• Dasus@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Name a gender-neutral singular third person pronoun from English that isn’t “it” (calling people “it” in English is very offensive, but in Finnish it’s just natural colloquialism, but I know enough to avoid that in English)

    • clickyello@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      they

      eta: to degender your comment you could say “this person knows their junkies”

      but being as you’ve been beaten over the head with the fact that the OP uses she/her pronouns that would also be misgendering her.

      leaving it as using a masculine pronoun is rude at best and blatantly transphobic at worst. nobody thinks you were being actively harmful when you said it but not being willing to change it is toxic.

      you’re not the hero here.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        21 minutes ago

        “They” is plural, not singular.

        It can be used to refer to single people, and using a plural instead of a singular is a very common way for many languages to show deference to the person you’re speaking to. Like in Finland. English already did that and did it so much it got rid of the second person singular, as “you” is a second person plural. This ofc meant there was nowhere for English to go vis-a-vis showing deference, so English really stresses titles. Narcissism of small differences, really.

        nobody thinks…

        Based on the votes I’ll have to disagree and say you don’t really know what others think.

        So, to reiterate, you would rather that I start using archaic stereotypes to think about people and language? I have to condition myself into thinking of everyone as either a boy or a girl, and always make a mental note to gender someone as soon as I make contact with them? The first thing I do should be to gender them? That’s your takeaway?

        Maybe try reading my comments again, with some thought. You’re not the hero here.

          • Madison420@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            How could they be wrong? They apologized and explained that it isn’t intentional and why. What exactly do you need to be happy here, seppuku?

            • CharmOffensive@lemm.ee
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              16 hours ago

              They didn’t apologize, they doubled down with some of the most insipid bullshit about pronouns not existing in English and how they’re “depronouning english”, despite defaulting to using the masculine, instead of just saying “oh yeah, I didn’t see the name, I’ll edit my comment”.

              • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                3 minutes ago

                about pronouns not existing in English and how they’re “depronouning english”,

                So it’s rude of me to not see gender, but it’s not rude of you to purposefully misrepresent what I said.

                “Depronouning”?

                No. DISGENDERING. Ie, "if everyone treated English the same as me, you’d have nothing to scream about, because there’d be no distinction for you to complain about as English would have evolved to the point where it left out unnecessary gendering. Like how it’s somewhat offensive to call women actors “actresses”, but also, some think it’s quite respectful. It very much depends on the context. For another actor, calling them an “actor” instead of “actress” would mean they’re being misgendered on purpose, when the other person is purposefully not using the unnecessary gendering of words, or in other words actively disgendering English.

                So, is Natalie Portman an actor or an actress? **Either way you answer, I can still use the same bullshit highroading rhetoric you’re using rn to pretend like you’re intentionally misgendering them.

                There is no gender-neutral singular third person pronoun in English. “They” isn’t singular. It’s plural. It’s not like I refuse to address people by their preferred pronouns. I simply did not look, and used “the default.” Now we can argue what “should” be the default, but you’re not gonna make my brain gender people or think of pluralities as singularities. I’ll address people in singular they and respect it if they choose to, but I’m not gonna default to it over you not liking how English doesn’t have a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. We in Finnish do, but it’s reserved for pets and polite conversation in the media. The colloquial way is to refer to people as “it”.

              • Madison420@lemmy.world
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                16 hours ago

                An appology doesn’t have to say sorry if they aren’t sorry dude. They explained it and hilariously the person minging about it the most immediately assumed the person you’re mad at’s gender which is just hilariously hypocritical.

                oh yeah, I didn’t see the name, I’ll edit it my comment".

                That’s literally what they said minus I’ll edit my comment. So what’s the benefit of editing the comment? Will it reverse time or remove context so you not rose will be less offended.

                • CharmOffensive@lemm.ee
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                  16 hours ago

                  An apology does have to say sorry or it’s just an explanation. If they aren’t sorry, they’re not apologising, they’re just telling you what happened in a way that takes 0 responsibility.

                  I know all I need to about you from this one simple statement and now realise you’ll be too pig headed to approach this in any way other than antagonistically in a desperate attempt to browbeat the other person into submission. Because for you, it’s not about reaching consensus, it’s about your own ego.

                  You do you bro, I don’t care enough about anyone in this debate to bother responding anymore. Peace.

                  • Madison420@lemmy.world
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                    16 hours ago

                    No that can be an apology, it however isn’t the only way to apologize.

                    You know dictionaries? Try one.

                    something that is said or written to defend something that other people criticize