat, is a slang term referring to Felis catus.

Cats are not human and cannot be human. True. (Sorry, furverts, maybe some day your dreams will come true).

Therefor, the word pussy cannot be applied to humans (untrue- in fact, it applies to humans in two very distinct ways- one to refer to certain parts of the female anatomy... the other to call someone a weakling or coward...).

Your initial point in this derail was flawed. Try harder, or try addressing my argument directly. I would prefer the latter.

He is a perfectly valid nongendered word and has been for literal centuries. You arguing otherwise isn't a matter of logic or reason. It's a matter of disagreeing with historical facts. You may not LIKE that it's a nongendered as well as gendered word- that is your right. But you can't dismiss the fact that they are.

He has been the gendered default for hundreds of years, and English culture has been immensely sexist for longer. It remains sexist in many ways. This is one of them.

"He" is quite obviously not nongendered. You will have to do better than argument from tradition to make your point.

pepperjack said:
Valette, I love you, but that argument doesn't work for me. I can imagine a hypothetical pronoun system that included a pronoun that could be either male or neutral (along with a pronoun that could be either female or neutral, because why not). The fact that the evidence suggests that 'he' is not that pronoun doesn't detract from the hypothetical possibility of its existence.

You may be the finest of cheeses, Pepperjack, but I can't agree with you here. A word that independently possesses a quality cannot also be a word that independently lacks that same quality.

TanaNari · Jul 31, 2015

Valette-Serafina said:
I'm quite confident that you're capable of following my logic

No. I really can not. You are choosing to pretend actual observable facts- that of using 'he' in the gender neutral as a mechanism in English- to argue your case.

Again. You may not like how English is doing it, you may argue that there needs to be a change. If that was your argument, you might even be able to persuade me (though not to anything with the use of the letters 'z' or 'x') that a new pronoun system would improve the language as a whole. But you're currently arguing that something that's provably existed for centuries doesn't exist.

That is honestly NOT the kind of logic that my brain follows. Existence is fairly binary, quantum physics notwithstanding. How do you justify a stance where you can claim that something doesn't exist that has historical evidence and linguistic pattern proving it indeed does exist?

Valette-Serafina said:
Pussy, as an abbreviation of pussy-cat, is a slang term referring to Felis catus

Would you prefer I use the word 'bitch', then? Boobie? Some have blue feet.

Or we go for basic homonyms instead of slang. Aid. Aide. These two are similar enough to just say are the same. But what of ade? A fruit beverage (the lemon kind is fairly famous).

Ant or aunt. That's a fun one. Or at least amusing to pun with when you're twelve.

Sorry, there's no slipping away on linguistic technicality here. If one singular homonym fails, there are thousands of others. Maybe. I actually don't know how many homonyms there are in English.

pepperjack · Jul 31, 2015

Valette-Serafina said:
You may be the finest of cheeses, Pepperjack, but I can't agree with you here. A word that independently possesses a quality cannot also be a word that independently lacks that same quality.

It would be two separate morphemes, underlyingly. Like set, set, set, set, and the other dozen or so 'set's.

But I'm not terribly invested in this line of discussion, so I'm perfectly willing to drop it.

pepperjack · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
You are choosing to pretend actual observable facts- that of using 'he' in the gender neutral as a mechanism in English- to argue your case.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between (1) people using 'he' in contexts where gender is unknown or underspecified, and (2) 'he' being a gender neutral pronoun.

No one is contesting the first. The second, I believe, fails to stand up to the evidence.

truebeasts · Jul 31, 2015

TanaNari said:
Are you going to do it in context?

... Nope.

Yeah, it sure is painful to have whole paragraphs of your arguments reproduced exactly as written for the purposes of comparison to other whole paragraphs of your arguments. Way more dishonest and manipulative than taking three words out of something I wrote and making up an argument that sounds sort of vaguely similar. Definitely stick with that strategy, it's a keeper.

