Yale changes class names to be gender neutral

[CriticalThanking]

The Mountain was killed by the Prince Oberon using personticore venom.

 

[fuelair]

And where will a fighter pilot sit instead of a cockpit?

Being polite, I will forbear telling you!!!!!

 

[fuelair]

A vagina, obviously.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

That does not quite work well as the term now is not penispit. Thus my posts wording!!!

 

[Hellbound]

I always thought cockpit was a perfect term for fighter jets, considering that most of their pilots are *****.

 

[rjh01]

So is the queen a chessman? The other pieces all seem to be male (except the rook or castle maybe) but it does seem odd to call the queen a chessman.

They are all chess pieces.

 

[theprestige]

Being polite, I will forbear telling you!!!!!

You're late. This joke's already been done.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

 

[casebro]

If we can agree that "Joy Stick" is gender neutral, since some kind of joy stick is used by nearly all of the 16 genders, than shouldn't the word "cockpit" be changed to "warm and moist mucous membranes"? Or "WAMMM !" for short?

You probably don't want to ask me why the Army truck is called a HMMMV.

 

[theprestige]

Does anyone have any substantive criticisms of this, or is it all just attempted mockery while accidentally displaying ignorance of the roots of words?

I don't see any accidental ignorance. There's a class of jokes being made that depend on adopting an ignorant pose. And there's some interesting discussion of the actual roots of words. Are you mad that people are having a laugh at Yale's expense, rather than taking them seriously in this endeavor? Do you have any substantive advocacy for this change?

 

[Brainster]

Why not just go with Frosh, an existing word? And upperclassmen and underclassmen are really just convenient words for writers so they don't always have to use the actual class names (Sophomore, Junior, Senior for upperclassmen, etc).

 

[tyr_13]

I don't see any accidental ignorance. There's a class of jokes being made that depend on adopting an ignorant pose.

This is true, unfortunately this is one of those cases where the actually ignorant easily mistake it for another class of joke. This in turn can make it unclear which the joker is aiming for.

And there's some interesting discussion of the actual roots of words.

Yes, which I actually enjoy a great deal. My degree is in English and such subjects fascinate me.

Are you mad that people are having a laugh at Yale's expense, rather than taking them seriously in this endeavor?

I'm 'mad' because I suspect many posters actually oppose the effort without even understanding why they do, and because I don't have to suspect that they haven't presented a solid argument against it.

Note however, that if they are having a laugh 'at Yale's expense', then they are not actually making the class of joke you think they are.

Do you have any substantive advocacy for this change?

Sure. Yale was requested to make this change because it would make some of their students feel more included and presumably market Yale's commitment to advancing at the same rate as conventions do. This might be small, but absent a compelling reason to not implement this small thing that will either have no effect or a small good, then it's an entirely rational move.

They didn't try to change the word 'history' after all.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I wonder how such discussions go in languages where the words themselves have genders?

 

[theprestige]

I wonder how such discussions go in languages where the words themselves have genders?

Interesting question.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

 

[casebro]

I wonder how such discussions go in languages where the words themselves have genders?

Which reminds me of how I nearly flunked out of German.

And brings me to a question: What with all the possible 'new' genders, are we going to have to learn the plural possessives too?

 

[theprestige]

This is true, unfortunately this is one of those cases where the actually ignorant easily mistake it for another class of joke. This in turn can make it unclear which the joker is aiming for.



Yes, which I actually enjoy a great deal. My degree is in English and such subjects fascinate me.



I'm 'mad' because I suspect many posters actually oppose the effort without even understanding why they do, and because I don't have to suspect that they haven't presented a solid argument against it.

Note however, that if they are having a laugh 'at Yale's expense', then they are not actually making the class of joke you think they are.



Sure. Yale was requested to make this change because it would make some of their students feel more included and presumably market Yale's commitment to advancing at the same rate as conventions do. This might be small, but absent a compelling reason to not implement this small thing that will either have no effect or a small good, then it's an entirely rational move.

They didn't try to change the word 'history' after all.

I seriously have no idea what you're even trying to say anymore. You win, I guess?

 

[GlennB]

I wonder if they'll drop this gender-specific fraternity and sorority terminology? What 's the word for 'a society of siblings? Google translate isn't helping me here.

Also, also this 'Greek life' piffle is a clear case of cultural appropriation. Shame on them!

 

[Eddie Dane]

At first, I had a problem with this. But then I decided to person up and take it like a person.

After all, whining about this would be unpersonly and harm my standing as a person.

I'm not afraid to admit that I have identified as a person since my childhood.

 

[arthwollipot]

Why not just go with Frosh, an existing word? And upperclassmen and underclassmen are really just convenient words for writers so they don't always have to use the actual class names (Sophomore, Junior, Senior for upperclassmen, etc).

We don't even have those titles in Australia. It took me years to work out what the hell a sophomore was.

We call them first-year, second-year, third-year, etc. When we bother to refer to the length of time someone has been studying at all, which is hardly ever because it's generally irrelevant to anything.

I've never understood why American universities have these titles in the first place. They seem very silly.

 

[Sherkeu]

I wonder if they'll drop this gender-specific fraternity and sorority terminology? What 's the word for 'a society of siblings? Google translate isn't helping me here.

Also, also this 'Greek life' piffle is a clear case of cultural appropriation. Shame on them!

They would all be called fraternities. My sorority used 'fraternity' back in the 90's. Officially anyway.

 

[Klimax]

I wonder how such discussions go in languages where the words themselves have genders?

As for Czech language, no such debate. Generally, when one needs to address group they use both variants of word. (by etiquette females first) If used in letter then another option is to use automatic insertion of correct word.

Why not just go with Frosh, an existing word? And upperclassmen and underclassmen are really just convenient words for writers so they don't always have to use the actual class names (Sophomore, Junior, Senior for upperclassmen, etc).

We don't even have those titles in Australia. It took me years to work out what the hell a sophomore was.

We call them first-year, second-year, third-year, etc. When we bother to refer to the length of time someone has been studying at all, which is hardly ever because it's generally irrelevant to anything.

I've never understood why American universities have these titles in the first place. They seem very silly.

Same in Czech language.

 

[Belz...]

I wonder how such discussions go in languages where the words themselves have genders?

French is one of those languages, and I haven't really heard about this sort of stuff up here. Mind you, I might not be in the right context to make that likely.