Grrl Power #1084 – Suprarenymer
In defense of whoever comes up with the codenames (or, supranyms) for Galytn supers, they do speak at least eight languages over there (at least they do in Mozambique) and that’s before introducing Alar and Chiktr. Presumably English is also spoken, as it is the official language of Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania, which are all neighbors. Someone in that environment might not understand all the subtleties of English, or at least, not all the subtleties of American English. Likely they have their own double meanings and word play.
It does make me wonder if in an environment where English is just one of many languages spoken, if it develops the same level of depth and word-play. I mean if everyone speaks 2-6 languages, and there’s a better way to say something in another language, it would mean that people aren’t trying to wring every last drop of utility out of their one and only option. I do wish I knew more than one language. I’ve made several attempts to learn Japanese because I’m a proper nerd, but without the immersion of being around other speakers, it was too much of an uphill battle for me. That said, what very little I do know about it is super interesting and really expands my understanding of how language can shape or limit our thinking. Think about the most obvious example. In English, we “love” our parents, siblings, pets, domestic partners, video games, cake, spending the weekend laying on the couch binging Swedish serial killer shows on Netflix, organizing tiny screws, etc. But those are all different kinds of love. At least, hopefully the way you love your favorite kind of desert is different than how you love your pet or all brunette women that remind you of your mother, or else there might be a Netflix special about you one day. I think English would be better if we had separate words for familial love and romantic love and culinary love etc, etc. Having only one word for all those concepts limits our thinking. As good as English is about roughing up other languages and shaking them down for spare verbs, we ought to keep an eye out for opportunities like that. Apparently Sanskrit had 96 words that meant “love” in one form or another. Let’s get to pilfering!
Oh, and also, we need a gender neutral pronoun besides “it.” Yes, I know, “they,” but personally I’m not impressed with they since it’s both singular and plural and that can lead to confusion. I’m sure the collective efforts of the English speaking world can come up with something better. We make up new words all the time and embiggen ourselves in the process.
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Only issue he might have with ‘Flotilla’ as a cape name is that it’s female sounding (in both English and Portuguese).
I never liked using they as a gender neutral pronoun because it conflicted with the long established plural meaning of the word. I propose the word GNIR as a gender neutral pronoun. Doesn’t conflict with any previously established meaning, and is an acronym for Gender Neutral Individual Reference.
“They” has been a gender neutral pronoun for more centuries. English is also a language with many words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but are distinguished by context. Are you going to propose we change those words as well?
Only when the person was unknown. It has never been a singular pronoun for a known person until this latest decade or two.
Sci fi writers in the 1960s and 1970s were quite educated, and were trying various things, and if “they” had been a neutral singluar personal pronoun, it would have gotten a lot of use rather than zhe and xhe and all the others.
Science fiction writers of the 60s and 70s are kind of known for making up new terms for existing things just to sound more original or alien. its kind of a whole thing!
It doesn’t conflict. It’s never conflicted. It’s always been a gender neutral pronoun for as long as you remember, and you’ve used it as singular and plural since time immemorial.
This is just transphobic talking points by lazy fucks. Just fucking stop repeating it for fuck’s sake.
Never seen people using they/them when refering to singular instead of plural. Other than people now using it as a singular pronoun. That’s even more evident when you don’t have english as your first language, since you tend to be as correct as possible with it because you didn’t grown up around people not using it correctly.
And don’t be aggressive as that to others. That was really uncalled for.
Maybe it’s not taught to folks learning English as a second or third (etc) language, but Americans will very often use they singular for hypothetical or unknown persons: “When a customer walks in, greet them and ask if they need help finding anything.” Much faster than “his or her”.
My grandma’s English is not great but she gets it when I refer to a sole person as they, maybe not the gender nuance but she’s not like looking for extra humans.
“Never seen people using they/them when refering to singular instead of plural”
What do you say when talking about an individual whose gender you don’t know, as in, “Some shitter dinged my car, then they drove away without leaving a note!”
I see and use it all the time when the gender is unknown, you probably just aren’t used to thinking of it. Any situation where you would say he or she I’d generally swap with they. Example
1-“Hey, is it alright if my friend tags along to the cookout?”
2-“Sure! What would they like to eat; burger or brat?”
1-“Oh she’s vegetarian.”
2-“alright, I’ll make sure to have some veggie patties for her.”
Basically swapping from they/them to he/him/she/her when its known. I’ve also used it when speaking to someone who isn’t a mutual acquaintance and the story is short Basically going my friend/they for the 2 sentences of speaking before moving on.
Yep, historically it’s only used for an unknown person.
but doesn’t have to be. If its being used to refer to a singular person already, and you find out that the known is non-binary , continuing with ‘they’ isnt actually a problem. pretending you *have to switch* is just moving the goalposts on an already ignorant talking point.
It technically is a problem since it causes confusion when relaying information to a third party if the subject’s gender becomes known to the speaker.
Which I believe was one of the main points of people trying to come up with a new pronoun which both incorporates the gender neutral aspects of ‘they’ but also the descriptive singular aspects of he or she.
Sure, you could just try using they repeatedly, even after knowing the gender of the subject, but it WILL VERY LIKELY get confusing to a third party in many situations when trying to relay coherent information. And the point of language IS to be able to relay information coherently.
The solution is therefore simple, either:
1) upon learning the pronoun of the person (whatever it may be – he or she), start using that; or
2) have a new pronoun which can be used in place of they, but when used for a singular person, assuming a culture can come up with a coherent way to do so.
Just calling people ignorant doesnt actually help, and Thatguy’s example is very logical. in describing how language historically works in regard to pronouns. It’s also not that big a deal to switch, imho.
Ie, if I have a transgendered friend who identifies as a woman, once I know that is how my friend identifies, I have the option to change from ‘they’ to ‘she.’ – it’s not to insult that friend. It’s to be able to relay information to a third person, so that third person knows who I am talking about. It literally has nothing to do with the friend – it has to do with the receiver of the information relayed. If there were some sort of new pronoun adopted into the language for this purpose, instead of ‘they’ you’d just change from ‘they’ to that new pronoun when referring to the friend if, for some reason, ‘she’ is a problem linguistically when relaying information.
I write a LOT of briefs/pleadings/etc. in my job. You have to be able to write them in a way where the judge, who does not know the history of the case yet, can understand who I am referring to upon reading the brief. So I’m particular when dealing with language, as you might have noticed.
Why does “they” cause confusion? Or rather, why would it cause more confusion if the subject’s gender is known than it does when it’s unknown? How often is gender useful information to include in a sentence?
“Why does “they” cause confusion? ”
Because, unless the gender of the subject is unknown, grammatic rules are that ‘they’ is meant for a singular person, not multiple people. Pronouns are not actually meant for the subject – it’s meant for relaying information to a third party, so that the third party knows the information that you’re trying to relay. Saying ‘they’ when the gender is known can cause confusion as to whether the subject is a single person or is referring to multiple people. It’s actually why an additional word that can denote ‘they’ but for single people when the subject’s gender IS known but does not identify a either a he or she, would be helpful without being overly confusing.
The other problem is it becomes VERY difficult to translate to other languages, the majority of which are gendered languages to a far larger extent than English.
“How often is gender useful information to include in a sentence?”
