My academic history is...unique xD I have a PhD in Chemistry, but I also have a BA degree in political theory. The first year of my BA was basically half foundations of modern democracy and half...
My academic history is...unique xD I have a PhD in Chemistry, but I also have a BA degree in political theory. The first year of my BA was basically half foundations of modern democracy and half sociology reading. Judith Butler stands extremely tall in the field.
Butler is a lesbian, legally non-binary, and, as of 2020, said they use both they/them and she/her pronouns but prefer to use "they" pronouns. Butler indicated that they were "never at home" with being assigned female at birth.
omg I was familiar with Butler's work (they're like THE person on this topic imo) but I had no idea they were also non-binary! Ngl that made my day finding it out.
omg I was familiar with Butler's work (they're like THE person on this topic imo) but I had no idea they were also non-binary! Ngl that made my day finding it out.
I seem like I'm in the minority here, and it could have been some regional thing, but I definitely grew up with singular they, both using it myself and seeing those around me use it regularly. And...
I seem like I'm in the minority here, and it could have been some regional thing, but I definitely grew up with singular they, both using it myself and seeing those around me use it regularly. And I grew up before trans issues were in the public consciousness so it wasn't for inclusivity purposes. People just occasionally used "they" when referring to other people, even known people.
Doing that goes back all the way to at least Shakespeare, but I guess I have to imagine, from the number of people who have a hang-up with it, that it got bred out of most populations of English speakers sometime between then and now (???). I have no idea if this is historically attested but it's the only thing that can really explain why some people now have so much trouble with it when it's existed as a construct for as long as it has. If I had to guess it would be the same grammar school prescriptivists who made up that preposition stranding and splitting infinitives were "incorrect" because they can't be done in Latin, since Latin likewise doesn't have a singular "they".
In any case, I remember when singular "they" became overwhelmingly a gender thing, and therefore a political thing, in my teenage years. I live in a deeply conservative area, and I recall being baffled at the time seeing people I had known to use singular "they" all the time suddenly start complaining about how the liberal communists are trying to change our language by getting us to use singular "they".
Quite frankly, I get the point of "they", but as a non-native speaker I always shudder. Because I have learned English very consciously and not as a toddler, changes to pronouns always simply seem...
Quite frankly, I get the point of "they", but as a non-native speaker I always shudder.
Because I have learned English very consciously and not as a toddler, changes to pronouns always simply seem grammatically wrong.
I will say though that out of all the three languages I speak fluently, the English "they" is the easiest gender adaption to wrap my head around in day-to-day live. It might be grammatically wrong, but at least it is straightforward...
Trans woman, linguistics knower, and English first language speaker here! It's not grammatically wrong to use they/them to refer to a singular individual that you don't know the gender identity...
It might be grammatically wrong, but at least it is straightforward...
Trans woman, linguistics knower, and English first language speaker here! It's not grammatically wrong to use they/them to refer to a singular individual that you don't know the gender identity of. For example:
A: My old university housemate is coming to visit this weekend!
B: Fun! How long are they staying for?
However I do understand the impulse to think that they/them is not "right" to refer to a person that you know, and who might be right in front of you. Our brains are so used to sorting people into male or female for ease of reference that it takes a bit of forceful effort to stop doing it and default to "they/them" for the people who prefer it.
Neopronouns are an interesting solution to this problem, but unfortunately are very unlikely to catch on and gain widespread usage. Pronouns are part of what we call the "closed class" of words, meaning that they are primarily functional words, and this category very rarely accepts new entrants. Given that we already have they/them in English, xe/zir/cem are not adequately filling a communicative gap in the lexicon to ever be fully incorporated.
I think this is where my non-native speakerness kicks in: In my native German I would simply ask "How long is he or she staying for?" I agree with you on the likelihood of neopronouns in general...
It's not grammatically wrong to use they/them to refer to a singular individual that you don't know the gender identity of.
I think this is where my non-native speakerness kicks in: In my native German I would simply ask "How long is he or she staying for?"
I agree with you on the likelihood of neopronouns in general and getting very far in the English language.
That's totally fair, and it's still quite common for first language English speakers to say "he or she" as well. As an educated guess, I would imagine that they/them is increasing in usage due it...
