The Testingtard's Lament: Boo-Hoo-in' Revolution

[Losonti Tokash]

my second cat just died a month after my first one with basically no warning

[adr-admin]

:-(

[Flagg]

Are they indoor or outdoor cats?

[Losonti Tokash]

he was supposed to be an indoor cat but he was staying at my mom's and despite repeated instructions kept putting him outside anyway

she also waited around for a day before taking him to the vet because an emergency vet would have been expensive

i am a bit upset atm

[Bakustra]

My condolences Los.

[Losonti Tokash]

stark i was taking a nap when you sent me your messages

[Flagg]

he was supposed to be an indoor cat but he was staying at my mom's and despite repeated instructions kept putting him outside anyway

she also waited around for a day before taking him to the vet because an emergency vet would have been expensive

i am a bit upset atm

That sucks man. Was your other cat outdoors in the same area before it passed? I'm just asking because if so you may wanna pay for a necropsy to see if there's some kind of poison in it's system. Where do you live, btw? Because if you live in the south cats will eat enole lizards and get flukes in their livers. I had one pass from that.

[Questor]

gender neutral terms are p. awesome idk why people get so out of shape over one small change in a language that's constantly changing

I'd say the opposition falls into two groups:

1. Jerks

2. People who are not so much afraid of the change, but the social (literally, not "society") aspects of it. For example, I spent the first 8 years of my life in Texas. When I moved to California, I had a pronounced accent, and spoke with the small vocabulary shifts common to that part of the country. I was teased quite a bit about this, and as I grew up I spent a lot of time very consciously trying to rid myself of that accent. It's gone now (unless I spend more than a few hours in Texas), but I still, 21 years later, have to think to make sure that the vocabulary shifts don't come out. It doesn't take up much mental energy, but it does use some. I still slip, particularly when stressed or distracted, and I find it very embarrassing.

The kind of shift involved in the widespread use of gender neutral pronouns would require a decent amount of mental effort to maintain at first, and for a lot of people would take a long time to ingrain. Then, if the use of gender specific terms were frowned upon socially (and they would have to be to get the gender neutral terms into circulation) people who let their guard down run social risk.

Take, for example, (and just accept the example, don't argue it) the hypothetical person who grew up before the civil rights movement. This person could be emphatically not racists, but, under times of stress, might use an outdated term. In many of the older people I've worked with, this ends up being deeply embarrassing, or worse.

So, while I think gender neutral pronouns would be great (particularly given the recent trend among some adolescents to dress/style hair/speak androgynously* and the older trend to give gender neutral or even gender reversed names, I don't know that they'll catch on quickly (natural, slow language evolution will lead to them eventually, I think).

* This only is an issue when people get offended if I guess wrong, if you accept that a style might lead people to use the incorrect pronouns, then more power to you to dress how you want.

[Questor]

Such penetrating insight.

Why is my post "so full of shit it hurts," your wonderfulness?

[Losonti Tokash]

the other cat was 16 and had cancer so i don't think they're related

this one was 4 and picked up some insanely fast acting viral infection

[Flagg]

the other cat was 16 and had cancer so i don't think they're related

this one was 4 and picked up some insanely fast acting viral infection

Oh, ok. Sorry man.

[Flagg]

Such penetrating insight.

Why is my post "so full of shit it hurts," your wonderfulness?

Luckily I guess non Americans are just smarter

You is not smarter than we be!

[Questor]

Really? Exactly which country has introduced a language shift on the level that we're discussing?

Or is it just that Stark is knee-jerking on his hatred of anything american again?

[Questor]

So, changing out pronouns to an as yet uninvented neuter is easy?

Are you out of your mind?

As for other stuff, like salesman to salesperson or stewardess to flight attendant, that mostly has already happened, about fifteen to twenty years ago. There are a couple holdouts though.

[Questor]

Stark, exactly how stupid are you?

"Gender neutral terms" encompasses two different types of things:

1) he, she, her, him, his, her - gender specific PRONOUNS - which, to my knowledge have not been surpressed anywhere IN ENGLISH. The true neuter, "it" is considered perjorative when applied to people.

2) Gender specific adjectives, which while broader, have largely disappeared. Mailman has become letter carrier, fireman has become firefighter.

I was referring to the former, because the latter started in the late eighties/early nineties.