Very often. Especially, at least in my own personal life, when writing legal briefs where I need to relay information to the other side or, more importantly, to the judge. I can keep using the person’s name, or I can keep saying ‘Defendant’ or ‘Plaintiff’ but he/she/his/her/they/their do get used quite frequently when writing a pleading.
For example, if you have a woman, a man, and someone who identifies as non-binary, and are trying to describe something in a brief, and you say ‘they’ – the reader will not be sure if you’re referring to just the non-binary person or if you’re referring to the man and the non-binary person, or the woman and the non-binary person, or the man and woman, but not the non-binary person, or all three of them. That causes unnecessary confusion that could be resolved by just having an additional word to describe the non-binary person to the third party (or in the case of a person who identifies as the opposite gender, you could always just use he or she, assuming you can tie it to their proper name earlier in the sentence or paragraph, just like you would with a cis man or woman and their pronouns).
There have actually been a lot of examples of judges refusing to allow briefs that have ‘they’ incorrectly used because it reduced the amount of clarity in the brief.
An additional (and important) problem is that while languages have words that change, those words 1) change organically, rather than by law or forced naming conventions, and 2) it usually takes time for the new use of a word, or a new word, to take hold among a majority of the language-speaking population. And while it might seem to you that there’s mass use of the word ‘they’ in the singular form, regardless of whether the subject’s gender is known, that isnt the case – especially among the ‘normies’ (as someone else described the overwhelming majority of english-speaking people).
I would say that singular they is equally confusing whether the gender of subject is known or unknown. I’m all for a gender-neutral single-party third-person pronoun, but there’s no need for its use to depend on whether the person’s gender is known or not.
“I would say that singular they is equally confusing whether the gender of subject is known or unknown. ”
Sorry, you’d be wrong then. Anyone is free to not use pronouns, or to use pronouns in a grammatically incorrect way, but it doesn’t mean you’d using them correctly.
The rules for ‘they’ add to clarity and makes sentence structure less cumbersome. I’ve literally given examples.
“I’m all for a gender-neutral single-party third-person pronoun, but there’s no need for its use to depend on whether the person’s gender is known or not.”
As an alternative to changing the existing rules for the word ‘they,’ a new gender neutral single party third person pronoun where gender is known IS better, because, again, it adds to clarity and makes the relay of information in sentence structure less cumbersome.
Again, I am all for a new, gender-neutral single-party third-person pronoun. I advocate that it be the default for all parties, regardless of gender, and regardless of whether that gender is known or not. We should be thinking about whether gender is actually relevant to a particular conversation, rather than just assuming it always is.
“Again, I am all for a new, gender-neutral single-party third-person pronoun. I advocate that it be the default for all parties, regardless of gender, and regardless of whether that gender is known or not.”
That would cause less clarity, not more. Which defeats the purpose. Why make a new pronoun if the new pronoun is going to be the exact same thing as ‘they’ but for both known and unknown gender of the subject? At that point, the word ‘they’ becomes irrelevant…
Then you have the same problem with the new pronoun that you have with people using they as a singular pronoun where sex is known. Again… see the multiple examples I provided.
“We should be thinking about whether gender is actually relevant to a particular conversation, rather than just assuming it always is.”
Um… if you don’t think it is, you’re free to not use pronouns? Again, gendered pronouns are just for clarity’s sake to a third person listener. Especially when there are multiple people involved as the subject, so the listener can discern to whom the narrator is referring.
The new pronoun would be distinct from they in that it would be exclusively singular, and thus carry no ambiguity with regard to number. It would be as useful and clear as gender-specific pronouns are in most cases. And since gender refers to an invisible property, it’s of limited use unless that property is known by both the speaker and audience.
Sex-specific pronouns have some utility in that they refer to an observable property, and thus can be used to refer to observed, but otherwise unknown, people. Their primary function, however, is to communicate and reinforce sexual stereotypes.
At this point I think you’re arguing for the sake of arguing since you’re ignoring each and every point I’ve made, including actual examples which explain why what you just said does not fit with what you’re proposing, so there’s no point in my continuing on this thread from an already-over comic page.
“Somebody left their phone on the table.”
“Somebody left his or her phone on the table.”
Which one sounds more likely to be said?
Right, but all this proves that it is situational and not the norm for what people say and how they think. All this demonstrates that it is mainly used when you don’t know for sure the relevant information about the other party or are speaking in simple sentences. A more realistic way for this conversation would be along the lines of.
“Hay, whose phone is this.”
“I think it is Matts or Stacys.”
“Cool, call both and if the phone rings we know which of them it is and can give them their phone next time we see them.”
Somebody left a phone on the table. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
hey, whose phone is that? I’m not sure, but we can’t exactly call them to find out. Why not? We have their phone.
I/We
Thou/You
He-She-It/They
The pronoun “they” was NOT hijacked by the vocal minority, but by the lazy majority at least as far back as Shakespear. This was due in part by the adoption of the plural second person (you) as a formal address, leaving the average person (Shakespear et al, including Samuel Clemens) totally confused about the numeric value of a single person. Jump forward some centuries where micro-pollution (look it up) results in very bent genders in most mammalian species and it’s no wonder our Mother Tongue can’t cope.
BTW. I am NOT arguing that homosexuality is new. Homosexuality has been a feature of Homo erectus for more eons than I can count, and I’m not excluding the sheilas nor singling out the hominins. Homosexuality is almost certainly inherited by almost all life-forms from at least the Eukaryotes of about 1850Mya, maybe even further back. For this we can thank our Deathworld solar and terrestrial nuclear radiation giving our DNA the impetus to grow and improve.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing or agreeing with you about your general premise. I’m just asking these questions for elaboration on what you said because a few things you mentioned didnt make sense or seem to be based on provable facts.
“Homosexuality has been a feature of Homo erectus for more eons than I can count,”
How exactly would you know that? Are there some sort of anthropological dig sites that could show that? I sort of don’t think there is, so I have no idea where you are getting this statement from. Not saying it’s not true, but it’s not provable. I’m not even sure that it would be provable in homo sapien sapiens, let along homo erectus. I’d think the earliest it could be proven would be at some point during written human history, or possibly oral history (albeit how that is less reliable since it can be cherry picked more easily one way or another).
“Homosexuality is almost certainly inherited by almost all life-forms from at least the Eukaryotes of about 1850Mya, maybe even further back.”
1) While Eukaryotes were the first anything to develop sexual reproduction instead of just asexual reproduction, I’m not sure how you would say that there was any homosexuality or heterosexuality. Even with eukaryotes that reproduce sexually, there is no universal difference between ‘female’ and ‘male’ eukaryotes. And there is certainly no sexual preference involved. And even if I was to steelman your argument and say there could be sexual preference involved in a creature that has no brain or even nerve ganglia in place of a brain, there would be no way at all for you to ever prove that there was sexual preference involved, since the point of sex involve male insemination into female receptors, however it happens. And the only proof you’d have would be that sexual reproduction happened, not anything about sexual preference.
2) Homosexuality has nothing to do with reproduction in the first place, from a purely scientific standpoint. Homosexuality and Heterosexuality are about sexual preference, not the ability to procreate. Which is why your statement about eukaryotes particularly confused me even if you were able to go back in time and study them 2.7 billion years ago when sexual reproduction first started to occur on Earth.
