I'm not an author but this explanation on Dictionary.com might be interesting for you authors who need to use the word: https://www.dictionary.com/e/fiance-vs-fiancee/. Notice the remark "Especially given the increased social awareness of non-binary gender issues".
After reading this remark:
For those who don't want to choose between the terms, there appears to be a growing trend toward using fiancé as the gender-neutral form for both a man and a woman.
Using the male form as the gender-neutral form?
That's contrary to what the woke crowd here in Germany proclaims. Here they argue against any only male generic words and insist on genderisation.
BTW, IMO this article is slightly ambiguous about the use of the two terms. Do you use the male form because (s)he is betrothed to a male subject or because the betrothed is a male?
My understanding is you use fiancé if the betrothed is a male and fiancée if the betrothed is a female, both regardless of the sex of the subject.
So you have four combinations:
his fiancé (M/M),
his fiancée (M/F),
her fiancé (F/M),
her fiancée (F/F).
HM.
So you have four combinations:
his fiancé (M/M),
his fiancée (M/F),
her fiancé (F/M),
her fiancée (F/F).
Then what about:
asexual (any variant—since he supposedly doesn't view them that way) Their finac?
ambisexual or bisexual (MF) his fiancéishes?
queer (MF) his ???
Female Trans (FF) their fiancées?
necrophiliac MF his body?
But weighing in on the topic, this point only matters when you're dealing with a gender-specific language, which English isn't, so it really doesn't fricken matter. Best case, drop both and just use the standard: his/her finace (no designating accent marks at all).
After all, the accent marks were only intended to convey the original French gender designation.
After all, the accent marks were only intended to convey the original French gender designation
No, in French, the accent is there for correct pronunciation, without it the 'e' would be silent.
The additional e after the é makes it female and this e is silent, causing both forms – fiancé and fiancée – pronounced exactly the same. Same as blond and blonde.
HM.
"Especially given the increased social awareness of non-binary gender issues".
Goody for them. They're free to use whichever term they want, just as I am. If my writing offends, they don't read it.
"Especially given the increased social awareness of non-binary gender issues".
I'm not sure that's true. What are the issues? The woke crowd insist that non-binary people must have more rights than ordinary people but they don't explain why, other than since they're a minority they're by definition oppressed :-(
AJ
I'm not sure that's true. What are the issues? The woke crowd insist that non-binary people must have more rights than ordinary people but they don't explain why, other than since they're a minority they're by definition oppressed
If that's 'woke-speak', then yours is the anti-woke voice of the oppressors telling everyone to 'shut the FUCK up and move to the back of the bus where you belong!'
Since you're presumable Older, White, Christian and Male, you could call yourself Ms. Pudding Pop for all you care and no one would ever say a thing. But for an oppressed minority, they're just trying to be heard, expressing how they'd preferred to be called (ex: anything other than "Hey Fuckwads, we're gonna crack some skulls and leave you bleeding in the ditch!").
Why is someone politely requesting a modicum of respect suddenly declared their 'demanding rights'? They're simply stating their perspective. Nothing else, and when the FUCK have you EVER listened to ANYTHING a member of a minority has ever said anyway?
Geez, go find a clan rally somewhere!
Why is someone politely requesting a modicum of respect suddenly declared their 'demanding rights'?
Saying you have to use this pronoun which I made up to refer to me, is not requesting a modicum of respect.
If there is an enforcement body using a threat of actual force to compel you to use said pronoun, it's 'demanding rights'.
If someone is asking you to use said pronoun, it's 'requesting a modicum of respect'.
That's the difference. If there's no enforced compulsion, it's a request. Someone saying 'if you don't use my pronouns, I'll say mean things about you' isn't compulsion, that's free speech. You're free to say mean things about them, too.
People like to throw around the 'more rights than ordinary people' line, and almost always that's either an overstatement or a misreading.
I'd be interested in a reference to any law requiring the use of preferred pronouns. What are the penalties? Fines, imprisonment, etc? What governmental agencies enforce these laws? I oppose the use of police/courts/etc in enforcing a particular sort of speech on someone (with obvious exceptions such as compelled testimony, not lying to law enforcement, etc), and - if that's being done - it should be stopped. Total agreement.
Employers are not an 'enforcement body'. Are you suggesting that employers should be prohibited from setting work standards and disciplining employees who do not meet their standards?
You do understand how easily anything of that sort could backfire, don't you?