TanaNari · Jul 31, 2015

pepperjack said:
The second, I believe, fails to stand up to the evidence.

Yeah, that is more of a stretch. But that's as much because we're not used to reading it that way as anything.

And we're unlikely to ever need to read it that way since we only need a gender neutral pronoun (for other humans) when it comes to people who have "unknown and/or unnecessary" genders. We already have gender codes once we have this detail. In the form of 'she' and the gendered meaning of 'he'. And we already have a gender neutral word for not-people. In the form of 'it'. So there is really only one common need for using a gender neutral pronoun on people and 'he' has been valid for that for centuries.

Until we start unlocking gender atypical language... those are something of an OCP to the language. 'He' is workable enough as a gender unknown neutrality, and 'he and she' are valid for transexual genders, as long as you use the right one... but we don't exactly have anything that works for gender 'I need a flow chart for this'.

But that's not 'gender neutral', either. 'Gender other', yes, but 'other' is not 'neutral'. Unless the language evolves to give the word multiple meanings (sorry, Val, not getting baited into something THAT obvious).

truebeasts said:
Yeah, it sure is painful to have whole paragraphs of your arguments reproduced exactly as written for the purposes of comparison to other whole paragraphs of your arguments. Way more dishonest and manipulative than taking three words out of something I wrote and making up an argument that sounds sort of vaguely similar. Definitely stick with that strategy, it's a keeper.

Yeah, part of that's that something about this site's quote feature doesn't like grabbing any more than a few words at a time unless I quote the whole post in its entirety.

It's a bug. I am unsure of how to fix.

But anyway. Difference was, I grabbed your context when I quoted you. You seemingly actively avoided the context when quoting mine. Your post was immediately above mine and fresh in memory for reading. Mine were spread across a few places that require time to access and recollect. Although, to be fair, to grab MY context you'd have to quote the people I was talking to. Still, you were deliberately ignoring that context. I, on the other hand, did nothing except for address your context (re: your accusation of my not being consistent). So it's hardly comparable. But, then, I've come to expect that kind of behavior from you.

Also. You chose to ignore literally every point I made. Which I've also come to expect. I've addressed you point for point the whole way down.

Valette-Serafina · Aug 1, 2015

TanaNari said:
You are choosing to pretend actual observable facts- that of using 'he' in the gender neutral as a mechanism in English- to argue your case.

You seem to have forgotten grammar here. This sentence does not seem to make sense to me. Could you rephrase it?

Again. You may not like how English is doing it, you may argue that there needs to be a change. If that was your argument, you might even be able to persuade me (though not to anything with the use of the letters 'z' or 'x') that a new pronoun system would improve the language as a whole. But you're currently arguing that something that's provably existed for centuries doesn't exist.

No, I am not. English has used "he", "him", and "his" as default pronouns for centuries.
Default ≠ Gender-neutral. Do you understand this? They are different properties.

That is honestly NOT the kind of logic that my brain follows. Existence is fairly binary, quantum physics notwithstanding. How do you justify a stance where you can claim that something doesn't exist that has historical evidence and linguistic pattern proving it indeed does exist?

It's quite difficult, I'd imagine. Fortunately, that's not what I'm doing.

My assertion is that a word in possession of a quality such as gender cannot also be a word lacking that quality when used for the same purpose. It is not that English hasn't been using "he" as the default pronoun.

I am quite certain that my argument was presented clearly.

Would you prefer I use the word 'bitch', then?

Gendered, refers to a female dog. As an insult, refers to a female human as a female dog. Modern linguistic drift has given it a third, semi-gendered meaning: Inferior person, sexual and feminine connotations.

Quite possibly the worst example you could have picked.

Boobie? Some have blue feet.

Misspelled, and once again irrelevant. Four meanings: A stupid person, a type of bird, the losing player in a game, and a female human's breast.

Not gendered.

Or we go for basic homonyms instead of slang. Aid. Aide.