If a homosexual woman has sex with a homosexual man, they can have a baby. If a heterosexual woman has sex with a homosexual man, they can have a baby. If a heterosexual man has sex with a heterosexual woman, they can have a baby. The only difference in these examples is that in two of those examples, one is not attracted to the other sexually. You could also have a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman be unable to have a baby because of reasons that have nothing to do with their sexual preference (low sperm count, infertility, etc), the same as with a homosexual man or woman. I didnt bother to bring up bisexuality it would just make the example longer without adding any additional information to my point that sexual preference has nothing to do with the ability to reproduce.
Pooh-Bah: “… You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. …” The Mikado, W.S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan.
However… Homosexuality, as we all (should) know, is not heritable. OTOH, whatever happens in a being’s mindset must have some cause: we just don’t know what, yet. But that cause would seem to be deeply, deeply rooted in our ancestry. Just ask the seagulls.
“Homosexuality, as we all (should) know, is not heritable”
I have no idea if it is or is not. The existing data implies it’s probably not, and it’s more an element of culture and environment. But it could be BOTH and we just havent found the part of human DNA which leads to different sexual preferences. Science does not know nearly enough about it to have given an answer there. And when I don’t have an answer, I don’t assume one, either one way or another.
I was just pointing out that what you said about homosexuality in eukaryotes didnt seem to make any sense, and there’s no way for you tp be able to prove that homosexuality in prehistoric creatures let alone prehistoric man, was a thing or not a thing. It could have been, but you can’t make assertions like that as definitive fact without proof. Which doesn’t exist until you have a time machine, or some way to definitively discover sexual preference within DNA.
They has been used as a gender neutral singular pronoun for centuries. (since the 14th century). You can find it in Shakespeare’s works. It only fell out of favor because “he” became the general neutral term in the 1800s. Since “he” no longer really works as a gender neutral term, “they” is back.
But if you do want to separate neutral plural and singular, xe/xhe (whenever I’ve heard it, it’s pronounced as if someone has a Chinese accent – a monosyllabic ksheh/kshee ) as well as Mx (replacement for Mr/Mrs/Ms) has been around longer than most people realize. Even before being used by gender-neutrals & gender-voids, it was used for recording deceasedes & medical unknowns & legal recordings on people whose biological sex wasn’t determined (such as through lots of damage, being intersex and the reporters didn’t understand that, the person being androgynous and refusing to give pronouns, etc.)
xe/xhe makes no sense to me as a substitute, since it’s not even accomplishing the stated goal as a gender neutral pronoun for when the speaker knows the gender of the person It’s literally just taking he and she and changing the first letter, which still leaves you a ‘he/she’ dynamic, which I thought was the problem that the new words were trying to address. It’s just adding words unnecessarily, although ‘xem’ or ‘xey’ would do a more adequate job, since you’d be comparing it to them and they instead of he/him and she/her. All the extra stuff beyond ONE pronoun to represent ‘singular person, even if they are known, but are not, for whatever reason, being referred to as he or she’ as a counterpoint to ‘they’ which represents a plural set of people, UNLESS they are unknowns, in which case it can be a singular pronoun. At the very least, it would reduce confusion when trying to relay information to a third party which using ‘they’ repeatedly (even when the person is known) does not accomplish.
IE:
They/them – generally plural pronoun, singular when the speaker does not know the gender of the subject in question
In which case, Xey/Xem (or zey/zem or whatever it would wind up being called, depending on what a population/culture adopts, if they adopt anything in the first place) could be seen as the singular pronoun for when you DO know the gender of the subject in question.
I’m not actually giving my opinion on this for the underlying politics – I’m just saying there are ways to make it make sense grammatically if it was to be adopted organically into the english language (plus might make it easier for non-english speakers to understand as well, since most languages are gendered languages for not only people, but objects as well.
I don’t think Mx has been around as long as you are claiming though. I don’t think it’s been around before 1977 when it was used in an American magazine called’ Single Parent’ – and even then it wasn’t used with any regularity until 2016.
I think even the distinction between Mrs and Ms is relatively new. Ms. only came out in 1901, and wasnt fully adopted into mainstream English until around 1986.
I think you are missing a piece here. Yes, ‘xe/xhe’ follows the pattern of ‘he’ and ‘she’, implying that it is a gendered term. It therefore is not completely gender-neutral. But that does not mean that it is useless. He, she, they: masculine, feminine, any. He, she, xe, they: masculine, feminine, other, any. It adds an option. It does not need to be non-gendered, just not binary gendered.
Different cultures throughout history have had different concepts of how many genders and pronouns for those genders exist. I suspect pronouns will always evolve over time. There’s never going to be a perfect collection of pronouns that allows everybody to express themselves perfectly without some people feeling like there needs to be another option or like there’s too many options to keep track of. Currently in English we have both problems simultaneously, which is not great. Trying to fit everybody into only two genders and having the rest of the pronouns be catch-alls is a bit too restrictive; and people have tried to solve that problem in enough different ways that it’s difficult to agree on which new pronouns to focus on adding to the mix.
Personally, I think the way to go, at least for the near future, is making ‘they/them’ completely plural, assigning a neopronoun (maybe ‘ey/em’) for referring to any singular person of any gender (like singular ‘they’ is used currently), and choosing one neopronoun (let’s say ‘xe/xhe’ since it’s already part of the conversation) for a singular nonbinary person. Assigning all three of those use cases to ‘they/them’ creates a bit too much confusion. But you know what, I actively contradict that ideal in the way I live my life. As a genderfluid person, I ask people to mainly use ‘they/them’ for me. It’s just easier. People already know how to use they/them. Even if it requires a little extra effort to clarify the singular usage, the same is true of singular versus plural ‘you’. Any neopronoun requires some explanation, no matter how clearly it follows the prexisting pronoun conjugation patterns. It’s not ideal, but it is what it feels possible for me to do currently.
My main point is about grammar rules and clarity, rather than people’s preferences, or slang, or stuff like that. Grammar rules tend to be slower to change, and usually require keeping in line with pre-existing rules if a new rule is added so as to retain clarity of language. This is why xe/xhe doesnt make much sense (while ey/em/eir does make sense) – xe/xhe doesnt add to clarity in relaying information, it makes language more difficult instead, whereas a singular substitute for ‘they’ when the gender is non-binary would make language more clear, without duplicating gendered pronouns.
Plus as some people have mentioned, ey/em is actually a pre-existing set of grammar rules which would fit exactly like I suggested. Really don’t like it being called a ‘neopronoun’ since technically spivak pronouns date back to 1890 (I guess in the grand scale of things, that’s still new though). Plus I guess ‘neopronoun’ is still accurate if you consider that ey/em/eir was revived in 1975 without any real confusion on the small scale in which it was implemented. It’s when people start using hundreds of new pronouns instead of just one new set of pronouns that I think the public starts to say ‘no, this is getting too confusing’ and digs their heels in.
I understand using ‘they/them’ as a courtesy though. You know… to not be rude. Although when the subject isnt present (ie, you arent present) and I’d be talking to a third person who does not know you, which is the point of third person pronouns), it would be more ACCURATE to use a spivak pronoun if I want to relay information.