[Instant Sunrise]

Stark, exactly how stupid are you?

"Gender neutral terms" encompasses two different types of things:

1) he, she, her, him, his, her - gender specific PRONOUNS - which, to my knowledge have not been surpressed anywhere IN ENGLISH. The true neuter, "it" is considered perjorative when applied to people.

2) Gender specific adjectives, which while broader, have largely disappeared. Mailman has become letter carrier, fireman has become firefighter.

I was referring to the former, because the latter started in the late eighties/early nineties.

I was talking about example #2 before.

But 1 is already happening with the singular "they."

[Questor]

Yeah, its just a very slow process. It'll be done inside a generation though, at least if the conveyors of formal english (english teachers) allow it. There's still a lack of a neuter though, which is annoying because the singular "they" has more than a few cases where it can be misunderstood. My concern is simply what I said, if enough social pressure is applied, this kind of thing makes people uncomfortable because it does take some small amount of concentration.

What I like about #2 is that I can't think of a single case where the new term is less flattering than the old term. Police Officer sounds far more professional than policeman. Fire Fighter is more active than fireman. Letter Carrier emphasizes the "letter" aspect of mail while downplaying the mail part. Flight Attendant is just more descriptive, not to mention correcting a symmetry issue (Steward was not the male form for stewardess, it was usually a different in a different context (i.e. not air travel, usually ships), although there were many similarities).

[Darth Fanboy]

Questor I agree with you there is definitely a lot of cultural inertia that has to be pushed aside still, but I think that changes in language happen a lot faster nowadays than it did back when we were younger and part of that has to do with how fast knowledge progressed in the late 20th century up to now, along with how much we communicate.

[Questor]

It depends on the change. Exactly how long has the southern form of the plural "you" been around? It's not even accepted in it's home area.

[Questor]

Stark? Does all of that bile hurt when it comes up?

How about instead of uttering deranged one-liners without even bothering to punctuate, perhaps you can consider that perhaps sexism (or any other ism) has little to do with why gender neutral pronouns are desirable, especially in a world where there is no ability to determine anything about someone you are conversing with, as they are on another continent. The perception of less correct speech only comes into play with widespread adoption.

Of course, having never left his basement where he rages endlessly, I'm sure Stark has never encountered any kind of negative results from speaking differently than the socially accepted norm. <- You see, right there, there is a sentence where a true neuter would have been useful. Lets try it another way:

Of course, having never left their basement where they rage* endlessly, I'm sure Stark has never encountered any kind of negative results from speaking differently than the socially accepted norm. <- Doesn't quite sound right to me.

* I'm not actually sure how to conjugate the singular they in this case, but I've gone with a traditional "they" conjugation.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

A goddamned shitfesT. Christ.

[Questor]

Well, IS mentioned opposition.

As I stated, I've never actually seen opposition to gender neutral adjectives, nor heard of any, and I'm at least IS's age. I have seen significant opposition and variation in the use of the neuter pronoun. Therefore, I submit that I actually had a certain amount of reasoning behind my statement.

You on the other hand, went off on me about adjectives despite the fact that I used the word pronoun (or it's plural) three times in my post. If I'm dumb, what does that make you?

[Flagg]

Carlin did a pretty funny bit about gender neutral terms. He was for them to a point, but I kinda never got the outrage.

[Dooey Jo]

there's a funny thing when it comes to gender neutral personal pronouns in Swedish, because obviously we too have debates about a "hir" equivalent

and some people think this is very important to have and others that this is an affront to nature

well

turns out we already have one and everyone uses it all the time

we have a personal pronoun that literally means "the person/living creature"; a non-derogative form of "it" (technically an "it" for the common grammatical gender, as opposed to the neuter - the common gender being a merge of the masculine and feminine (which basically no longer exist in Swedish); literally what "hir" is supposed to accomplish)

it's a case of everyone being stupid, and that's awesome to me

[Phantasee]

The Alberta Progressive Conservative party is working on a constitutional review right now (worst committee I ever got signed up for) and one of our amendments is to change all the language to be gender neutral. We are accomplishing it by rewriting sections so there is no need to say he or she anywhere. It reads better now, I think.

Part of this is recognition of times changing and since we are Koenig the constitution to amendments we might as well fix this now, part of it is because the leader (and this Premier) is a woman.