That's totally fair, and it's still quite common for first language English speakers to say "he or she" as well. As an educated guess, I would imagine that they/them is increasing in usage due it simply being more expeditious. Our brains are naturally wired to be as efficient as possible in language, and three syllables is more effortful than one.
I would even go one step further: they/them will only really catch on if it actually simplifies the use of language without loosing meaning. And if that's the case, its nothing anyone could really...
I would even go one step further: they/them will only really catch on if it actually simplifies the use of language without loosing meaning. And if that's the case, its nothing anyone could really complain about.
We are lazy indeed ;-)
As a non-binary German learner who uses they/them in English, I get how something like that can be difficult to adapt to, but it's just one of those parts of learning a language that sometimes...
As a non-binary German learner who uses they/them in English, I get how something like that can be difficult to adapt to, but it's just one of those parts of learning a language that sometimes things are different. If I have to learn un-Englishy grammatical things like the difference between du and Sie and pick between binary pronouns when people refer to me in German despite not really loving either of them, it seems fair for fluent non-native English speakers to learn how to use they/them for me.
Absolutely! Any language is a living organism that evolves and learning it is an ongoing process. That's the beauty of it. But of course no one in school learns a foreign language as a thing that...
Absolutely! Any language is a living organism that evolves and learning it is an ongoing process. That's the beauty of it.
But of course no one in school learns a foreign language as a thing that changes over time, but as a fixed set of rules. The difference between the Du/Sie and they/them examples might be that you had to learn the difference between Du/Sie as a given rule at some point and that was that, because its usage hasn't changed. I now have to adapt my use of pronouns 15 years after I consciously hammered english into my head.
I certainly don't want to dramatize my quarrels with pronouns in english. After all, they/them is not that complicated to understand. But for us non-native speakers, this kind of unlearning/learning happens more consciously than for native speakers I believe and we therefore might perceive it as more of an effort.
As a German learner (almost 500 days in Duolingo, yay), I've been thinking how do Germans talk about people who's gender is unknown or isn't clearly male or female? For example Schauspieler and...
As a German learner (almost 500 days in Duolingo, yay), I've been thinking how do Germans talk about people who's gender is unknown or isn't clearly male or female?
For example Schauspieler and Schauspielerin are gendered nouns, which one do you pick when you talk about an unknown person or someone who doesn't identify as either?
Congrats on the streak! The owl must be very pleased :) There are a few ways of going about this. The short of it is however that the German language stuggles with it. Not as much as more...
Congrats on the streak! The owl must be very pleased :)
For example Schauspieler and Schauspielerin are gendered nouns, which one do you pick when you talk about an unknown person or someone who doesn't identify as either?
There are a few ways of going about this. The short of it is however that the German language stuggles with it. Not as much as more latin-based langauges, but still.
Traditionally, German assumes that the male version (Schauspieler) technically also includes the female version (Schauspielerin). So if you address a group of people playing roles in film, you could technically say "Sehr geehrte Schauspieler". But you can imagine that that doesn't fly very well anymore.
What usually happens is that people simply say both "Sehr geehrte Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen..."
The downside is that this can become very tedious. Texts become barley readable and spoken language is a hassle. Consider this statement: "Wenn ein Schauspieler oder eine Schauspielerin gut ist, dann verdient er oder sie viel Geld." On top of Schauspieler/Schauspielerin, you also have to deal with er/sie later in the sentence.
Oftentimes, institutions etc. resort to using the Gerundium to hide any gender. So "Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen" becomes "Schauspielende" (="those people that are acting"). That in turn has the some logical downsides of its own, but the main point is that it is mainly used in the plural.
The hip thing in the singular is to combine both female and male versions in one word through the use of special signs: Schauspieler_in, Schaupieler:in etc. with a small pause on the _ or :. Like: Schaupieler_pause_in.
But it doesn't get you very far either: "Wir brauchen eine andere oder einen anderen Schauspieler:in" again just sound very convoluted.
On the other hand, you yourself can say "Ich bin Schauspieler:in" and effectively hide your gender identity. If you speak fast, it also has the funny effect that you seem to use the female version generically.
There are other academic propositions of how to deal with these problems, but they have very little influence on real-world usage of language and probably never will.