To provide assistance, and the role of providing assistance to a certain person? Really?

Not gendered.

These two are similar enough to just say are the same. But what of ade? A fruit beverage (the lemon kind is fairly famous).

Almost always prefixed by the fruit in question. Not gendered.

Ant or aunt. That's a fun one. Or at least amusing to pun with when you're twelve.

...What.
Oh, accents. Right. I'm sorry, I speak a dialect that has an audible distinction between the two.

If you can confuse the two, then I suppose this might be the first example you've given that leaps from non-gendered to gendered.
If.

Sorry, there's no slipping away on linguistic technicality here.

While I have allowed myself to be caught up in this digression, it is irreverent.

"He" is a third-person singular pronoun. It's not a word with multiple meanings. It always refers to a third person. You are arguing that it does not have an intrinsic gender assertion. I am arguing that it does have an intrinsic gender assertion.

Drop this tangent, and argue directly. I have made my point. Counter it.

truebeasts · Aug 1, 2015

TanaNari said:
But anyway. Difference was, I grabbed your context when I quoted you. You seemingly actively avoided the context when quoting mine. Your post was immediately above mine and fresh in memory for reading. Mine were spread across a few places that require time to access and recollect. Although, to be fair, to grab MY context you'd have to quote the people I was talking to. Still, you were deliberately ignoring that context. I, on the other hand, did nothing except for address your context (re: your accusation of my not being consistent). So it's hardly comparable. But, then, I've come to expect that kind of behavior from you.

Also. You chose to ignore literally every point I made. Which I've also come to expect. I've addressed you point for point the whole way down.

Cupcake, I wrote multiple posts where I addressed every argument you made point for point, followed by one post in which I explained why I was no longer going to going to engage because you weren't upholding the standards of polite discussion you keep saying you're so concerned by. By the time I wrote that last post, you'd delved well into repeating yourself. I don't hold anything against you, but I don't think we have anything useful to say to each other on this topic.

TanaNari · Aug 1, 2015

Valette-Serafina said:
You seem to have forgotten grammar here

Missed a word. Should have been "you pretend away facts. Does that make it make sense?

Valette-Serafina said:
You are arguing that it does not have an intrinsic gender assertion

Incorrect. I am arguing, and have demonstrated, it as having both a gendered associated meaning, and a meaning not inherently associated with a gender. It, like many MANY English words, does double duty. Some do much more than that, but 'he' and its variants only has 'male gender pronoun' and 'undetermined gender pronoun' to my knowledge. And giving examples of many other words in English that also pull double duty. You are ignoring this detail. Constantly.

truebeasts said:
I don't think we have anything useful to say to each other on this topic.

This I agree with fully.

pepperjack · Aug 1, 2015

TanaNari said:
It, like many MANY English words, does double duty. Some do much more than that, but 'he' and its variants only has 'male gender pronoun' and 'undetermined gender pronoun' to my knowledge.

I still contend that truebeasts' example sentence from the Wikipedia article (the one with the pantyhose) would be completely unmarked if this were true. Use of the pronoun in contexts where gender is undetermined, no matter how widespread or customary, does not make it an undetermined gender pronoun.

Master of Squirrel-Fu's analogy to using a wrench as a hammer struck me as apt.

Valette-Serafina · Aug 1, 2015

TanaNari said:
Missed a word. Should have been "you pretend away facts. Does that make it make sense?

Yes. That is incorrect, and poorly phrased. I am ignoring nothing. Argument from tradition is a fallacy, as is argument by consensus.

Incorrect. I am arguing, and have demonstrated, it as having both a gendered associated meaning, and a meaning not inherently associated with a gender. It, like many MANY English words, does double duty. And giving examples of many other words in English that also pull double duty. You are ignoring this detail. Constantly.