That being said, since I do not know you, and all I know is that you described yourself as gender-fluid, and I therefore have no reason to be able to assume male or female anyway, ‘they’ actually still works within grammar rules unless, say, you told me you present as female or present as male, but still want to be referred to as ‘they.’ In that case, the grammar would be incorrect.
I’d probably still do it to not be a jerk, at least if you were present since it would otherwise be rude (might not if you werent present, or might just not use a pronoun at all to thread the needle of what is and is not considerate), but it wouldn’t be grammatically correct and would conflict with other existing grammar rules. Plus would almost certainly cause confusion to the third party if you weren’t already present as well, so that the third party could see to whom I was referring.
ahhh the magic of living languages and slang evolution.
it’s just a shame that the whole pronoun thing was not a naturally occurring one and instead was forced for, arguably, political and social reasons.
a lot of people making a case by using great authors such as shakespear for example are forgetting that while it is in scripture and technically exists since it is written down, it was not how people actually spoke nor was it probably widely used either.
some writters, especially those who write fiction, will come up with new words, turns of phrases and even new languages. it’s really not that hard if you know how to work it. LOTR did it, star trek did it, the chronicles of Xanth did it and so many others.
just because a word is “created” does not means it is viable unless used in theoretical applications.
words are created out of necessity due to the environment. the pronoun thing, unfortunately, as far as i can tell, was artificially created.
Why does it matter whether a linguistic construct is “natural” or “artificial”? Either it’s useful or it’s not. Either people adopt it or not.
Really, it’s all artificial. Someone comes up with a word, they use it in hopes that other people will use it, and either it catches on or it doesn’t. That some people are bothered when they can identify the person who came up with the word, and judge the word by the person, rather than the word itself, doesn’t make the process artificial.
“Why does it matter whether a linguistic construct is “natural” or “artificial”? Either it’s useful or it’s not. Either people adopt it or not.”
Because if you want a new word or new use of an existing word to gain acceptance among a significant portion of the population for long enough for it to be accepted in common parlance, that word needs to be introduced gradually, and more importantly, it needs to be accepted organically, rather than artificially forced with rules that do not seem to make sense based on existing grammatical norms.
“Really, it’s all artificial”
Most etymologists will disagree with you. Just because you don’t understand the origin and evolution of words, it does not mean it’s artificial. It’s usually very organic in how it’s accepted, or has some logical reason for its mass acceptance among a population.
I would challenge you to provide coherent, non-arbitrary definitions of “organic” and “artificial” that allow other people to consistently classify things into those categories.
I would also suggest that most people classify things as organic when they don’t understand their origin or evolution, and artificial when they known them, but don’t like the source.
The metaphor “organic” language learning refers to learning that is natural, without being forced or contrived, and without artificial characteristics. This approach parallels other foreign language learning subjects in which authentic source materials are valued by students.
It may be organic in it’s acceptance, but oftimes artificial in it’s insertion
Just look at the attempts to rebuild reefs: they will often start by sinking a large hunk of metal in the form of an old disused ship or boat (depending on size) and over time organic life turns it into a new reef
And please to be defining the length of ‘long enough’ for a new word to be accepted by a ‘significant’ portion of the population
Specially for shit ‘words’ like ‘YOLO’
Usually there’s even a reason at its insertion as well. It would be an extremely odd thing for a word to be artificially forced upon a populace, if it’s to survive long-term into the lexicon of that populace.
Also YOLO is not a formal word, technically speaking. It’s an acronym. You Only Live Once. Most acronyms do not become words. Usually when they do become words, it’s a rather modern thing – usually having to do with inventions, like scuba (self contained underwater breathing apparatus), or taser (Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle), or radar RAdio Detection And Ranging), or laser (Light Amplification by the Simulated Emission of Radiation), or GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), or JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), or sometimes government shorthand that becomes so normalized that people don’t realize it’s an abbreviation anymore, like zip (as in zip code – zone improvement plan). Most of the time, acronyms that are used as words are just slang or ‘informal’ words. I would never use ‘ASAP’ in a legal brief, for example, unless it is in order to relay exactly what someone else said.
As for what is long enough? That’s not a hard and fast rule – it’s usually based on popularity among the wider population that speaks the language. It helps for the new word or new use of the word to not conflict with pre-existing grammar rules, though. Until then it’s usually just going to be relegated to ‘informal’ words’ or slang or local dialect. It’s usually not a quick process, even with the invention of mass communication like the internet.
Btw, I think you’re overemphasizing the ‘creation’ of a word being artificial and massively underemphasizing the more important ACCEPTANCE of a word being artificial (rather than organic). Which is hurting your argument.
A better argument would be figuring a way to argue that they as a singular where the gender is known has been around long enough that people have started accepting it within a large enough majority of the population among even ‘normies.’ But that is not accurate as a description of reality yet. Maybe in 10 years but the more the new words are forced at people who clearly are not wanting to use those words, the less likely it will be accepted in any organic way.
You do know that all of the words Shakespeare has been credited with “creating” was actually just slang words already used by common folk? He just happened to be in the right position to write them don and also convince the upper class people to learn what they meant. Chauncer used singular They in a written work before him anyway, or rather he used singular þey, since he was still speaking late middle english.
And written works made before the printing press show only a small fraction of language compared to what was actually used verbally. Because of the difficulty and privilege needed to learn to write english in those times the written language had always evolved very slowly as it needed to overcome etiquette established in order to not become illegible as each generation’s specific slang arrived and went out of use. Thus every evolution in written word was always preceeded by the same trend already being moderately widespread in spoken use.
You – atta
They – sina
Them – sunu (?)
This – annu
That – ullu
Brought to atta by the society to Make Akkadian Great Again.
>Carrier
Whooof. That’s an… unfortunate name. But that’s part of the Superhero business. Sometimes you strike a dud.
Not the worst super hero name by a LONG shot…
Anyone remember ‘The Spleen’? No? GOOD!!!!!
I do, and it’s still not the worst.
How about ‘Codpiece’? He may or may not be showing up in Peacemaker. I hope he doesn’t, tbh.
“If you want to know what my power is, pull my finger.”
I like it. However, first thing I thought was Aircraft Carrier.
First I thought of was a pigeon
So he’s named after a Northern Athabaskan language spoken in Canada?
I don’t get it. How does that relate to what his powers are?
Blulk. :)
Project shields and fire energy blasts? I’m so ready for a Sydney/Carrier team-up page!
I was really expecting a comment from her at that point. Like, “Hey, fun fact: I can project a shield and fire energy blasts.”
What’s she need him for?
Oh, yeah he can be her flyball and she can shield and PPO.
Her undisclosed Falling Slowly without the Fly ball let’s her get around that too.
Flotilla. The name’s Flotilla. Sydney has spoken, and so he is renamed. Note the sage nod in Panel 5 – this means it’s official. Let the records be updated.
He’s lucky she picked something cool, the last guy she renamed got a much worse epithet.
For your comments about multple languages – see Firefly
While yes “they” is both singular in plural, to be fair so is “you”.
Thou cans’t be serious
How y’all doin’?
Ya – One person (“How ya doin’?”)
Y’all – One or more people (up to about 6, give or take)
all Y’all – A group of people (starting at about 6, give or take)
You’uns – (According to Jeff Foxworthy, this is Y’all, plus three.)
