this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (15 children)

Dear native English speakers, would you mind inventing a new word either for gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, or one for what "they" mean to foreign English speakers since you are so insisted in differing its meaning from the text books you shipped us decades ago?

English is so inconsistent at this point. Only the third-person pronouns have gender in singular form, the plural form has no gender and now you are telling us the gender-less form can be singular now? How confusing!

English is widespread partly because it has simple alphabet and relatively easy grammar. I don't mind someone being in LGBT+ group at all, but could you please don't mess with the language?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (9 children)

English is so inconsistent at this point.

At this point? At this very point, specifically due to the historically valid usage of one gender neutral pronoun? Now is the time that it's finally become an inconsistent language? Singular "they" is the thing that has pushed English over the edge from logical and sensical to arbitrary and confusing? Of all the foibles and quirks, this is the one that is simply unforgivable and must be changed?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I didn't say anything you said.

I think a more sensible way to include LGBT+ group is to just make "she/her" obsolete. We are all "he/him", and we are "they/them" when in a group. Way cleaner than this, excuse me, shit that we foreign English speakers have to adjust to for every few years.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

We agree. We make he/him obsolete and we're all she/her, as there are more female people on the planet, so less people have to adapt

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

"he/him" probably isn't he/him in their non-gendered language. In some languages there's no he or she, there's only a pronoun that means "that person"

Armenian, Persian, Tagalog, Finnish, Georgian, Turkish, Swahili &c

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's true, but you can't help but notice that when people coming from this background are taught English, they are usually taught that 'male' pronouns are the default.

If anything, I would support the removal of 'he/him' for all the backlash it will generate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

in france "they" invented "iel", a gender neutral pronoun, to replace "il" and "elle". Young people (some?) adopted it rapidly and were using it naturally but the state banned the use of "inclusive language" on all official communications (which includes schools)

i remember thinking that inventing a new pronoun, like they did, was a better solution than choosing one of the two as gender neutral

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm working in (local) French public service. We've developed apps with basic gender inclusive language (not iel, more like including genders in form titles and messages), a while before the government banned it from official communication.

As of now, nobody has done anything to remove that from the apps, because we don't see the point and we have way more important things to do to actually improve services.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

thanks for not doing anything then 😁

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Outright banned, I'm guessing because blindly following rules by the book, but I think it's not a move in the right direction.

In Spain people are trying to make neutral words by placing @ where a/o should go in the gendered words, I think it never made to any documentation but it wasn't banned yet, at least.

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