If it has any gendered meaning, it is not suitable as a non-gendered word because it has a gendered meaning.
Given that there is no difference in usage between he(known gender, male) and he(unknown gender, male identifier used) beyond the user's knowledge of the subject's gender, I assert that it is not in any way genderless, and that it never has been. It is not a word of two meanings. It is an assertion that all humans are male until otherwise proven.

You've argued from tradition and popularity. That's not given your argument any weight, and has reduced my respect for any argument you may make in future. If you intend to continue, you'll need to argue from logic. If you cannot, do not bother to reply.

TanaNari · Aug 1, 2015

I addressed that one. Remember the "unright" line? Just because it doesn't look right in English doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. There is nothing grammatically wrong about the word 'unright'. But it sounds weird as hell. I contend that, the word and its usage exists already, but most people aren't used to using it that way, so it just sits there.

Besides, in that particular example you're reading something that clearly and obviously is known to have a gender. The psychological assumption is once the gender becomes obvious- as either male or female- you will default to using their gender appropriate pronouns. It's how our language works. English clearly has the option to default back to neutral gender after knowing the gender, but unless you like playing with linguistics there's overwhelming odds you'll never hear someone do it. I mean, can you give me a reason why you'd want to step back to 'unknown' after having already figured it out?

The only time it even makes sense is if the gender of the person himself is just plain different. In which case, the defaults are either 'which would you prefer?' followed by 'he' (that's not always the easiest question in the world to ask, y'know) followed by 'it'. In descending order of humanizing.

How about we use the other default nongendered pronoun. "It". If you replace all the 'he' with 'it', it should probably sound at least as strange. And also horribly dehumanizing. "It puts on its panties"... That is Silence of the Lambs shit right there. So it's hardly a fair measure. Let's use an actually fair and honest analogy, shall we?

If we were to say you have a new college professor (which is good for this, that's a gender neutral title so no hints) you've never met and you're talking about him to another student as a him. And a student that has had her lets you know she's a woman. You now auto default to 'her' because you know. That student thinks nothing of this conversatin.

Whereas if this (also a valid gender neutral option in English: this or one... it's just messy as fuck) professor was a male and you were talking in the effeminate, the students would assume someone lied to you about the teacher's gender to fuck with you.

And if you were using 'it', people would assume you're an asshole.

'He' is our default genderless pronoun, and we all subconsciously run with it even if some of us feel politically compelled to reject it. We just don't like to use it or see it used that way when we know their gender already. It's one of those things that is considered disrespectful and insulting.

pepperjack said:
Master of Squirrel-Fu's analogy to using a wrench as a hammer struck me as apt.

Yeah. It's not exactly the perfect tool for the job. But to make the analogy fair it's more like using a hammer and nails for woodworking instead of screwdriver and screws. The former is quicker, easier, and will get the job done, even if the latter would look cleaner in the finished project and probably hold up better over time. At least this way you don't have to worry over all the types of screws and screwdrivers you own.

Valette-Serafina said:
If it has any gendered meaning, it is not suitable as a non-gendered word because it has a gendered meaning

Ah. This is your opinion. Which is fine, you are entitled to it. But it is not an argument which you have brought facts or compelling support to, thus far. Merely your feelings and a circular argument of "it's not, therefor it's not". I need more than that if I am to be persuaded.

I have brought mine, as best I can. Admittedly, lots of tangents, but I've demonstrated that it exists already and has worked that way, and is thus an option with a proven basis in the language that still continues. Even if it's one you dislike. But your dislike is, again, your opinion. Not fact, not logic. Until you bring something more than your feelings to this issue, I doubt the conversation's going to move forward. I think it's best for me to deal with your argument in much the way I deal with Jehova's Witnesses and those guys at work arguing over which football team is best.