For you as a learner: don't worry too much about it. Every native speaker knows that its difficult enough for learners to get basic German right - so we don't expect anyone to get the ins and outs of gender-concious alternatives. :)
My native language doesn't have gender pronouns at all, so for me it's easy. I've actually made it a game to try to always use "they" when I'm speaking of someone in my family for example. I might...
My native language doesn't have gender pronouns at all, so for me it's easy. I've actually made it a game to try to always use "they" when I'm speaking of someone in my family for example.
I might want people to know I have a child, but I don't want to reveal their gender to the whole of the internet. (See what I did there).
I also talk about my Significant Other and they do this and they do that. I don't need to share the knowledge of mine or their gender just because pronouns in english are gendered.
Being a parent to an inter* girl kind of made me go through this whole process in an expressway, so I’m rather comfortable now with things like preferred pronouns. Meeting people in person and...
Being a parent to an inter* girl kind of made me go through this whole process in an expressway, so I’m rather comfortable now with things like preferred pronouns. Meeting people in person and addressing them with their preferred pronouns helped normalize it for me.
At the same time, I feel you. Growing up in a heteronormative, binary society left a mark on me and if it wasn’t for my daughter, I wouldn’t have dived as deep and quick on the topic as I have.
Nope. I knew some pedants (peers who would interrupt conversations to correct it) and English teachers who would insist on "he/she" ("he slash she" or "he or she"). Sort of through an intellectual...
Nope. I knew some pedants (peers who would interrupt conversations to correct it) and English teachers who would insist on "he/she" ("he slash she" or "he or she"). Sort of through an intellectual laziness as kid I accidentally stumbled into progress (jk). Bridging the gap from an unknown to a known person didn't seem like too big a jump. In fact, I generally opposed the use of neopronouns because we had a pronoun that worked with less friction than new words.
I could see how if one was really hung up on the grammar and strict adherence to the rules it could be a thing.
Thank you for sharing this; it was very interesting, and I think it puts into words some thoughts on gender that I'm too dumb to say coherently myself. I'm going to have to see if my library has...
Thank you for sharing this; it was very interesting, and I think it puts into words some thoughts on gender that I'm too dumb to say coherently myself. I'm going to have to see if my library has any of their books in stock next time I'm there.
Folks, Judith Butler is an excellent scholar of the field. They're truly exceptional, and you should take them seriously.
Awesome. How did you encounter their work?
My academic history is...unique xD I have a PhD in Chemistry, but I also have a BA degree in political theory. The first year of my BA was basically half foundations of modern democracy and half sociology reading. Judith Butler stands extremely tall in the field.
Just an FYI from Wikipedia, emphasis mine:
I'll edit my comment :)
omg I was familiar with Butler's work (they're like THE person on this topic imo) but I had no idea they were also non-binary! Ngl that made my day finding it out.
I seem like I'm in the minority here, and it could have been some regional thing, but I definitely grew up with singular they, both using it myself and seeing those around me use it regularly. And I grew up before trans issues were in the public consciousness so it wasn't for inclusivity purposes. People just occasionally used "they" when referring to other people, even known people.
Doing that goes back all the way to at least Shakespeare, but I guess I have to imagine, from the number of people who have a hang-up with it, that it got bred out of most populations of English speakers sometime between then and now (???). I have no idea if this is historically attested but it's the only thing that can really explain why some people now have so much trouble with it when it's existed as a construct for as long as it has. If I had to guess it would be the same grammar school prescriptivists who made up that preposition stranding and splitting infinitives were "incorrect" because they can't be done in Latin, since Latin likewise doesn't have a singular "they".
In any case, I remember when singular "they" became overwhelmingly a gender thing, and therefore a political thing, in my teenage years. I live in a deeply conservative area, and I recall being baffled at the time seeing people I had known to use singular "they" all the time suddenly start complaining about how the liberal communists are trying to change our language by getting us to use singular "they".
Quite frankly, I get the point of "they", but as a non-native speaker I always shudder.
Because I have learned English very consciously and not as a toddler, changes to pronouns always simply seem grammatically wrong.
I will say though that out of all the three languages I speak fluently, the English "they" is the easiest gender adaption to wrap my head around in day-to-day live. It might be grammatically wrong, but at least it is straightforward...
