A friend posted a note to a professional bulletin board I frequent asking for artist / design recommendations. My friend said, “In this case, s/he needs to be able ….”
My friend is a very nice guy and was just trying to be polite, but when I saw this I thought, wait a minute. The enlightened tell us there are lots of other alternatives to he or she, such as y/ey, per, sie, they, ve and zie. So what the heck should my friend have written to try to be inclusive?
He could have said “the artist needs to be able,” thus avoiding the pronoun problem altogether. Or … he could have just said “he,” and all sensible people would realize “he” doesn’t mean it has to be a man.
QUOTE: Why not just say “he”?
Why not allow the author to decide what to use based on what’s most effective for the intended audience? In some cases, it could be “he”. Other cases, it could be s/he? Yet still, in other cases, it could be other wording…depending on the intent. In this instance, it seems there can be choice.
You could just as well say “she.” What’s wrong with that?
It’s only wrong in the sense that it sounds strange to people who’ve read or spoken a lot of English because that’s simply not how it’s been done.
Since enough people have decided for some reason that the historic use of the masculine to be the generic is fundamentally unacceptable, this battle has probably been lost. Language is a collective enterprise, and a sufficiently loud and self-important tail can manage to wag the dog.
Can I prove that I wouldn’t have cared particularly much if the situation were reversed? Maybe!
In Japanese, polite language sounds a little feminine. As one of many possible examples, even the first-person pronouns are gendered. Men tend to use “ore” and women “atashi” casually, but the common polite I is “watashi”. The resemblance should be pretty clear. The same sense applies to a lot of polite speech, just not pronouns.
When I’m speaking Japanese (very badly, I should admit) I don’t feel obligated to avoid “watashi” because it’s vaguely feminine and I’m a man. And since most of my Japanese conversations are in polite speech, I wind up using “I-(almost-she-I)” most of the time.
If I tried to come up with some more masculine-sounding polite neologism it would sound incredibly clunky (xie-level), and if I used one of the many other pronouns on offer it’d sound like I was a waiter or pretending to be a samurai or something.
Similarly, I don’t speak Italian, but if I could I wouldn’t go out of my way (in some kind of neo-fascist style) to use “voi” rather than “lei”.
Basically, in languages where a common pattern of speech falls toward the female side, I’d just use it and get on with my day.
“Language is a collective enterprise …”
It’s supposed to be. Now it’s an ideological battleground. I’m sure it always has been, to some extent. The trouble is that only one side fights.
There’s nothing wrong with it conceptually, but that’s not the way it happened.
I grew up with “he” as the non-specific pronoun. When I hear “he” I don’t assume sex. When I hear “she” I know it’s referring to a female.
It could just as well be the other way, it just isn’t. And this foolish effort to be “inclusive” by using he/she and other silliness has been overtaken by the gender madness brigade.
QUOTE:I grew up with “he” as the non-specific pronoun. When I hear “he” I don’t assume sex.
As we know, language evolves. I’m suspect those who grew up hearing trousers, parasol and frock had to get use to hearing different term such as pants, umbrella and dress. It seems silly to restrict language usage based on personal preference. To the degree the intended audience can clearly understand the terms being used, ISTM the author has options on how they desire to communicate.
Of course it’s silly to restrict language based on personal preference, which is precisely why the whole “my pronouns” thing is absurd. Unless you’re Count and Lady Fenring, you don’t get to have your own personal language.
Here’s how this went, as I recall.
1. “He” was understood as having two meanings — a man, or someone / anyone.
2. Feminists were offended by this.
3. People should have ignored them, but they didn’t.
4. We went through this ugly and weird transition to he/she and other silliness.
5. Then “gender” was separated from sex. (Not gender in language, but gender as it applies to people.)
6. That opened the floodgates, and now we’re dealing with y/ey, per, sie, they, ve and zie.
And as someone who was an editor throughout most of this process, and had to suffer through endless style manual arguments, this has nothing to do with clear communication. It has to do with enforcing ideologies.
I find it very hard to understand how anyone could get her panties in a wad on such matters.
Could it be a natural reaction for those who find such matters jarring?
QUOTE: Of course it’s silly to restrict language based on personal preference, which is precisely why the whole “my pronouns” thing is absurd. Unless you’re Count and Lady Fenring, you don’t get to have your own personal language.
What’s absurd is those who whine when language convention changes. History is replete with examples of such. It happens and will continue…they need to get over it.
QUOTE: And as someone who was an editor throughout most of this process, and had to suffer through endless style manual arguments, this has nothing to do with clear communication
Sorry to know you suffered so greatly. It must be horrific to see women advocate to be included in colloquial language, given they are half the population on the planet. What rapscallions!
I really dislike “Latinx” especially when spouted by non-Latinos (the majority usage). It’s just a made up word that ignores Latino culture. In fact, it is an insult on the culture, IMHO. It’s white people saying “change your language to fit the idea of what I think your culture ought to be.”
For instance in Spanish,
2 fathers: padres
2 mothers: madres
mother and father: padres
Is the Latinx version of the last option going to be “xadres” ? F*ck them.
“change your language to fit the idea of what I think your culture ought to be.”
Exactly.
Remember when the left used to tell us that we had to respect other people’s culture? If they killed old people, that was their culture and we couldn’t judge. If they had multiple wives, or married 12 year olds …. None of our business.
Generally it was the right that objected to this “cultural relativism.” They said, “no, there are universal standards.”
Now it’s the left that wants to impose their standards on everybody.