Try the Canadian Human Rights Laws.
I am in a profession in which the state has taken away people's right to work for failure to comply with the state's directives on speech.
If there's no enforced compulsion
A professor at a Calif university was asked by a white student to grade black students more leniently after George Floyd's death.
The white teacher replied sarcastically. I don't remember what he said, but he tried to make a point that all students should be graded equally.
He was suspended by the university. As a Jew, he was attacked with anti-semitism. His consulting business lost $500,000 because he was labeled a racist.
To say there's no "forced compulsion" for these types of things is naive.
Mixed bag, there. The university is his employer and has the right of suspension of an employee. I disagree with that decision - but I can't see anyone saying to the university 'sorry, but no, you can't suspend an employee'.
I disagree with attacking him with anti-Semitism, but, again, what should be done? Remove the free speech of those attacking him?
Similarly, on what basis should his business be protected from boycotts (for whatever reason)?
Again: I don't agree with what happened to him, but that is not "forced compulsion" in a legal sense. No one threatened him with arrest or ordered him under threat of violence to comply.
What is your proposed solution? That's the thing I've never seen. Do we restrict speech (compulsively) if that speech is an 'attack'? Do we ban (compulsively) boycotts? Do we restrict employers from disciplining employees who - in the sole judgment of the employer - bring disrepute?
I hope everyone sees the potential negative consequences there.
Again: I don't agree with what happened to him, but that is not "forced compulsion" in a legal sense. No one threatened him with arrest or ordered him under threat of violence to comply.
You are being overly narrow in limiting it to a legal sense.
There are social justice groups that will start twitter storms, petition drives, and letter writing campaigns demanding that schools expel someone or employers fire someone who said something they didn't like.
It exists and schools and employers cave in to it.
No, I'm not being "overly narrow". I'm making an important point. "Forced compulsion" seems (to me, at least) to imply the use of actual force. Violence, perhaps, or the use of the police and courts to impose sanctions. I am opposed to that, and I suspect nearly everyone is opposed to that. But that makes it a handy strawman, too, because it's so easy to oppose "forced compulsion."
There are social justice groups that will start twitter storms, petition drives, and letter writing campaigns demanding that schools expel someone or employers fire someone who said something they didn't like.
Of course there are! That's called Free Speech. Yes, there's more of it now because we have really great communication tools, but NONE of that is new. Boycotts are a very old technique (long predating the name 'boycott') as are 'letter-writing campaigns' (a term that's inherently dating itself). That's normal. People don't like something, they complain about it, they encourage employers to take action against it, they refuse to buy products associated with it, etc. That's NOT "forced compulsion" under any reasonable view of the term.
Same question, different post. How would you suggest the following should be changed:
1) Person X wants to be called Z.
2) Person Y refuses to call person X Z.
3) Person X complains about person Y being a mean no-good jerk.
4) Person X has lots of friends who also complain about person Y being a mean no-good jerk. Person Y is sad about being called a mean no-good jerk. Person Y's employer is sad that everyone is claiming they're no-good jerks by employing a no-good jerk. People aren't buying Y's employers products, and people aren't wanting to hire Y either.
Sucks for Y - but what would you change, and how, and how would that affect every other use of free speech? Mind you, Y is totally free to get their own 'anti-wokist' friends to start their own twitter storms, petition drives, and letter writing campaigns complaining about the evil X. That happens fairly often. If Y gets more people riled up than X, is Y suddenly the one guilty of "forced compulsion"?
The notion of conflating free speech and action campaigns based on it with "forced compulsion" is extremely troubling to me. When that's done, it's easy to say things like 'Ok, you can have free speech - but only when your free speech doesn't inconvenience anyone else." Feel free to replace 'inconvenience' with whatever word you want there (short of 'kill' or the like - we do draw lines around incitement of criminal acts) and the point remains the same.
Is this only 'bad' when it's those nefarious 'wokists'? Suppose person X sees Y, an apparently corrupt cop, taking money to let bad guys go free. Is it bad when X tweets about it and gets their friends to start petition drives and letter writing campaigns to pressure the police chief to fire Y? Or suppose person X sees politician Y do something they don't like. Is it bad for them to tweet about it, recruit a candidate to run against Y, organize voters to vote against Y, run ads about what a no-goodnik Y is? That will cost Y their job, too.
In an ideal world, weird-pronoun-loving people would ask nicely and most people would use their weird pronouns because that's polite and people usually try to be polite. Some wouldn't, and that would be fine. That's actually the world we live in 99-and-a-bunch-of-nines percent of the time. I've been in literally hundreds of meetings where someone didn't use someone's particular pronoun, and I have yet to see a twitter storm, a petition drive, or a letter writing campaign. I haven't even seen a sternly worded letter to HR (for the percentage of these cases that were during work hours).
But sometimes people get upset and complain about something, and they have friends who get upset and complain, too. That's their right, and it doesn't become "forced compulsion" when a bunch of people get upset and raise a stink.
Sucks for Y - but what would you change, and how, and how would that affect every other use of free speech?
I don't know. I don't claim to have all the answers.
The notion of conflating free speech and action campaigns based on it with "forced compulsion" is extremely troubling to me.
I find the notion that people think it's okay to use those kinds of tactics against private individuals (not politicians) very troubling.
It's a very small step from there to the idea that it is okay to use the government to do those things.
ETA:
When that's done, it's easy to say things like 'Ok, you can have free speech - but only when your free speech doesn't inconvenience anyone else."
Going after private individuals with boycotts and direct action campaigns because you don't like something they said is effectively saying "free speech for me, but not for you".
I don't know. I don't claim to have all the answers.
I'm good with that, and I'm fine with saying "Gee, it kinda stinks when people are mean to each other, including when people are mean to someone who was mean to someone else." It's when that's conflated to "forced compulsion" that I have a problem.
To me, the parallel is along the lines of someone (X) who's a lousy date. They don't bathe, they say inappropriate things at dinner, they're rude, arrogant, whatever. Word gets out and few people want to date them. Their response: "I'm being forced to conform to these things! It's abuse! I should get to be who I am!" No, X can be who they are. Others are free to react the way they want, individually or in groups. That includes the right to not associate with X and to encourage others to not associate with X.
It's a very small step from there to the idea that it is okay to use the government to do those things.
I completely disagree. I don't see the logic in that at all. It's a small step away from the idea of voluntary collective action to 'us[ing] the government'? How?
Are you saying that a bunch of people deciding not to date X is somehow equivalent to the government saying "No one is allowed to date X, and will be arrested or fined if they do?" That seems way off to me.
Going after private individuals with boycotts and direct action campaigns because you don't like something they said is effectively saying "free speech for me, but not for you".
I see it the complete other way around. To me, what you're saying is effectively "free speech for me, but not for you". You're saying that you should have the right to say what you want, respond to people how you want, use the pronouns you want, but they and their friends shouldn't get to use their free speech to respond to you.
How is it free speech for 'them' but not for 'you'? What prevents the private individual from counterboycotting and running their own direct action campaign? Or are you claiming that free speech should be consequence-free no matter the content or popularity?
"Free speech" does not and has never meant "consequence-free speech". It means that the government does not impose sanctions upon the speech. You can say what you want, and no one will jail you or (legally, anyway) shoot you or the like. Others can react in the way that want. That might include firing you, if you live in a right-to-work state or your employment contract includes behavior clauses. That might include not patronizing your businesses. That might include calling you mean names. That's their right.
If Y, instead of being a mean jerk about pronouns, had stood up and proudly espoused the Nazi ideology line by line, trumpted Mein Kampf as the greatest book ever written, and advocated for the resumption of the "Final Solution", should there be no boycotts, no direct action campaigns? Is that out of bounds?
A group of people using their free speech in a law-abiding manner to bring attention to things they don't like seems more like the goal of free speech than a misuse. I have certainly seen 'twitter mobs' attack things that I think are great and espouse things that I think are terrible. That's fine - I strongly support their right to do so. I've seen politicians on both sides drummed out of office for things that I think shouldn't have been major issues. That's also fine - no force was used to compel them, simply public disapproval.
I completely disagree. I don't see the logic in that at all. It's a small step away from the idea of voluntary collective action to 'us[ing] the government'? How?
The government is collective action. Everything the government does is collective action.
but they and their friends shouldn't get to use their free speech to respond to you.
No I'm saying they shouldn't get to go beyond speech in responding to me.
Contacting my employer and explicitly asking them to fire me is not just speech.
The government is collective action. Everything the government does is collective action.
Even if I agreed (which I don't, because it ignores the question of force), you are arguing the inverse - that collective action is (or is very close to) the government.
No I'm saying they shouldn't get to go beyond speech in responding to me.
Once you add that "get to", you're explicitly limiting their free speech rights and creating a class of things they are not allowed to say. I'm not in favor of it, and I can't see it working.
Again: X sees corrupt cop Y taking bribes. Should X and X's good-government friends not be able to contact Y's employer and ask them to fire them?
X sees politician Y do something X feels is unethical. Should X and X's good-government friends not be able to contact Y's employer (the people) and ask them to fire them?
And on and on. Imagine the following scenario:
Person Y says mean, not nice things about X (who might be a minority, or a pronoun-lover, or whatever). Y's employer is upset by this and decides to fire them. Meanwhile, X and X's friends ignore a hypothetical ban on contacting employers and asking them to fire Y. Can Y's employer now not fire them? Would X and X's friends be fined?
Contacting my employer and explicitly asking them to fire me is not just speech.
Contacting someone and asking them to do something is entirely within the definition of speech. Once you decide that something done entirely with the spoken or written word isn't 'speech' (including boycotts - communication between people to refrain from purchasing a good or service is still speech), you're opening up an enormous can of worms. If that's off the table, what other speech should we limit to protect one set of people from another set of people?
Mind you - I'm not saying that's impossible. We don't have anything resembling pure free speech. There are whole classes of entirely-speech activities that are banned. My point is that 1) it's speech, not something else, and 2) I have no idea how one prevents them from "getting to" contact one's employer, but I see that as highly problematic.
Again: X sees corrupt cop Y taking bribes. Should X and X's good-government friends not be able to contact Y's employer and ask them to fire them?
X sees politician Y do something X feels is unethical. Should X and X's good-government friends not be able to contact Y's employer (the people) and ask them to fire them?
1. I explicitly said private individuals, public figures, particularly politicians not covered.
2. Your examples all include job related misconduct and government officials including cops taking bribes is explicitly illegal. That can be reported without asking that they be fired.
Person Y says mean, not nice things about X (who might be a minority, or a pronoun-lover, or whatever). Y's employer is upset by this and decides to fire them. Meanwhile, X and X's friends ignore a hypothetical ban on contacting employers and asking them to fire Y. Can Y's employer now not fire them? Would X and X's friends be fined?
If you are talking about something that happened on the job/in the workplace, the employer firing that individual is fine and reporting it to the employer is fine.
If it's something that they said in their private life, it's none of the employer's business, and complaining to their employer is effectively bullying.
1. I explicitly said private individuals, public figures, particularly politicians not covered.
2. Your examples all include job related misconduct and government officials including cops taking bribes is explicitly illegal. That can be reported without asking that they be fired.
1. Free speech is fine when it affects thee, but not me.
2. Yes, it can be reported without asking that they be fired. It can also be reported with asking that they be fired.
One of my examples (the Nazi sympathizer) has nothing to do with job related misconduct or government officials.
Stepping back from this a step or two: I'm not in favor of people contacting/boycotting/harassing/whatever other people via their employers. I'm just not in favor of saying it's something they shouldn't "get to do", nor of equating it with the use of actual compulsion. It's definitely something they "get to do", per the first amendment, and it's not "actual compulsion" - governmental force isn't being used, there's no risk of fines, imprisonment, being lead away in handcuffs or at gunpoint, etc.
Intentionally being rude is, well, rude, whether it's refusing to use someone's pronouns or overreacting when someone refuses to use your pronouns. We would all be better off if people were nicer to each other. But, sometimes people aren't going to be nice to each other. I'm highly leery of making the government, via restrictions on speech, the agent that picks whose rudeness is smacked down.
As far as I'm concerned, these two statements are morally equivalent:
* People shouldn't get to contact an employer and ask for someone to be fired.
* People shouldn't get to refuse to use other people's chosen pronouns, whatever they are.
Once someone (presumably the government) decides who gets to say what, and who doesn't, it's at best a toss-up which of those turns out to be the rule (or neither - or both).
I don't like either of them. Free speech is free speech. That includes boycotts and pressure campaigns. I can see the equivalency to bullying, but bullying is generally not actionable outside of school settings (predominantly grade schools), where minors are involved and free speech is curtailed.
