Post 9tdddDSsWc2mmqYcgC by Mikoto@fedi.absturztau.be
(DIR) More posts by Mikoto@fedi.absturztau.be
(DIR) Post #9tdEtCJ8678sydWNXs by immychan@mastodon.social
2020-04-02T11:36:16Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
People who refuse to use the singular they for someone because it's "not grammaticaly correct " are just plain wrong, there's nothing inhetent or fixed about language, it changes to fit the needs of it's speakers
(DIR) Post #9tdF2QG3bEYaqkU0Aa by papush@niu.moe
2020-04-02T11:40:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@immychan plus it’s a fairly common thing, even back when i started learning english and didn’t really know about lgbt stuff i knew about the singular they
(DIR) Post #9tdFvgYyg9MRLXgUJE by druid@yorishiro.space
2020-04-02T11:50:16.723014Z
4 likes, 0 repeats
@immychan It is, however, utterly grammatically ambiguous.An example from a few days ago: a friend said to me "They're pretty obviously infected now", and the household she was speaking about included two people, one of whom uses they/them in the singular. What do I derive from this sentence? Are both occupants of the house infected, or just the one?Just because language is fluent doesn't mean all of it is fit for purpose, and English in particular is fill of idiotic things that create needless ambiguity. For example, these days it is acceptable to refer to a hypothetical person as "you" instead of the less ambiguous "one.""You can learn to write better if you read more." - am I insulting you for ignorance and poor writing, or merely stating that reading makes you a better writer?"One learns to write better the more one reads." - This is a general statement, the subtext may be me stating how I improved, chiding you, or anything in between, but I'm not directly saying *you* need to do that."You need deodorant to not smell bad." - Am I calling you stinky? "One needs deodorant to not smell bad." - No, I'm just being captain obvious. "They really need to get a clue." - Wait, who? Just one person or an entourage? "She really needs to get a clue." - Just her, I only have a problem with one person.And this is why language expansion is superior to repurposement. Imagine how much more sense our discussions about fear would make if we had not appropriated the suffix "-phobia" to denote prejudice. True, its more likely that an "arachnophobe" is scared of spiders than prejudiced against them, but what about an "abdrophobe"? Is the person scared of men, or prejudiced against them? One might inspire pity and help, the other might inspire scorn and shunning.
(DIR) Post #9tdG4isVRPix8H7zUm by druid@yorishiro.space
2020-04-02T11:51:54.471850Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@immychan typo there, should have been "androphobe" but I'm sure you realised.
(DIR) Post #9tdGAQHBW2D9B2OBTE by Mikoto@fedi.absturztau.be
2020-04-02T11:52:56.505801Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@immychan Totally agree. Pedantic arguments like that do not contain any real value. Similarly to "0b1000 is not in the standard" - so what?Rather arguments against it should focus on practical issues, such as that it increases confusion in certain sentences. I personally agree with Stallman in https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html. I think that we need a singular genderless alternative to refer to a person. Or even better, get rid of he/she/it and other ambiguous constructs and use a more formal language to communicate, but I think that this is too radical.
(DIR) Post #9tdN5aQl29sOtxVXVY by immychan@mastodon.social
2020-04-02T13:10:29Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@papush Exactly, it's very common to use they for people of which the gender is unknown
(DIR) Post #9tdblcfUVGcvMWKzoG by immychan@mastodon.social
2020-04-02T13:14:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Mikoto I don't like to quote Stallman or use his ideas as examples, however you're right in that English could do with a genderless pronoun or even abolish he/she/it as they're frankly superfluous
(DIR) Post #9tdbld3b3duQZHcFNo by Mikoto@fedi.absturztau.be
2020-04-02T15:54:57.577003Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@immychan > I don't like to quote Stallman or use his ideas as examplesMay I ask why?In this case I posted a link to his essay because I mostly agree with it and he is a better writer than I.
(DIR) Post #9tdddCxKPuo5CznQVE by immychan@mastodon.social
2020-04-02T16:00:00Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Mikoto other people have said similar things and I don't like to give any publicity, however minor, to Stallman
(DIR) Post #9tdddDSsWc2mmqYcgC by Mikoto@fedi.absturztau.be
2020-04-02T16:15:51.885183Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@immychan Ah, I see. I am like that too, except in the reverse. If it is possible to give publicity to Stallman (with things relevant to the topic and without spamming) I will try to do it :02teehee:
(DIR) Post #9tddmF9PcrDOcdkz5M by hector@explosion.party
2020-04-02T16:17:30.567816Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Mikoto @immychan don't let the SJWs shove RMS down the memory hole! FIGHT THE POWER
(DIR) Post #9tdiZoEyLqjfSPFQcC by shark@weeaboo.space
2020-04-02T17:11:17.554027Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@papush @immychan well, in Persian there is no difference between male and female pronoun, but I remember first when I tried to learn Arabic I realized there are differences between male female single plural and even dual (plus two other things, now imagine that they could be attached to different forms of verb differently), it may convey more information by a single sentence but it's also contains lots of redundant information, and also information with no value.But who is to decide which parts of it has value? People? Well obviously yes, because it's the people that decide which parts of it has value to them.Now we also have to consider different situations that may cause ambiguity, if a language is too hard to learn, it's not a good language, if a language is too ambiguous, it's also not a good language.It's true that people change language, but it is not certain that that change makes it a better language.