All Y’all’s – (The plural possessive form of “Y’all)
Y’inz as well.
I think there’s also a y’outs.
Yer all nuts, I tell youse! :)
I was wondering if anyone would get to this point LOL!
Since Appalachian English is remnants of Tudor/Shakespearean English, one could wonder how old “y’all” actually is, and if it’s Appalachian, or another relic.
The last person I recall using the word you’uns in regular speech was my maternal grandmother who was born around 1900. She grew up in Texas and Oklahoma but was just one generation away from deep rural Kentucky. You’uns was used to directly address a group of individuals such as “You’uns need to wash your hands.” Elsewhere in the discussion there is mention of the word “one” as a gender neutral pronoun. As my grandmother used the word it is a contraction of “you ones”.
Speaking as a southerner, this is not correct. Southerners do not say ya. Also, “All y’all” is an address that includes an entire implied group, as in “Are all y’all coming to the pig pickin?” which may be answered with “Jeff isn’t, but the rest of us will be there.” The specific number of people is not a factor.
Singular They predates Singular You by quite a bit.
Thou, thee, thy, and thine were the singular forms of “you.”
Looks like “you” wasn’t used as the common singular form until the 1600s. So yeah, singular “they” was 200-300 years earlier.
Just a point of clarification. You and They cannot be compared in the way you’re trying to compare. The former is a second person pronoun. The latter is a third person pronoun. It’s situational.
If Person A is talking to person B, and referring to Person B, they will NEVER use the word ‘they’ to refer to person B.
Even if Person A is talking to person B and person C, they will still never use the word ‘they’ to refer to person B AND person C. They will just use ‘you’ – the second person pronoun. MAYBE they’ll elaborate with ‘You all’ or ‘y’all’ or something.
But you’re right about one important thing. Before the 12th century, and more popularly in the 14th century (not 16th btw – wherever you got that from probably made a mistake), the word ‘you’ was not used. At all. It was either thou, thee, or thine for singular, or ye was used as the plural (instead of, for example in modern english, ‘you all’ or ‘yourselves’) (which made things REALLY confusing for people who don’t know about the letter thorn being replaced by y out of laziness and fonts on printing presses). By the 14th century, they started just using ‘you’ as an all purpose singular AND plural second person pronoun, with a few exceptions (yourself vs yourselves).
I presume the point was to call attention to people complaining that something old is too new, while happily using something newer. It doesn’t matter what those things are. The age of something is generally irrelevant to its quality or usefulness.
It’s comparing apples and oranges though. Second person pronouns use different grammatical rules than third person pronouns.
Also not sure why you’re bringing up ‘age of something.’ Unless you mean that a new use of a word is going to be as easily accepted as a long-standing use of a word. In which case I have to disagree with you – age in this situation DEFINITELY makes a difference in how likely new grammar or linguistic rules will be accepted by a population. Organic acceptance of words, changing definition of words, transition of slang into common parlance, or addition/subtraction of letters or words takes a LONG time to gain enough acceptance to literally change the language.
The relative age of the usage of the words versus their acceptance by people is the thing being compared.
The claim is that people are happily using something new, while complaining that something older than it is too new. If the old thing is too new, then the newer thing should be too, should it not?
I think you’re missing the point of my argument.
You’re making one claim for one set of rules, based on rules for a completely DIFFERENT set of rules for a DIFFERENT scenario.
It’s like saying the maximum speed for a plane is 700 mph, because the maximum speed for a car is 700mph. This would obviously make no sense. Speed caps for a car and a plane are based on completely different rules, using completely different variables, and subject to completely different limitations.
In the same manner, you cannot use the rules for second person pronouns as your rational for how third person pronouns work. They are different rules, with completely different variables. Most notable that one involves a third party, while the other does not, hence the whole concept of THIRD PARTY pronouns.
“The claim is that people are happily using something new, while complaining that something older than it is too new”
I literally have no idea what you mean here, sorry.
And you’re clearly missing the point of the argument that you’re responding to. How you’ve missed it, I’m not sure, but let’s see if I can break it down:
1) Some people claim that singular they:
a) is “too new”
b) not commonly used or accepted
c) and therefore should not be used
2) Other people claim that singular you is newer than singular they
3) If singular they is too new to be used or accepted, then singular you should be as well, by the same logic.
My point is that it’s all absurd, because all words were new once, and if we had judged them by that logic, we’d have no words at all. Thus, we should instead judge changes to a language based on properties like usefulness and clarity.
1a) Singular they is not new. But there are still rules for when it should be used if you want to speak ir write in a grammatically coherent manner. And it is new to use it when the subject’s gender is known to the listener, because thatvwould cause confusion as to whether the subject is make or feme, which is useful for identifying who the pronoun represents as the subject in sentence structure.
1b). It is not commonly accepted outside of twitter snd niche elements of the internet and among those pushing activism instead of grammar. If the language soldiers want to be activists they should go with the option which enhances the language (for example, adopting the spivak set – ey, em, eir). Using they incorrectly just nakes a person sound incoherent, makes the language more difficult, and makes communication less clear. I have written this many times abd you seem to not read it. I wilk not be writing it again.
1c) you are strawmanning because the argument against using ‘they’ in this manner is more involved and logical than the simplification you are presenting
2) They’re wrong, need to study etymology (or take 6th grade english again), and it’s irrelevant anyway, since there are different rules for second person pronouns and third person pronouns. It easier to communicate info when there isnt a third person becayse both people are aware of the subject.
3) You are strawmanning again. And again, second person and third person perspectices involve different rules. See above.
“My point is that it’s all absurd, because all words were new once,”
Please study etymology just a little. I can suggest some good websites and youtube channels that make it enjoyable. The number concept of zero was new once as well. It doesnt mean it doesnt need to follow rules to be coherent. Language evolution is not completely random.
“and if we had judged them by that logic, we’d have no words at all.”
Please. Check out some etymology sites. And iI mean this with all due respect but you are so ridiculously wrong about this that the thread will go on forever if ilI have to list how. Not to mention a lot of the corrections are things that I have already posted and you’ve missed apparently.
“Thus, we should instead judge changes to a language based on properties like usefulness and clarity.”
Yes! Exactly! Which is why ‘they’ does not work well as you are arguing it should be. It reduces clarity instead of increases it! Which is also why the spivak pronouns DO work better, because it increases clarity. Why are you even still arguing when I said this in the beginning? I’m just ending responding in this thread.
As is frequently the case, we were having parallel discussions that happened to share a topic, but not a common angle on that topic. And thus we talk past each other, because we’re not interested in the same argument. And in this particular discussion, I wasn’t even making an argument — I was attempting to explain someone else’s argument to you.
I actually would prefer something like the spivak pronouns over singular they. But I would categorize singular they as a more organic construction, because many people have independently used it that way throughout history, as a natural extension from the unknown to the known. Something like the spivak pronouns I would categorize as artificial or constructed, because they were a result of someone deliberately attempting to invent words to address a specific case. So it’s surprising to me to see people advocating for organic change, while rejecting the organic development because it violates the rules they’re familiar with… But it shouldn’t surprise me, because I already knew that most people don’t have a coherent definition of “organic”, and that they mean something else entirely when they use it.
