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Knowing we are Free

Started by Verbal Mike, June 28, 2008, 01:51:28 AM

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BADGE OF HONOR

I didn't really want to derail this thread to talk about it but

Quote from: Rabid Badger of God on June 29, 2008, 05:24:26 AM
SERIOUSLY THOUGH STOP MANGLING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE YOU MOUTHBREATHER


e e e e e e e e e
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

Reverend Loveshade

Quote from: Verbatim on June 29, 2008, 06:10:56 AM
That's a great little anecdote, Rev.
Go ahead and yoink the piece. Mentioning I wrote it would be nice, but only if it fits your format.

We'll give you credit, definitely.  Do you want to be called Verbatim, St. Verbatim?
"Threats should not be tolerated. They're demeaning, they're violations to human rights and no one deserves them."

-- navkat, 20 June 2007, principiadiscordia.com

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on June 30, 2008, 04:10:00 AM
Quote from: Verbatim on June 29, 2008, 06:10:56 AM
That's a great little anecdote, Rev.
Go ahead and yoink the piece. Mentioning I wrote it would be nice, but only if it fits your format.

We'll give you credit, definitely.  Do you want to be called Verbatim, St. Verbatim?

UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Verbal Mike

Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

BADGE OF HONOR

WHY ARE YOU LETTING E PUT ES FILTHY PAWS ALL OVER YOUR STUFF


E E E E E E E
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

LMNO

Quote from: triple zero on June 29, 2008, 05:11:12 PM
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on June 29, 2008, 03:51:36 PM
No, e's being gender neutral.

oh i couldn't tell, because, as far as i've learned, in the second obsessive form past tense, the h turns light pink and the gender-trace is signified by a superscripted blue asterisk.

let me fix that for him:

Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on June 29, 2008, 05:20:25 AMI have a friend who survived solitary confinement for several months (30 days is the ordinary maximum they can give you in America) by thinking about all the freedom he*z had, even in a tiny one-person cell.  Z;i'd think things like I can eat all the food they give me, or some of it, or none of it.  I can throw it on the floor.  I can be quiet, I can talk to myself, I can whistle any tune, I can sing any song I want, I can scream.  Z;ii realized that, even locked up by izs..lf, !!* had virtually endless choices.  Several others lost it; but almost every day, my friend experienced joy.

see, it's not that hard. thanks to the internet, we can now properly express these things, without having to resort to outdated methods such as just making up shit all by yourself (Goddiz forbid!)


Coffee, meet monitor.


Also, brilliant OP.

Verbal Mike

btw, this is one of those things where I basically scribbled down a sentence and then kept going to see if it can become anything worthwhile... I'm very pleasantly surprised that anyone liked it. (I was so sure it's worthless, I didn't put it on my blog till yesterday.:oops:)
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

I never understood why someone with a gender (assuming the fellow in Solitary had one) would be referred to in a gender neutral way. That is, if speaking generically about humans maybe some gender neutrality would be OK... but in a anecdote, I'm not sure it makes sense.
Did the person in prison have a gender, were they androgynous, did they have some horrible encounter with a shiv that changed their gender??
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Verbal Mike

I actually sympathize with the concept of gender-neutralizing a language... There's no actual logical reason in the first place to *necessarily* have to refer to people in a way that indicates their gender... And it makes some people uncomfortable (like my transsexual colleague, who is now starting on hormone therapy, thus producing much lulz in the workplace). Ideally, we *should* be able to refer to people in a gender-neutral way when their gender is irrelevant.
However, the English language is not gender-neutral, and like it or not, referring to people as "e" is a bastardization of the language and comes off as funny, weird, and annoying.
That said, I believe it is the right of native speakers to use a language however the fuck they want, because this is how languages change (not by governments defining a standard dialect.) So do ye as ye will.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Nast

As far as I understand it, the term "gender" is used in terms of social roles and identity choices, and the term "sex" has wholly to do with biology (you either have dangly-bits or not-dangly-bits, generally). Most often, people determine their gender as with what sex they were born with. Others, however, may feel that they are truly "male" or "female"  even though physically they were born with the wrong genitalia, i.e. transgendered people.

In our culture, "male" and "female" genders are determined if you have either a penis or a vagina. In other cultures, gender can also be determined by other factors, such as one's behaviors or social position (think two-spirited shamans in certain American Indian societies).

So, as what roles and conventions that determine what male and female really are arbitrarily determined by a society, people may feel that gender is fluid. So then people feel that pronouns in the English are to strict to express such things, and instead make up ad hoc ways to do this. Which, while perfectly acceptable, will be considered extremely tasteless if you do it outlandishly.


"If I owned Goodwill, no charity worker would feel safe.  I would sit in my office behind a massive pile of cocaine, racking my pistol's slide every time the cleaning lady came near.  Auditors, I'd just shoot."

Verbal Mike

It occurs to me that a possibly more gentle way to achieve the same thing would be to consistently use "he" or "she" (as in, you choose one and stick to it) whenever you wish to keep gender neutral. It would sound less weird, and might potentially spread over time and become an accepted convention.
(In modern Israeli Hebrew, the male gender can be used to refer to neutral objects, as no neutral gender exists in the language. However, this also has roots in the fact that a group is referred to as male if the gender is mixed [plurals have genders in Hebrew.] All this said, it would still sound just as weird as in English to refer to a vagina-bearing human as "he".)
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Verbatim on June 30, 2008, 06:40:01 PM
I actually sympathize with the concept of gender-neutralizing a language... There's no actual logical reason in the first place to *necessarily* have to refer to people in a way that indicates their gender...

well there sort of is ...

(according to what i read in Steven Pinker's The language instinct) the human brain has a sort of mold for language. and cases and tenses and such are part of that.
so a language will naturally evolve to whatever cases are relevant. which can be male/female just as well as object/place (and more).

it helps language be more easy to understand.

once transgenderneutralqueerness gets accepted and normal, i'm sure the language will change. hey, maybe these are actually the first signs of it.

i just don't like it. which is another thing about the language mold. i learned dutch and english (and some german and a tiny bit of french) and making up words is completely fine, as long as they're verbs, nouns, adverbs and such. but once you get to the pronouns (and other things too i suppose), you're hitting a completely different module in the language brain, one that is quite fundamental to understanding any language.
where i'm completely okay with german and english not having a word for "gezellig", or english and dutch not quite being able to capture the meaning of "gemuetlich", "awkward" being incredibly hard to translate, oh and the dutch interjection "sterkte!" for wishing someone well with whatever troubles they have.
but words for addressing someone .. i dunno it kinda fucks with my head. which is why i don't like it. if you want a pronoun, pick "it", it's already part of the language and it's there to be claimed for anyone. you get accepted, no more gender-awkwardness, and seriously i think it's easier for people to get used to the idea of "it" referring to a person (without any negative connotation), than to accept some extra pronoun (for which might to be learned an entire own case-system in natural languages).
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

BADGE OF HONOR

English already has a word for the generic singular human:  "he" and "him".  It's no more sexist than saying "mankind" and anyone who thinks differently is the same kind of person who thinks saying "herstory" instead of history is a brilliant idea.  Attempting to create gender neutrality in a non gender neutral language is utter idiocy.  At worst, excessively sensitive people can say "they" and "them" even though it is grammatically correct.  There is absolutely no need to run around making up new words for a non-issue.
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

Adios

Quote from: Rabid Badger of God on June 30, 2008, 07:19:04 AM
WHY ARE YOU LETTING E PUT ES FILTHY PAWS ALL OVER YOUR STUFF


E E E E E E E

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson