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Pronoun: Difference between revisions
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Firstly there is that [[slash]]; that [[virgule]]. As with “[[and/or]]”, “(she/her)” is an ungainly construction, and it speaks to a certain fussiness unrelated to one’s wish to be clear about one’s gender. Why include [[nominative]] ''and'' [[accusative]]? Are there some for whom gender differs depending on their position in a sentence? Can one be a ''he'' when a ''doer'', and a ''she'' when a ''done to''? If the goal is to (er) neuter the power structures implicit in our language, that seems a rather odd way of going about it. And if that is the idea, why stop at subject and object? What about the possessive? Shouldn’t it be “(she/her/hers)”? And, actually, why not include datives, genitives and ablatives? “(she/her/her/her/her/hers)” | Firstly there is that [[slash]]; that [[virgule]]. As with “[[and/or]]”, “(she/her)” is an ungainly construction, and it speaks to a certain fussiness unrelated to one’s wish to be clear about one’s gender. Why include [[nominative]] ''and'' [[accusative]]? Are there some for whom gender differs depending on their position in a sentence? Can one be a ''he'' when a ''doer'', and a ''she'' when a ''done to''? If the goal is to (er) neuter the power structures implicit in our language, that seems a rather odd way of going about it. And if that is the idea, why stop at subject and object? What about the possessive? Shouldn’t it be “(she/her/hers)”? And, actually, why not include datives, genitives and ablatives? “(she/her/her/her/her/hers)” | ||
Second, for the great majority of the population | Second, for the great majority of the population — the whole “cis-normal” part, at least — there’s ''already'' a way of unfussily designating your gender: your ''title'': Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, and Master. Of this great mass of hetero-normativity, only academics and medics have a quandary. Even they could fix it, if they cared to, by adding a gendered title to to their honorific, the same way judges do: Mr. Doctor Jung; Mrs. Doctor Freud, and so forth. | ||
Third, this pronoun angst is directed at ''third person singular'' pronouns. The other five buckets are fine as they are. Yet, when we address someone directly, we do not ''use'' the third person, except to distance ourselves from our ''own'' tendentious but firmly-held opinions, as the [[JC]] often does.<ref>Though this is to switch ''first'' for third person, not second. The ''first'' person does not need to lecture the world how he should refer to himself in the third person.</ref> | Third, this pronoun angst is directed only at ''third person singular'' pronouns. The other five buckets are fine as they are. Yet, when we address someone directly, we do not ''use'' the third person, except to distance ourselves from our ''own'' tendentious but firmly-held opinions, as the [[JC]] often does.<ref>Though this is to switch ''first'' for third person, not second. The ''first'' person does not need to lecture the world how he should refer to himself in the third person.</ref> | ||
The ''second'' person pronoun, “you” for most of the English speaking world, | The ''second'' person pronoun, — “you” for most of the English speaking world, “y’all” for the Americans, “youse” for the kiwis — is perfectly gender inclusive already.<ref>Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby made this point well in her show ''Douglas''.</ref> This is the one we use interpersonal communication already: wherever you may be on the gender spectrum, you remain politely, unoppressively, uncontroversially, incontrovertibly, ''you''. I dare say language evolved like this precisely ''because'' of the difficulties one would otherwise have making polite conversation with unfamiliar individuals of an apparently, but not definitively, feminine or masculine bearing. | ||
So, the “(he/him)” designation appears to stipulate how a reader should gender a person ''when communicating about that person with someone else''. I am going to get in trouble for saying this, readers, but that strikes me as rather ''bossy''. Who am ''I'' to tell ''you'' how to moderate the language you use with ''someone else''? Not to say a little delusional: aren’t your choices of the pronoun you use when you talk about me the least of my concerns? | So, the “(he/him)” designation appears to stipulate how a reader should gender a person ''when communicating about that person with someone else''. I am going to get in trouble for saying this, readers, but that strikes me as rather ''bossy''. Who am ''I'' to tell ''you'' how to moderate the language you use with ''someone else''? Not to say a little delusional: aren’t your choices of the pronoun you use when you talk about me the least of my concerns? | ||