PC pronouns

[Ulrike Meinhof]

I've noticed a few instances where Facebook assumes you're male even if you haven't specified gender. The only one I recall at the moment is (in the French version), when there's a like button on external websites and none of your friends has yet liked the thing (a video, a blog post or whatever), it says "Soyez le premier".

Not a few instances, a few languages. Because well, that's how romance works as of today (at least I think French works like Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan and likely Italian and others). It's not really an assumptino that you're male.

Fair point. Guess I'm influenced by my native Swedish, where using the explicitly masculine form would be the marked case.

[Thry]

Fair point. Guess I'm influenced by my native Swedish, where using the explicitly masculine form would be the marked case.

Maybe. In Spanish, "sé la primera" makes it impossible for a man to feel addressed; "sé el primero", nevertheless, makes women feel as addressed as men.

It's not uncommon, though, because of all the PC Nazism going on, to find teachers saying: Venga, ¿algún voluntario? (... o voluntaria), and then having someone giggle because it is superfluous. I honestly don't think there's anything to be fixed and so I don't participate in all this gender fuss.

In Swedish it's marked, you say; but was that the case too before the pronoun hen was fabricated? I'm curious.

[finlay]

Real "new" pronouns like "y'all" act like normal nouns, with no oblique form, and "y'all's" as the possessive.

Not necessarily. At least in my dialect, the most common possessive of you guys is your guys' (with /z/ not /zɪz/) not you guys's (with /zɪz/), even though that does pop up every once in a while. Note that your guys's (with /zɪz/) also pops up every once in a while, by analogy with both patterns simultaneously.

I know, but this one's weird in that it actually contains a word that has a fossilized grammar form; y'all doesn't. This always sounds like someone's making a lame joke, though, when I hear itt, and just reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite (a film i hated). Point taken, though.

(it's difficult for me to make objective judgements on this one, though, because i don't have it natively. i still associate it with rachel in friends, or something like that, ie youth slang from america which has sort of been used over in the uk but not so much. so i'll use 'you guys' sometimes but i've never tried to make a possessive out of it; i'd just use 'your'. the 'native' plural pronoun in scotland is 'yous', anyway, although again i don't think i've heard anyone trying to make a possessive out of it, when 'your' does the job. i get the impression that the possessive doesn't need the distinction as strongly as the plain form, especially as the possessive usually has an antecedent.)

[Ulrike Meinhof]

In Swedish it's marked, you say; but was that the case too before the pronoun hen was fabricated? I'm curious.

Hen hasn't made that deep an impact, it's still just a neologism floating on top of the language, although being picked up more often than before. The thing is, colloquial Swedish (except some traditional dialects) doesn't really have masculine forms for adjectives. Traditionally, -a is feminine and -e is masculine; thus den nya lärarinnan 'the new teacher (fem)' and den nye läraren 'the new teacher (masc)', but the latter sounds stilted and you'd rather hear nya there as well. If -e is ever used in informal contexts, it's more or less confined to modifying a select few prototypically masculine nouns, such as man 'man'.

"Informal" contexts in Swedish stretch higher up than in many other languages/cultures, so I'm including things like newspaper articles other than the most dry and informative, recipies, manuals, and of course interfaces on websites.

Regardless of register, the masculine form is really the odd one out, and if you want to include both genders such as in 'be the first one', the -a form is obligatory: bli den första. Bli den förste explicitly addresses a male.

[Rekettye]

the 'native' plural pronoun in scotland is 'yous'

YES! We also have this (NI). We have "yous'ns" or "you'ns" too, and I've even heard "yous's" for the possessive among children.

[el imiradu]

What is wrong with "they"? How do you pronounce "xir" anyway?

If I had to make up a gender neutral pronoun it would be "e" /i/. Not sure what the accusative form would be - maybe the same?

[Gulliver]

What is wrong with "they"? How do you pronounce "xir" anyway?

If I had to make up a gender neutral pronoun it would be "e" /i/. Not sure what the accusative form would be - maybe the same?