“I actually would prefer something like the spivak pronouns over singular they.”
Then we agree on that.
“But I would categorize singular they as a more organic construction, because many people have independently used it that way throughout history, as a natural extension from the unknown to the known.”
And that’s where we disagree. The fact that it creates less clarity instead of more clarity is why it hasnt been organically adopted when dealing with a known gender of the subject to a third party listener.
“because I already knew that most people don’t have a coherent definition of “organic””
I believe I wrote out the definition for organic adoption above in another thread when you asked for one, taken from an etymological study website.
Do supers get to rename themselves when they stumble upon a name they like better? How important is brand recognition? Wouldn’t your branding eventually be better with a better name? (I just realized how hard Ariannas job must be)
As someone who is bilingual, when thinking, I constantly switch languages in my head, mostly based on surroundings, for example if a website is in english. When talking to other people who aren’t monolingual we usually somehow automatically negotiate a “main” language for us to talk in and only switch when the other language has better or more precise meaning for what we want to express or if we hold some concept in a specific language and can’t remember the words for it in the other.
That’s a thing btw. Most concepts in my everyday life are connected to a specific language in my head and I use the respective language when thinking and talking about it and tend to forget the words connected to it in the language that I don’t usually use in that context. It’s really awkward when I try to explain stuff I always talk and think about in english to my monolingual dad who, IF he understands the words, doesn’t understand the subtleties connected with the phrasing at all.
That’s similar to the various technical jargons that you’ll find in business. Speaking about the same subject to a Marketing person or an Audit person, the language and terms are completely different.
Tell me about it, I used to get gigs translating jargon to English for companies back in the 90s so their owner’s manuals made sense.
I think it was back when Halo was getting her superhero name there was discussion that Arianna probably has a list of all the cool sounding potential superhero names.
Well… He probably prefers Carrier to my first option:
Swarm
‘Super Spreader’. It doesn’t work on so many levels.
Is that what they call it when Clark Kent spreads out on a couch taking up all the room?
I think Swarm was a villain in the first animated Spiderman series. Something involving bees.
Not to mention an indy comic from the 1990s.
He’s the skeleton of a Nazi scientist whose spirit can manifest when a lot of bees gather to it, then control massive numbers of bees. Nasty fellow. Spider-man villain.
Sydney. You’re just “Unintended Consequences: The Character” at this point, huh? Both for yourself and others.
His name will be one thing in English and another in the other languages.
He will be the pineapple of supers
Like nearly every other name if every other language, so nothing new
For portuguese you’re thinking of another kind of carrier, not something that transports other things ^^.
In spanish it’d be the same way: an aicraft carrier would be a “portaaviones”, whereas an “operador” is a company that provides internet services :P
Oh. Hah hah. Google translate doesn’t really make those sorts of distinctions.
English has a gender neutral pronoun besides “it/they” which goes back centuries. Its just really annoying to use “one” as a pronoun because it doesn’t quite work the same way grammatically. Historically, English has flipped flopped on “they” being proper or not as gender neutral, but there have been cases were “he” is gender neutral (such as old common law).
Recently, there have been lots of attempts to create a gender neutral pronoun, but it tends to fall flat on its face, among other reasons, due to feeling like a political move or because there are dozens of activist groups trying to make various changes to the English language for various reasons and nobody can keep them straight. Another reason is that the people trying to push the changes are almost exclusively the academic elite (or those who pretend to be) who refuse to leave their ivory towers and what is self evident to them isn’t to ~95% of the rest of the population.
As an aside, I remember listening to an audio book where humans meet an alien race with three pronouns and it was painful to listen to and felt extremely unnatural.
I knew a guy from Malawi who complained that English was very hard for him to learn because it had too much gender in it and his 1st language basically only had gender for “male” and “female”. So they would have “male cow” instead of “bull”. Other languages, have everything gendered, where verbs and adjectives also have gender. As an example, my second language determines if an organ is male or female based on if one has only one of the organ or multiple.
The country I live in has 4? official languages (naturally each with their own distinctive alphabet), most people speak 2 of them, and I doubt anyone aside from a linguist knows all of them. English is one of them, and mostly is taught as a second language. As far as I can tell, the only time I’ve noticed language bleed from one to another is for endearments, or if its a word which does not have an equivalent (ie, the most common language where I live stole a lot of English technical words).
Something I did notice in English, is there are enough words so many do not show up depending on where you are and many concepts the language is technically missing are frequently covered by multiple words which count as one concept. The first? guy I met from California didn’t realist that English had multiple words for snow and ice. Considering that he could count the number of times he saw snow on one hand and with fingers to spare, it makes sense.
And Thai has one Khun for male or female.
This is silly.
“You” is simultaneously plural and singular, and not a goddamn one has ever fielded a far-right agitprop campaign against it.
The idea that “it” is gender neutral is also silly. “It” is for non-sentient reference.
The far right is simply wrong about this, just like they are wrong about literally every other thing.
Just stop giving them any influence, and things will be better for everyone.
No one ever tried to make it illegal not to use it the way they wanted either, buddy.
You try to get your way by force rather than persuasion, you deserve what lands in your lap as a result.
Besides which, the purpose of your demands are in service to a lie.
Do threats count as force or persuasion?
I kinda think you missed what I said about gender non-specific pronouns and the context of some of it. I called “it” as an example of a gender neutral pronoun as reference to the author. I have an example which has been in use for centuries and the only problem with it is how awkward it can be grammatically. Many of the attempts I have seen where people use a non gendered pronoun and it ends up being just as awkward since you quickly end up either having to almost exclusively use pronouns or become unintelligible.
Just as an example, if you are narrating the actions of a man and a woman and want to use non-gendered, third person pronouns, then you are almost completely unable to use them at all as it will be hard to differentiate who is doing the action. With the usual pronouns, it is obvious which is which. The attempt to add non-gendered pronouns will essentially remove the ability to use them at all.
“You” has a lot less issue with being singular or plural, since it is much more obvious in context. Regardless of that, many languages have gendered and plural versions of it, like my second language. Its a difference between 2nd person and 3rd person.
And what if you’re narrating the actions of multiple men, or multiple women? What do you do then? Why is it so important to be able to distinguish between a man and a woman in a story?
Um… minor point of correction, since you’re wrong on a very basic idea.
I is an example of a first person pronoun – the speaker.
You is an example of a second person pronoun – the person or people the speaker is talking to
He/She/They are examples of third person pronouns – a person separate to who the speaker is talking to OR the speaker – a third party.
To elaborate:
First person refers to the speaker. Basically I, or Myself, or Me, or Mine, or My.
Second person point of view refers to a set of words or forms (such as pronouns or verb forms) that refer to the person that the speaker or writer is addressing — often used before another noun. You, your yours, yourself.
Third person point of view refers to where the narrator/speaker is not the subject of the information being relayed/in a story and is a separate entity.
You cannot ever use a second person pronoun in place of a third person pronoun. It would sound incoherent and like gibberish to do so. So there’s no way to compare the use of a second person pronoun and a third person pronoun.
This was meant in response to Andy, not Eric. Sorry.
Also your basic premise would still be a bit flawed even if you could compare second person pronouns to third person pronouns (which you really can’t do since there are different rules involved) since the second-person pronouns do still have some differentiation between singular and plural.