Making 'bullying' actionable in the adult world lets a lot more of the camel into the tent. Should we ban review sites because negative reviews amount to bullying (it's been claimed, over and over)? How about a boycott campaign against the 'Ghost in the Shell' remake because of 'white-washing'? Or one against 'Hamilton' because Alexander Hamilton wasn't black and didn't rap? Are those 'bullying'? If successful, many people might lose their jobs.
My feeling is that your ire is misdirected, and it's misdirected in a socially destructive way. Your beef isn't with the people telling employer X to fire Y, it's with employer X doing it, or at least that's how it seems to me.
The solution isn't to pick and choose who gets free speech. Sooner or later, that is going to bite all of us in the ass. The solution is for employers to say "No, this isn't job related. Go away!"
If that takes 'counter-boycotting' employer X for overreacting and firing some pronoun-refusing person, so be it. Fight speech with speech, not with restrictions on speech.
As far the professor goes, it was UCLA - a state government agency, not a private employer.
It's still a matter of employer/employee relations. The police, courts, etc were not involved. Universities are still employers and can still demand standards of conduct from employees.
Consider the opposite - stating that the government cannot enforce standards of conduct on employees. Where does that lead? Is it a good thing?
What is your proposed solution?
Everyone should stop being so polarized and hating each other. That goes for the far left and the far right.
And if Congress is attacking Instagram because it does damage to teenage girls, they should put Twitter out of business.
Total agreement on polarization and hatred.
I'll wait and see if anything is actually done around Instagram. Pointing out that something is problematic isn't necessarily the same as taking action about it.
I suspect if anything is done to someone, someone else will start up a competing social network and the target audience will largely shift over there, especially if the target audience is teenagers.
Here's one that I don't understand why no one has noticed.
The anti-vaxers say it's their body and government should not make decisions as it pertains to their bodies.
The pro-abortion people say it's their body and government should not make decisions as it pertains to their bodies.
Same argument used by people shouting at each other over vaccines and abortions. The same argument good for one side is not good for the other side when the topic changes.
The anti-vaxers say it's their body and government should not make decisions as it pertains to their bodies.
The pro-abortion people say it's their body and government should not make decisions as it pertains to their bodies.
Yes, but there's that subtle difference that women can excercise their freedom of body independence without degrading public safety for everyone, while anti-vaxxers can not.
That makes the enslavement of women by law not only hypocritical but actively malicious.
degrading public safety for everyone
Except it's the unvaccinated that are dying. The government is trying to keep them alive just like when it mandates seat belts.
The point is, both sides are screaming at each other using the same argument and not even realizing it.
Except it's the unvaccinated that are dying. The government is trying to keep them alive just like when it mandates seat belts.
The point is, both sides are screaming at each other using the same argument and not even realizing it.
Here in the Netherlands the number of Corona patients in the hospitals are building up again to the point that regular care has to take a backseat. They already have to spread them across the country to other hospitals and ICU's because some are at full capacity. In contrast to last year now most who end up in the hospital with Corona are non-vaccinated people. Other patients are dying or see their situation worsening because they can't get the help they need. And that's solely because non-vaccinated assholes keep too many hospital beds occupied. Now tell me again why that is not "degrading public safety for everyone". If it were up to me I'd set the rule that non-vaccinated people are last in the line and must vacate the bed if an other non-Corona or vaccinated patient needs it. Just fuck 'em, most wouldn't need the hospital if they just got their vaccinations.
If it were up to me I'd set the rule that non-vaccinated people are last in the line and must vacate the bed if an other non-Corona or vaccinated patient needs it. Just fuck 'em
I feel the same way. But I wasn't talking about vaccination and abortion in my example. I was comparing their arguments to make their case.
That's absolutely standard in politics. Many, if not almost all, political or cultural conflict discussions eventually degrade to both opponents screaming exactly the same words at each other, not even necessarily insisting on different meanings, just contexts.
If it were up to me I'd set the rule that non-vaccinated people are last in the line
That would be unfair on those who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons. I believe chemotherapy treatment for cancer is one such no-no.
One gripe I have about the UK is that GPs control the majority of vaccinations, and they really like to do them in hubs a long distance from where patients live, and they make patients wait outside for their turn in the cold and wet. Then the government wonders why the elderly and disabled are reluctant to get vaccinated.
AJ
about the UK is that GPs control
This is a strange thread to ask this question, but it's already gone astray from the OP.
I was watching a British show, I think "Doc Martin" which I highly recommend. The patient didn't want Doc Martin to examine her. She said something like, "I have a private doctor."
The UK has a national health system where anyone can get medical care for free. Do people with money have "private" doctors they can go to, bypassing the national system?
The UK has a national health system where anyone can get medical care for free. Do people with money have "private" doctors they can go to, bypassing the national system?
Yes. Our NHS is incredibly inefficient and clique-ridden and produces some of the lowest patient outcomes in Europe. Some people are having to wait years for joint replacement operations. Private medical insurance is booming and even those who can't afford it are using their savings to get the treatment they need in a timely manner.
AJ
That would be unfair on those who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons. I believe chemotherapy treatment for cancer is one such no-no.
That would be an exception of course. Let me rephrase it: "If it were up to me I'd set the rule that people that freely choose not to be vaccinated are last in the line."
People like to throw around the 'more rights than ordinary people' line, and almost always that's either an overstatement or a misreading.
Person A makes remark B to Person C. Person C takes offence but has no sensible recourse other than to laugh it off.
Person A makes remark B to Person D. Person D takes offence. Person D can report it to the police as a hate crime, possibly leading to the arrest of Person A. And even if the complaint is deemed worthless, it stays on Person A's record so police can watch out for a pattern of hate crime.
I'd say Person D has more rights than Person C. YMMV.
AJ
I will agree that, in the case of 'hate crimes', you have a point. Of course, the government does sometimes have a legitimate interest in restricting free speech in the case of 'hate crimes' (vis, Germany restricting the right of people to deny the Holocaust).
In my experience, pure-speech 'hate crimes' are very rare. Pronoun misuse is certainly not one. Nor is simply calling someone a racial epithet, unless there are cases I'm not aware of (and I would disagree with them, if there are).
So, I'll agree that my statement was probably an overreach. People in protected classes (women, minorities, veterans, people of various religions, etc -- gay people in some, but not all, jurisdictions) do have 'more rights' in the sense that some things are prohibited with respect to them that aren't prohibited with respect to people outside those protected classes.
Is that valid? Depends on what the class is and why it exists.
However, non-binary people aren't in a protected class simply because they are non-binary. Being mean to them isn't a legally defined hate crime. They don't have more rights, nor are they very likely to get more rights anytime soon.
In the state where I live, legislation is actively being proposed, sometimes passed, that has the effect of taking away rights from transgender people that non-transgender people have. If anything, I'm seeing in increase in the belief that certain people deserve fewer rights than most people.
People in protected classes
At this stage one would save a lot of bit if you simply say 'non straight white men'. Because everybody else is protected by the lefties.
Pronoun misuse is certainly not one.
In the UK, people have been reported for committing a hate crime for exactly that reason. I'm unaware of any successful legal prosecutions (although the claim, in itself, is damaging), but people have lost jobs because of it.
the effect of taking away rights from transgender people that non-transgender people have
In the UK, for a time transgender people had the ascendancy. Fortunately (IMO) that's now being rolled back and more emphasis is being placed on protecting women's and children's safe spaces and protecting the right to free speech. JK Rowling was reported for hate speech because of her answer to 'what do you call a person with a womb?' Her transgender friends had no problem with her answer, but it aroused the attention of a Twitter woke mob.
AJ
There is a statement:
It's important to note that grammatical gender, outside of references to humans, animals, etc., doesn't correlate to natural sex or gender identity. In most cases, it's simply a way of categorizing nouns based on arbitrary assignments.
Two examples for this arbitrariness:
[English, French, German]
sun, soleil (m.), Sonne (f.)
moon, lune (f.), Mond (m.)
Is the sun different in France and in Germany apart from the gender? Does the moon change its gender at the French/German border?
HM.
It's important to note that grammatical gender, outside of references to humans, animals, etc., doesn't correlate to natural sex or gender identity. In most cases, it's simply a way of categorizing nouns based on arbitrary assignments.
Oh dear, I stopped reading before then so I missed that woke disclaimer.
I disagree that the distinction is arbitrary. The genders were assigned as best the speakers of that language could discern at the time. Okay, different races came up with different answers because it wasn't hard science, but what was hundreds of years ago?
Even in English, we support the idea of objects having specific genders. Boats are female ('and all who sail in her'), time is male ('old Father Time') etc.
AJ
It's important to note that grammatical gender, outside of references to humans, animals, etc., doesn't correlate to natural sex or gender identity
Those idiots – at least in German – even with references to humans grammatical gender does not always correlate to natural sex.
Just a few examples:
das Weib (n.) woman or wife,
das Mädchen (n.) girl,
das Fräulein (n.) young lady or unmarried lady,
all three obviously female but grammatically neuter.
HM.
all three obviously female but grammatically neuter.
I think the German language is going to have a lot of problems in the future :)
even with references to humans grammatical gender does not always correlate to natural sex.
It would be interesting to know how those came about. Latin too has a share of misgendered nouns ;-)
AJ
even with references to humans grammatical gender does not always correlate to natural sex.
In Latvian, a language strictly dual gendered in with adjectives and gerunds must agree in gender to their object so you can't even express properties (like color or size) of something without deciding the gender of that something first, the default words for humans agree with biology pretty well.
However, not only we also have facility to flip gender of most words at will (sure, producing not-in-actual-use "not-a-words" quite often and in some cases running into strange collisions with other meanings), there's quite a lot of words specifically referring to human females that are grammatically male. Those words aren't the default though, and they do carry a certain nuance.
Sieva (f) = woman/wife
Sieviete (f) = adult woman (modern)
Sievišķis (m) = adult woman, with a slightly denigrating nuance in modern usage, but nowhere really rude either
Meita (f) = daughter/girl/maid
Meitene (f) = girl (modern)
Meitietis (m) = literally "a person of daughter/girl/maid kind" (and it's that "person" angle that's making it grammatically male) mostly archaic but may see poetic usage for effect
Skuķis (m) = girl, in modern usage there's a nuance I can't clearly express, it cover both tomboyishness and naughtiness; Pippi Longstocking could be archetypal skuķis in a way
Skuķe (f) = girly girl case of the above, beautifully rhyming with puķe (a flower).
Strangely or not the only case of the opposite I can think of would be that a man employed as a medical nurse might be called "sister" regardless, but even that's a job title really.
I could easily construct, and expect to be immediately understood by native speakers, something like vīrele = denigrating diminutive female of vīrs = man/husband, but that's really highly irregular language not in current usage.
Interesting. I always thought the single "e" at the end had an accent while the double "e" didn't. I thought that was the difference, not gender (and now I see both have an accent).
It's like "blonde" (female) and "blond" (male) which I actually do in my stories.
Interesting. I always thought the single "e" at the end had an accent while the double "e" didn't. I thought that was the difference, not gender (and now I see both have an accent).
I don't think I ever realized there were two distinct spellings of the word in the first place, regardless of accents. I do specify blonde and blond, because I knew about that.
Huh. Learn something new every day.
My main 'annoyance' with the article is statements like 'the difference between fiancé and fiancée feels a bit old-fashioned and out-of-date'. It's not, it's how the current spelling rules are. If the media start using 'fiancé' exclusively as a gender neutral thing that's fine but don't try to force the opinion of a very small minority to everyone by trying to bash 'the old way'.
By-the-way, I have nothing against people who identify as whatever. Just don't expect an 'it' to ever get into my bed :)
Just don't expect an 'it' to ever get into my bed
What gender is your hot water bottle? ;-)
AJ
What gender is your hot water bottle? ;-)
Hmm, in German it's female (die Wärmeflasche).
Given the relatively close relationship to Lower German (Platt) it could be the same in Dutch. Keet?
HM.
@awnlee jawking
What gender is your hot water bottle? ;-)
Hmm, in German it's female (die Wärmeflasche).
Given the relatively close relationship to Lower German (Platt) it could be the same in Dutch. Keet?
In Dutch we have two words for 'warm water bottle"
1. 'Warm water fles' where 'fles' (bottle) is the operative word as "De fles", no gender.
2. "Kruik" as in a warm water bottle for warming the bed. Also "De kruik", no gender.
We have very few words that are gender specific for 'things' (products, items). Some are like with 'ship', "Het schip" (the ship), and referring to it is in the female form: "Zij zeilde..." (She sailed...). The few words that do are mostly inherited from German. Very old Dutch was more like German but language evolution reduced that to almost nothing.
What gender is your hot water bottle? ;-)
In Latvian "bottle" is female, but "warmer" as such is male by default. There's no problem to switch gender on "warmer" if desired, but "bed warmer(f)" would be likely understood to be a person without additional context. I have never encountered the concept of "hot water bottle bed warmer" in real life, and the only world that likely applies is obvious loanword with is male.