"They" has an uneasiness for some people because it can be seen as impersonal, and "he" has had a "he or she" function for a long time, and some people just like to complain.

I don't know how I'd say "xir"... that's a good question. Semi-relatedly, I've seen "ille" and "el" used in French by queer peeps which are feminised "il" and defeminised "elle", following the pattern of masculine nominal and adjectival forms using the zero-inflected form.

In Canada more than elsewhere, I believe, there has been some acceptance of neutralised nouns like professionèle, which have a theoretically sex-gender-neutral ending but are grammatically gendered.

[finlay]

What is wrong with "they"? How do you pronounce "xir" anyway?

If I had to make up a gender neutral pronoun it would be "e" /i/. Not sure what the accusative form would be - maybe the same?

"They" has an uneasiness for some people because it can be seen as impersonal, and "he" has had a "he or she" function for a long time, and some people just like to complain.

I dunno about the impersonal thing... the only problem I have with it is that it tends to take an indefinite antecedent (eg "someone" or "a person"). With named antecedents I still implicitly expect a singular pronoun, so it throws me when someone uses 'they'. Theoretically I have no problem with it, though, I just find it difficult to use 'naturally'.

Incidentally my facebook still has no gender set on it (because I removed the setting before they made it mandatory to have one or the other), so I occasionally have it saying things like 'Finlay changed their profile picture', which sounds strange to me.

[clawgrip]

What is wrong with "they"? How do you pronounce "xir" anyway?

If I had to make up a gender neutral pronoun it would be "e" /i/. Not sure what the accusative form would be - maybe the same?

"They" has an uneasiness for some people because it can be seen as impersonal, and "he" has had a "he or she" function for a long time, and some people just like to complain.

I don't know how I'd say "xir"... that's a good question. Semi-relatedly, I've seen "ille" and "el" used in French by queer peeps which are feminised "il" and defeminised "elle", following the pattern of masculine nominal and adjectival forms using the zero-inflected form.

In Canada more than elsewhere, I believe, there has been some acceptance of neutralised nouns like professionèle, which have a theoretically sex-gender-neutral ending but are grammatically gendered.

I notice Canadian passports use the feminine for nationality; they all say: CANADIAN/CANADIENNE regardless of the sex of the individual.

[Ser]

I notice Canadian passports use the feminine for nationality; they all say: CANADIAN/CANADIENNE regardless of the sex of the individual.

Yes, because nationalité is a feminine noun. The same goes for Salvadoran passports ((de nacionalidad) salvadoreña).

[clawgrip]

I notice Canadian passports use the feminine for nationality; they all say: CANADIAN/CANADIENNE regardless of the sex of the individual.

Yes, because nationalité is a feminine noun. The same goes for Salvadoran passports ((de nacionalidad) salvadoreña).

Of course, so obvious that I can't see it.

[Thry]

Speaking of passports, it irks me that Spanish documents use the M/H letters to distinguish men and woman. What is H, hombre or hembra? What is M, mujer or macho xD? I guess I'm just lazy to parse m as mujer after seeing so many m/f systems in English.

[Vuvuzela]

do the passports in Iceland use K and K for Karlkyns and Kvenkyns?

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

This happens on facebook with people who have not specified their gender.

"John Smith updated their work history."

I've noticed a few instances where Facebook assumes you're male even if you haven't specified gender. The only one I recall at the moment is (in the French version), when there's a like button on external websites and none of your friends has yet liked the thing (a video, a blog post or whatever), it says "Soyez le premier".

In a given situation, when you do not no the sex of the person, you use the singular masculine. Indeed, the sentence you quote, in context, is completely genderless and my sister could be "le premier".

(Quebec French evolved the use of both genders in such context, in formal situations. So one would write "Soyez le premier ou la première", Mostly unseen in the rest of the French World.)

[Ser]

Speaking of passports, it irks me that Spanish documents use the M/H letters to distinguish men and woman. What is H, hombre or hembra? What is M, mujer or macho xD? I guess I'm just lazy to parse m as mujer after seeing so many m/f systems in English.