Yourself and yourselves.
Although just like ‘you all,’ it’s only plural and singular because of the noun attaches to your having a singular and plural form (self, selves).
‘You’ is both since the 14th century, when it basically replaced thee and thou and ‘your’ replaced thine. Before that, there were singular and plural forms for second person pronouns as well.
This was also meant in response to Andy, not Eric. Eric’s post wasnt flawed in its premise. Andy’s was.
I blame my phone, it was supposed to do the response to Eric’s post :/
Your friend would have hated Innuit or, I think, Finnish? Eighty-some different words for snow, IIRC.
Actually the Inuit have almost 300 words for types of snow. Also 180 snow and ice “related” words. On top of the 300 words for types of snow. To be fair…. it is pretty central in their lives compared to people in most other parts of the planet. Everywhere you look, there’s going to be either snow or ice most of the time.
Also to be fair, Hawaiians (I’m part Hawaiian) have over 200 words for rain and the many many descriptions of types of rain. I’m honestly surprised the British don’t have more words for rain though. (104 words for rain – a good second place:) ). I think Douglas Adams made a joke about that once in his Dirk Gently books, but that might have been because the English character in question was a rain god without realizing it and every day he was alive, wherever he was, it always rained. So he got very very very meticulous about describing types of rain.
That is one of Douglas Adams’ characters, but he’s from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
My mistake. :)
It’s been a while since I’ve read the books and I thought he was from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency instead of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Although we’re actually both wrong, techncially, and he was mentioned in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, upon a bit of research.
But you’re closer to being correct than I was, since that was in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, not the Dirk Gently series.
My understanding is that “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is the name of the franchise as a whole, as well as the first novel. The radio series came first.
Hitchhiker’s Guide is one of (I think) three series Douglas Adams created. The most well known one.
“The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy”
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe, and Everything
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Young Zaphod Plays it Safe
Mostly Harmless
There’s also a final book called “And Another Thing…” but it wasnt actually written by Douglas Adams, it just used Douglas Adams’ outline and was written by Eoin Foifer (the guy who wrote Artemis Fowl).
Next is the Dirk Gently series:
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul
The Salmon of Doubt (published posthumously, and incomplete).
And the last book he wrote was a one-off called Last Chance to See.
Also Starship Titanic was basically written by Douglas Adams as well, as it used Douglas Adams’ outline and a lot of his notes, but was formally written by Terry Jones. He gives credit to Douglas Adams for the novel, even calling the book ‘Douglas Adams’ Starship Titanic.’
For the longest time, there were just two TV cable providers in Israel. One, over satellite, is called “Yes”. The second one was a result of a merger of all previous cable providers, is called “Hot”.
Except someone didn’t think things through. In particular, Israel has a lot of former Soviet Union immigrants. In Cyrillic there is no letter “H”, but there is a letter that looks like one. It is pronounced like an N.
So the two TV providers are called “Yes” and “Not”.
“Operador” would be the wrong translation in Portuguese, it would usually refer to a telecom company or someone operating heavy machinery.
The correct translation for “Carrier”in this context would be “Portador”.
Uhm, “carrier” in Portuguese is “carregador”, “operador” is “operator”. The “carrier” in aircraft carrier is the prefix “porta” as in porta-aviões, but it doesn’t work alone….
I guess it came from “operadora” when looking for it, since carrier is also used for phone companies providing you the service (it shows up on your phone as carrier in english).
Hir and/or Cer has been around for a while. Neither have gotten into common usage.
I kinda doubt he’d go for FLO/FLO. Though it is a navy term for a ship that carries other ships.
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-massive-ships-the-navy-uses-to-carry-other-ships-around-2017-8
So you’re saying that you don’t think he’d go with the Flo?
I’ll send a ninja hit squad after myself. I apologize.
Justice is served. Also, ‘Flo’ is taken.
all he has to do is use the name your price tool and Flo can be his. the name not the actress. get your mind out of the red light district.
I’ve heard that while English is one of the hardest languages to use get correctly, it’s one one of easiest languages to use to get your point across.
English is basically “Welcome to Hell”. Where rules go out the window and there can be more exceptions than conformity to grammatical guidelines (I before E, anyone?).
It is interesting how many words English has stolen from other languages… and how disinclined the average speaker is to exploit that, instead choosing to pack more meaning into fewer words, at the cost of clarity.
On the subject of languages, specifically Japanese… I got a pity laugh out of an acquaintance named Tomo… I was like, oh??? Tomo? As in TomoDACHI, we can be friends??? :’D I feel the shame/embarassment in me and it’s been more than a year… probably 2 now?
If Sydney had a third arm/hand, she could totally be that hypothetical he offered, by herself. I suppose also just the two of them does it.
I suspect that is what the last unknown orb is; a control unit for all the other orbs. but Sydney will have to risk an upgrade point or so to find that out.
Two words, Dave: multilingual puns.
Not only that, but singular “they” is, in fact, older than singular “you”!
I’ve noticed that she seems to be getting closer to him in every panel… I wouldn’t put it past her…
Singular they predates singular you, and you use it all the time.
You are carrying an individual who can… fly, project energy beams of fiery destruction, and has shields. You are an aircraft carrier or *ahem “Brothership”. Unleashing the fighter flighty things from your carrying embrace. I guess if you wanna give a name to him pairing with Sydney in a squad you could call them “Spice Run”
We don’t have to go to Japanese for different words for shadings of the concept ‘love’. Greek has plenty, and it’s one of the fundamental sources of English. I had a brief disagreement with another webcomic creator who wanted to go the “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” route instead (i.e. make reference to a similar relationship in popular culture), which to be frank struck me as ridiculous.
We don’t have to go to Japanese for different words for shadings of the concept ‘love’. Greek has https://www.wellandgood.com/greek-words-for-love/ plenty, and it’s one of the fundamental sources of English. I had a brief disagreement with another webcomic creator who wanted to go the “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” route instead (i.e. make reference to a similar relationship in popular culture), which to be frank struck me as ridiculous.
We do have words for different types of love, for example. But, as the English language so often does, we just use the words from other languages instead of creating our own. (That’s pretty much been the case since we shifted into the Middle English stage of the language, as Old English simply took the Germanic approach of making new words by combining existing words.)
Using your love example:
From the Greek we get…
* Eros – an intense, romantic love (usually an early stage of a relationship)
* Storge – Stable and committed love, based often on companionship, emotional closeness, and trust (think of this as the later stage of many marriages or love that grows out of friendship.)
* Ludus – the “love is a game” mentality that often has brief relationships, hookups, and FWBs rather than anything particularly stable. Often can have manipulative aspects.
* Pragma – This is basically from the root for “pragmatic” where there can be emotional closeness involved, but it’s based more around what each party brings to the relationship that can make it stronger together than it is separate.
* Mania – Intense and obsessive love style that has severe ups and downs, is often insecure to the point of jealousy, and this person is often emotionally dependent on their partner.
* Agape – Selfless love that is unconditional where one is loved for who they are as they are. It doesn’t ask people to change (but often does inspire them to better themselves).
We also have Paternal love which is love from a parent to a child. Fraternal love is a sense of brotherhood.
Then for other words we have “Epicure” as a classic word for someone who loves food (also, gastronome, gourmand, foodie, and many other terms).
Linguaphile is a lover of languages
Technophile is someone who has a passion for technology
Logophile (my own nickname) is someone who loves words and the many ways in which they can be used.
Bibliophile means someone who loves books
Xenophile is someone who loves new or alien things.
(We won’t get into Zoophilia, though one could say that Sydney and Frix kinda combine that with Xenophilia… if we wanted to… *ahem*… stretch things a bit.)
But there are tons of words to describe different kinds of love more specifically, and even often whether they have more of an emotional or sexual connotation… A Sapiophile is someone whose emotional attraction is predominantly based on their partners intelligence, whereas a Sapiosexual actually finds intelligence itself to be sexually attractive and arousing.
Think of the latter as someone who would be hot for Dazzler not for her body as much as for her incredible intellect.
Or would find Syney to be hotter than a lot of the other females on the team because the wee lass is actually incredibly intelligent, she’d just much more of a lateral thinker than a directly logical one and has the ability to synthesize information much better than many of the other heroines, in part because she’s so genre-savvy and has a huge amount of general knowledge and stored trivia.
I hadn’t heard of Ludus, Pragma or Mania.
I have heard of Storge, Philia, Eros and Agape.
I hadn’t heard of Storge until recently when I came across “The Four Loves” by C. S. Lewis.
Are Ludus, Pragma and Mania negative aspects of the other four?
Ah no, I just found this, 8 Types of Love
OK, so this has led me down a rabbit hole To Buddha, Jesus, Aristotle, Augustine, Bacon, Spinoza the list goes on; And now I know less than when I started, Doh.
I would go with “Transporter”… those movies were stupid fun to watch
Actually “Carrier” translates to “Portador”, “Operador” translates to “Operator” in English… And in the case of an “Aircraft Carrier” it’s translated to “Porta-Aviões” which translate to “Plane Carier” verbatim.
A black guy in an African country is not going to be called “Portador.” Not happening.
He’d end up having to call people “Bwana”.
I recommend a program called Power Japanese. However…
If you were a REAL nerd, you’d learn KLINGON!
I think “it” having negative connotations when used to reference someone would infect any other gender-neutral singular pronoun in the euphemism treadmill sort of way. The only reason why “it” seems kinda demeaning/dehumanizing is because it’s often used that way, so tossing something else in the same grammatical spot would just invite the eventual connotation.
So much better to treat “they” like “you” as being irritatingly vague on if it’s singular or plural because having an ever changing list of new words for something is much more irritating.
“You” is never used for a nonthinking object.
“They” is also the plural of “it”.
I found a ball so put it with the others. It was blue, but most of them were red.
Well, Spanish has “querer” for “love” as in “I love ice cream” and “amar” for romantic love, so that’s a start.
You live in Texas, yes? Shouldn’t be hard to learn Spanish via immersion, just tune in to Telemundo or Univision, leave it on all day.
After about three years in school, if you do that, at some point you will start dreaming in Spanish. From then on, you will be thinking in it directly (perhaps slowly to start) rather than translating.
Querer is want, amar is love, gustar is to be pleased by.
Te quiero (I want you)
Te amo (I love you)
Me gustas (I like you/You please me)
So like no one even wants to discuss neo-pronouns? Internet, I am disappointed.
I really would not want to have to argue about the incoherence of taking any noun under the sun and adding self after it and calling that a pronoun. :)
I write long enough posts as it is.
Long story short – language is for relaying information coherently, especially (when it’s in writing) to third parties. Neo-pronouns make that more difficult, not less so. Which defeats the purpose of language.
Operador is cooler… sadly Sydney has not been shown a knack for languages outside of English and Nerdy.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-681-babelfishing/
Klaatu Berada Nikto?
Nanoo Nanoo?
Bah Weep Gra Na Weep Ninny Bong?
Qapla’?
Tonk’peh?
Achuta?
M’atchhomaroon.
Tek Mal tek?
Aiya?
Kaltxi?
Fraesus?
A legparanas hajom tle van angolnakkal?
All nerdy
Cholomuv!
Actually, question: if Sydney bubbled up herself and Max, then Max scooped her up and tried to take off, would the shield move at its default setting? As I recall, that shield doesn’t move once activated unless Sydney is using the flight orb
Nobody’s been able to move the shield from the outside, but we haven’t seen anybody try to move Sydney herself from within the shield while she was bubbled up.
The Squiddies were able to bounce her around and trap her within a tractor beam, but the robot from the warehouse fight didn’t seem to move her. Hard to tell with the camera perspective jumping around so much.
I had forgotten about her being bounced around! Also, Sydney is still subject to gravity while bubbled up. Perhaps the shield anchors itself in place when she’s standing on the ground, but doesn’t while she’s airborne?
Operador? Please Operador give us a chance…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0M75m7vHf0
I’m not sure why we discuss a replacement for ‘it’ or ‘they’ and not for ‘you’. ‘You’ is used for masculine, feminine or other, whether singular and plural. That’s the same ground as ‘they’ can be sued for, which I am fine with. I was kind of amused by Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series, which used xe/xyr as additional pronouns, and M. as a gender-neutral title replacing Mr./Mrs./Ms.
You’re completely wrong. You’re just too young to know anything other than the current pseudo-academic fad. “They” was historically never used for a singular known person, just for unknown persons whose sex was not known.
And, yes, it conflicts mightily, if you are an author. I’ve seen sentences where “they” could have referred to a lone protagonist, the two guards he was attacking, the bunkers they were defending, or the heavy guns sticking out of those bunkers.
We need a true neutral singular that’s construed with a singular verb, the way “it” is.
I like “one” as a singular pronoun.
As in “One does not simply walk into Mordor”
“That’s fine, you will be coming with us”
“‘They’ was historically never used for a singular known person, just for unknown persons whose sex was not known.”
So as a single person pronoun applicable regardless of sex, which is precisely the use it’s being put to. The growth in current, as opposed to historical usage actually goes back to at least the 90s when people took a serious look at all the places we were using ‘he’/’his’ to mean a person of either sex and wanted a better construction than ‘he/her’ or ‘his/hers’. Extending that to cover non-binary people is simply the logical usage of a pre-existing construction.
“And, yes, it conflicts mightily, if you are an author.”
It’s your job and that of your editors, to make sure it doesn’t. It isn’t hard, in fact it’s a basic part of the writer skillset emphasised in even the most basic creative writing class.
You’re speaking for a rather large percentage of the planet in that ‘never’. Most English speakers would imagine ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ are long out of everyday use, indeed that they are ‘never’ used, but they’re still common in some of the outlying villages around my hometown and similarly I find singular ‘they’ completely natural.
For a historical view, let’s look at A Comedy of Errors:
“There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend”
Or Hamlet:
“Tis meet that some more audience than a mother — Since nature makes them partial — should o’erhear the speech.”
Yes, it’s ‘their’/’them’ rather than they, but they’re still singular pronouns representing different forms of singular ‘they’ and they’re both used with known gender.
Agree with Regret about “one”, and Dal about the historic uses for “they”. As far as I can tell, “they” being used when the sex of a person is known has only cropped up in the last few years and, considering who is using it, feels like its a political shit test more than anything else.