I support your right to believe what you believe. But I disagree (and/or don't care). Let's just leave it at that.

pepperjack · Aug 1, 2015

TanaNari said:
Besides, in that particular example you're reading something that clearly and obviously is known to have a gender. The psychological assumption is once the gender becomes obvious- as either male or female- you will default to using their gender appropriate pronouns. It's how our language works. English clearly has the option to default back to neutral gender after knowing the gender, but unless you like playing with linguistics there's overwhelming odds you'll never hear someone do it. I mean, can you give me a reason why you'd want to step back to 'unknown' after having already figured it out?

Before responding to this, let me see if I've understood you correctly. Are you asserting that, in the panyhose example, the gender of the "average American" has become obvious, and is thus no longer unknown?

HypoSoc · Aug 1, 2015

Hm, I'm not sure I care about the finer details of the argument, being set in my ways and unwilling to be convinced otherwise (I find 'ze' 'xe' '(s)he' silly and I won't use them), but from glances, I do think that this is relevant.

Also, perhaps a slight diversion in topic, why is it the writer/speaker's duty to make use of "the proper" pronouns? Why isn't the onus on the reader/listener to try to understand the meaning of the words even if the grammars don't perfectly mesh?

TanaNari · Aug 1, 2015

pepperjack said:
Before responding to this, let me see if I've understood you correctly. Are you asserting that, in the panyhose example, the gender of the "average American" has become obvious, and is thus no longer unknown?

I am asserting that the average American at least has, and chooses to use, the tools necessary to make their gender, both biological and preferred, known to others more or less freely. The cultural dimorphism between gender roles in America is generally pretty straightforward.

Exceptions exist, of course. Including the always popular "none of your fucking business". But for the most part, if people don't know your gender(s), it's because you don't want them to know. Which is absolutely your right, but you can't rightly blame them for not knowing in that circumstance.

So I guess my answer is "near as I can tell, the average American actively makes his or her gender obvious, and thus it's usually known even to casual observers." Certainly I have been fully aware of the gender and biological sex, where they differed, of everyone I've ever observed shaving and putting on pantyhose. I'm sure that's not true for everyone, but I think usually it is.

HypoSoc said:
Also, perhaps a slight diversion in topic, why is it the writer/speaker's duty to make use of "the proper" pronouns? Why isn't the onus on the reader/listener to try to understand the meaning of the words even if the grammars don't perfectly mesh?

They have that. It's called abstract poetry. Good luck getting more than two people to agree on what it means, even after the author tells them what it means.

But less flippantly. Probably because the assumption is that the creator of a thing is supposed to know how to do it right, and the consumers of it are only there to enjoy said product, without having the skill to make it for themselves. The assumption is the creator is rewarded in other ways (cough- paid- cough),

pepperjack · Aug 1, 2015

TanaNari - either you've misunderstood me, or I've misunderstood you. Allow me to rephrase.

Take the following sentence, previously mentioned:

"The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day."

Do you assert that, in this sentence, the gender of the referent of the noun phrase 'the average American' has become obvious, and thus is no longer unknown?

Edit:

pepperjack said:
the gender of the referent of the noun phrase 'the average American'

Ugh, that's ugly. Trying again.

In the example sentence, the noun phrase 'the average American' has some referent. Do you assert that, within the sentence, the gender of this referent becomes obvious?

TanaNari · Aug 1, 2015

Oh. Wow, that is a clunky way to ask the question. I would say that no, it is deliberately unreasonable to expect most people to know gender off of it alone. Sure, on average there are more females than males total in the USA. But it's a pretty narrow margin and isn't enough to go on. I'm not even sure that "average" still favors women if we're only talking a clearly working age adult, as opposed to children and retirees.

I only know from the context that it's deliberately subversive to expect this to be a woman. And I can't prove he's not male, really. Maybe he just has a job as a Rocky Horror actor? Or part of a punk band? The cultural average suggests this is a female's morning routine, but that's not proof of anything.

Gendered nouns, nonstandard and otherwise

Well worn.

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A Gift From The Heart

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Yuri Fanatic, Archivist

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The Original

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The mind is such a fragile plaything.

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