...But there's no way you could expect macho or hembra to be used in such a context.

[Shm Jay]

Here’s an idea: since -o is for masculine in Spanish, and -a for feminine, why not adopt -u for neuter? Then you could have lu for the neuter pronoun, and even lus, and then unu. I don’t think you need su, since se is rather neuter already.

Ustedes pueden me dar las gracias mas tarde.

[Ser]

Here’s an idea: since -o is for masculine in Spanish, and -a for feminine, why not adopt -u for neuter? Then you could have lu for the neuter pronoun, and even lus, and then unu. I don’t think you need su, since se is rather neuter already.

Ustedes pueden me dar las gracias mas tarde.

No, because then we'd just sound like asturianus. Or portuguêsinhs.

[Shm Jay]

That’s the whole point! Iberian gender-neutral unity!

Ustedes pueden darme las gracias mas tarde.

[Thry]

Speaking of passports, it irks me that Spanish documents use the M/H letters to distinguish men and woman. What is H, hombre or hembra? What is M, mujer or macho xD? I guess I'm just lazy to parse m as mujer after seeing so many m/f systems in English.

...But there's no way you could expect macho or hembra to be used in such a context.

Yes... male/female mindset xD

That’s the whole point! Iberian gender-neutral unity!

Ustedes pueden darme las gracias mas tarde.

¡Pero si no puede ser mas feu! En todo caso con -e, aunque eso suena estupido. So we can sound fugly, retarded or be sexist. I go for discrimination xD.

[Thry]

If Zomp was a Swede, he'd have used hen extensively in the Ewemi page.

[Izambri]

So English has "zhe" and "zir" as PC pronouns (*Not a Standard Feature*) for people who neither want to be called she, he, or it. Any other NatLangs doing this that encode for gender?

I don't know any invented pronoun for Catalan. You would use the masculine, which can be used as a neuter (in fact, the neuter and the masculine merged in the evolution from Latin to Catalan) but the most common is to use the verb without mentioning the subject, veen if you don't want to hide the subject's gender: Té por d'arribar tard "(he/she) Is afraid of arriving late".

[Thry]

So English has "zhe" and "zir" as PC pronouns (*Not a Standard Feature*) for people who neither want to be called she, he, or it. Any other NatLangs doing this that encode for gender?

I don't know any invented pronoun for Catalan. You would use the masculine, which can be used as a neuter (in fact, the neuter and the masculine merged in the evolution from Latin to Catalan) but the most common is to use the verb without mentioning the subject, veen if you don't want to hide the subject's gender: Té por d'arribar tard "(he/she) Is afraid of arriving late".

Té por d'arribar tard perque _ mirarien malament.

IMD I can use a very forced leísmo here and go for "y le mirarían mal", which still sounds masculine nevertheless. (I'm assuming mirar is transitive in Catalan; and that li would be unacceptable).

[Izambri]

So English has "zhe" and "zir" as PC pronouns (*Not a Standard Feature*) for people who neither want to be called she, he, or it. Any other NatLangs doing this that encode for gender?

I don't know any invented pronoun for Catalan. You would use the masculine, which can be used as a neuter (in fact, the neuter and the masculine merged in the evolution from Latin to Catalan) but the most common is to use the verb without mentioning the subject, veen if you don't want to hide the subject's gender: Té por d'arribar tard "(he/she) Is afraid of arriving late".

Té por d'arribar tard perque _ mirarien malament.

IMD I can use a very forced leísmo here and go for "y le mirarían mal", which still sounds masculine nevertheless. (I'm assuming mirar is transitive in Catalan; and that li would be unacceptable).

Té por d'arribar tard perquè la gent ho veuria amb mals ulls.

For example. No pronoun for main sentence's subject there XD

[Thry]

Que paràfrasi ni que òsties en vinagre.

[Izambri]

Que paràfrasi ni que òsties en vinagre.

I you want to avoid using them that's one way. But, as I said, you can use the masculine as a neuter: Té por d'arribar tard perquè el mirarien malament.

But why to say that when there's no need of a pure neuter form in Catalan?