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"It's so much trouble remembering modern pronou-"
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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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Explanation: Latin looks and sounds cool, but it is a Hell Language with infinite declensions and conjugations and other minor grammatical nuances. You want to learn someone’s pronouns in Latin? Best get a paper and pad, it’ll take a while. Pronouns aren’t as important in Latin, though, as it’s a pro-drop language. Context usually fills in for pronouns.
Also, mandatory statement that ‘they/them’ is a perfectly good singular gender-neutral pronoun and I will die on this hill.
Latin is like German in this regard, minus the exceptions, which make up around half the cases in German.
“Singular They” has been in use since at least Early Modern English.
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
Singular 'they' predates
Singular 'you'"
Right? I feel like I’m not taking my anti-crazy pills every time I hear people get mad about not using he/she. It’s just so easy to use “they” and it makes perfect sense. And we should just use it permanently for everyone.
My main problem with it is the namespace ambiguity, especially with respect to plurality. For simple statements it's fine, if you're saying something about one person it's going to be clear they are the one you refer to. If you're talking about their relationship to a group though, unlike a singular pronoun it is no longer explicit that you refer to them but not them, for instance. You compensate for this by making sure your meaning is clear in other ways and it can be made to work, but the fact you have to put in extra effort to make up for "they"'s relative lack of structural utility is a serious problem with the word.
I still use it for lack of a better way to avoid implying knowledge/relevance of gender, but it would be nice if some overtly singular gender neutral pronoun like xe would catch on.
We might end up doing that after some time. It’s similar to why we use “you” instead of “thee/thy/thou.”
Speak for thineself!
Since I don't know you, and I assume you don't know me, the way you have pointed your language at me demands that I challenge you to a duel.
"Thee/thy/thou" was the familiar or informal, while "you" was formal. You would use the informal with someone who was close to you, a friend or a romantic interest. You would also use the informal as an insult to people you didn't know well, as a kind of "I'm better than you, so I can use this intimate form to refer to you" thing.
Ultimately, "you" became standard in all cases, because it avoided the possibility of unintended insult. In similar fashion, I think we'll end up using "singular they" a lot more often, because of the rapidly increasing awareness about gender fluidity and wanting to avoid unintended insult, just like with "you."
My only comment is that at least you only have to learn it once (or, well, thrice), not for any given conversation.
He, she, or they works well enough for most circumstances. Do we really need to broaden it beyond that?
Once pronouns become unique and personalised instead of generic, you lose the advantages of having them in the first place, and may as well refer to everyone by name every time. It'd be less confusing, especially if you're re-using existing words as pronouns.
I would say probably not. I expect (and hope, I suppose) that things will sort themselves out more or less that way. We live in a time of great reconsideration of gender norms, and it's not absurd to see experimentation in such a period. I use neopronouns (nounself style excluded) as a courtesy, because I understand it brings comfort to many who use them and it's not much trouble simply to do so, but they/them is what I hope we all eventually settle on as standard for NB gender identities.
enbies are not gender neutral and have their gender as well! hence neopronouns.
They/them is not used exclusively to refer to neuter things, so enbies not being gender neutral is irrelevant here. 'They' is a useful and pre-existing catch-all.
This part is the one I'm referring to. I'm not opposed to they/them — it's good, but I don't think it's fair to reduce enbies to just "they/them".
... why?
Is that any more absurd than "reducing males to he/him" or "reducing females to she/her"?
It's language, not a campaign medal. You don't need a separate example for every instance.
Non-binary is a broad spectrum of identity. What you're suggesting only works for identities like genderfluid or demi-gender people.
I'm agender, which exists outside of the male-female binary (in which you are either one or the other). Agender and it's derivatives, like gendervoid, are completely gender neutral. I only use they/them because it's really difficult for the average person to not use a pronoun when referring to me, I very much prefer people using my name in place of one.
I kinda love the conjugation and declensions in Latin, it's a language where once you learn the rules you know exactly how that word fits. You can almost throw sentence structure out the window. I find that neat, it must've been a fun language for poets.
Why does he also give the plural forms of his pronouns?
Mirrors
I have to study it as part of high school. 'Nuff said...