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My boomer parents will die on the hill that it sounds "wrong" to use "they" to refer to a singular entity. And whenever they bring that up, I always remind them that the word "they" has been used in that way for AGES.
Example: "Whose umbrella is this? Did they already leave?"
It doesn't seem to make a difference.
When my brain interpreted 'they' singular to refer to a unspecified so-far unnamed person or an already mentioned group, it was definitely confusing to have it suddenly used to refer to someone who had just been referred to by name. This was definitely a novel use of 'they' for me at the time and I don't understand why no-one else ever seems to have this kind of confusion. I did get used to it but I don't think it's as universal as some of y'all realise.
Edit: I just learnt the term 'indeterminate antecedent' from the Wikipedia article someone else linked. Thanks to them, I just got a little bit smarter. ;-)
Yeah, kinda true, kinda whataboutism... If calling other people by their chosen pronouns being their biggest problem, is your biggest problem... I'm envious of their life and your life... Thanks, I'm fine, lets not trade lives.
Honest question - what is the whataboutism here?
*crickets
dude, chill. it's like 2am. that's a good time to chirp like a cricket... 😆
That pronouns isn't a legitimate problem to have, because "what about" more severe problems in life. That Green is implying to trade with the non-issue (or lesser issue) of pronouns.
Hmm. >80% of Lemmy voters don't like the same logic applied in reverse? Is that being hypocrites, or am I missing something?
The problem with your "logic" is that Green never said it was his biggest problem. And if you can find me someone who does say that people not calling others by their correct pronouns is their biggest problem, I would be very surprised.
I would suggest to you that if this was John Green's biggest problem, he wouldn't make a glib tweet about it.
Hmmh. But I mean even that also applies in reverse. Also the "pronouns people" don't say it's their biggest problem. At least the ones I've ever met. So Greens post has the same logical shortcomings as I have.
As a person who learned English as a 2nd language, I would like it if you could transform the language into gender neutral and end this insanity.
I still get classic genders wrong, this whole LGBTQ movement is confusing me even more when I'm trying to type/speak.
Wait until you learn languages with gendered articles
The thing about grammatical gender is that it doesn't really have much to do with sex or gender identity. In German, for instance, 'mädchen' (girl) is neuter. Gender in French is 98% assigned based on the pronunciation of the three final syllables. In Danish, living things tend to be 'common gender' and inanimate objects tend to be 'neuter'.
It'd be more accurate to call it 'noun classes' than gender.
Well, as a German, I wouldn't agree. Generally, nouns describing men are masculine and nouns describing women are feminine. "Das Mädchen" is just an odd one out because it's the diminutive (always neuter in German) of "die Maid", which in turn is feminine.
Yes, this doesn't really apply to objects, but it mostly does for people.
Child - das Kind - grammatical gender: neuter. Referred to in context using the gender-neutral pronoun 'es' (it). The pronoun used correlates with the grammatical gender of the noun used, not the gender of the person referred to.
Eg Ein Kind lacht. Es hat etwas gesehen. (transl: A child laughs. He/she/they saw something.)
I know. But generally, the gender of the noun describing a person correlates with the gender of the person described strongly.
Ok but my point is that when it doesn't correlate, it becomes clear how grammatical gender is independent from the person's gender.
It becomes even clearer when you consider all nouns by definition have a grammatical gender - inanimate objects, abstract concepts, etc, even though the thing described clearly doesn't have a gender. Eg die Tür ist offen. Ich schliesse sie. (transl.: the door is open. I close it.) 'Sie' being the female pronoun used to refer to the grammatically female door.
My question comes from a grammar /German background: We have four cases. They have different pronouns. Which ones should I list?
Whichever ones you want English speakers to use when referring to you.
Simple, isn't it?
Everything is simple when you know the solution.
I was not really expecting English speakers to use my German pronouns, they are for German speaking people.
Would that be the Dativ or Akkusativ form? They are both quite common and important