Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
It's crazy, isn't it? That two people can respectfully disagree on something we both feel very strongly about, yet still remain civil and respectful toward each other! It's just astonishing.
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Split Thread Pronouns
- Thread starter arthwollipot
- Start date
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Why would I?
Rolfe heaves to their principles, and I to mine. Neither of us requires the other to set aside those principles just to make the other feel happier. Somehow, we both manage to accept that we have differing views with strong opinions, and still behave like professional adults.
Rolfe has never demanded that I adopt their approach to pronouns on fear of being "rude". I've never demanded that they adopt my approach, nor treated them as a bad person for failing to do so.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Your highly selective post snipping has been noted.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Slightly relevant story. I was at the opera with a friend, seeing Le Nozze di Figaro. The mezzo-soprano singing Cherubino was very good, both as regards her voice, and her dramatic performance as a young man. The costume and make-up departments had done well, binder and all. When discussing her performance at the interval I inadvertently referred to her as "he", then burst out laughing, saying, see how good that performance was!
Our use of the third person singular pronoun appropriate to perceived (or known) sex is instinctive and hard-wired. Linguistically, it's the hardest thing of all to unlearn. If a learner is acquiring a language whose use of third person singular pronouns is different from their native language, it's extraordinarily difficult to force a change. I heard about a Hungarian woman (Hungarian has no sexed third person pronouns, it's as if everyone and everything is "it") who had moved to London, married an Englishman, and had several children. She became so fluent in English she hardly had an accent. But she still had a tendency to call her daughter "he" and her son "she", randomly.
Third person singular pronouns, when used by someone whose native language makes the distinction, reflect the speaker's perception of the sex of the person being referred to. It takes a lot of effort on the speaker's part to over-ride this. An effort which I am not prepared to make.
fairplayforwomen.com
Our use of the third person singular pronoun appropriate to perceived (or known) sex is instinctive and hard-wired. Linguistically, it's the hardest thing of all to unlearn. If a learner is acquiring a language whose use of third person singular pronouns is different from their native language, it's extraordinarily difficult to force a change. I heard about a Hungarian woman (Hungarian has no sexed third person pronouns, it's as if everyone and everything is "it") who had moved to London, married an Englishman, and had several children. She became so fluent in English she hardly had an accent. But she still had a tendency to call her daughter "he" and her son "she", randomly.
Third person singular pronouns, when used by someone whose native language makes the distinction, reflect the speaker's perception of the sex of the person being referred to. It takes a lot of effort on the speaker's part to over-ride this. An effort which I am not prepared to make.
Pronouns are Rohypnol • Fair Play For Women
There’s a lot of chat around about pronouns right now. Specifically, ‘preferred’ pronouns. By which is usually meant, the pronouns a person would prefer.
fairplayforwomen.com
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Are you withdrawing your previous remark because you now agree with Rolfe in post #435 (and confirmed in the next two posts) that using "they" as a singular pronoun is "subverting the language to suit an ideological position"? You disagreed with that notion when you thought it came from me. Are you going to change and stop using singular "they" instead of "he" or "she"?
If you do in fact disagree with Rolfe, why are you not addressing the same post to Rolfe that you addressed to me? To me you said:
You have previously claimed your pronoun usages are an outgrowth of your deeply held principles. Isn't it funny how those principles apply or not based on who the other party in an exchange is? There's a name for that kind of thing, can't quite get it off the tip of my tongue.