Trans woman, linguistics knower, and English first language speaker here! It's not grammatically wrong to use they/them to refer to a singular individual that you don't know the gender identity of. For example:
However I do understand the impulse to think that they/them is not "right" to refer to a person that you know, and who might be right in front of you. Our brains are so used to sorting people into male or female for ease of reference that it takes a bit of forceful effort to stop doing it and default to "they/them" for the people who prefer it.
Neopronouns are an interesting solution to this problem, but unfortunately are very unlikely to catch on and gain widespread usage. Pronouns are part of what we call the "closed class" of words, meaning that they are primarily functional words, and this category very rarely accepts new entrants. Given that we already have they/them in English, xe/zir/cem are not adequately filling a communicative gap in the lexicon to ever be fully incorporated.
I think this is where my non-native speakerness kicks in: In my native German I would simply ask "How long is he or she staying for?"
I agree with you on the likelihood of neopronouns in general and getting very far in the English language.
That's totally fair, and it's still quite common for first language English speakers to say "he or she" as well. As an educated guess, I would imagine that they/them is increasing in usage due it simply being more expeditious. Our brains are naturally wired to be as efficient as possible in language, and three syllables is more effortful than one.
I would even go one step further: they/them will only really catch on if it actually simplifies the use of language without loosing meaning. And if that's the case, its nothing anyone could really complain about.
We are lazy indeed ;-)
As a non-binary German learner who uses they/them in English, I get how something like that can be difficult to adapt to, but it's just one of those parts of learning a language that sometimes things are different. If I have to learn un-Englishy grammatical things like the difference between du and Sie and pick between binary pronouns when people refer to me in German despite not really loving either of them, it seems fair for fluent non-native English speakers to learn how to use they/them for me.
Absolutely! Any language is a living organism that evolves and learning it is an ongoing process. That's the beauty of it.
But of course no one in school learns a foreign language as a thing that changes over time, but as a fixed set of rules. The difference between the Du/Sie and they/them examples might be that you had to learn the difference between Du/Sie as a given rule at some point and that was that, because its usage hasn't changed. I now have to adapt my use of pronouns 15 years after I consciously hammered english into my head.
I certainly don't want to dramatize my quarrels with pronouns in english. After all, they/them is not that complicated to understand. But for us non-native speakers, this kind of unlearning/learning happens more consciously than for native speakers I believe and we therefore might perceive it as more of an effort.
As a German learner (almost 500 days in Duolingo, yay), I've been thinking how do Germans talk about people who's gender is unknown or isn't clearly male or female?
For example Schauspieler and Schauspielerin are gendered nouns, which one do you pick when you talk about an unknown person or someone who doesn't identify as either?
Congrats on the streak! The owl must be very pleased :)
There are a few ways of going about this. The short of it is however that the German language stuggles with it. Not as much as more latin-based langauges, but still.
Traditionally, German assumes that the male version (Schauspieler) technically also includes the female version (Schauspielerin). So if you address a group of people playing roles in film, you could technically say "Sehr geehrte Schauspieler". But you can imagine that that doesn't fly very well anymore.
What usually happens is that people simply say both "Sehr geehrte Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen..."
The downside is that this can become very tedious. Texts become barley readable and spoken language is a hassle. Consider this statement: "Wenn ein Schauspieler oder eine Schauspielerin gut ist, dann verdient er oder sie viel Geld." On top of Schauspieler/Schauspielerin, you also have to deal with er/sie later in the sentence.
Oftentimes, institutions etc. resort to using the Gerundium to hide any gender. So "Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen" becomes "Schauspielende" (="those people that are acting"). That in turn has the some logical downsides of its own, but the main point is that it is mainly used in the plural.
The hip thing in the singular is to combine both female and male versions in one word through the use of special signs: Schauspieler_in, Schaupieler:in etc. with a small pause on the _ or :. Like: Schaupieler_pause_in.
But it doesn't get you very far either: "Wir brauchen eine andere oder einen anderen Schauspieler:in" again just sound very convoluted.
On the other hand, you yourself can say "Ich bin Schauspieler:in" and effectively hide your gender identity. If you speak fast, it also has the funny effect that you seem to use the female version generically.
There are other academic propositions of how to deal with these problems, but they have very little influence on real-world usage of language and probably never will.
For you as a learner: don't worry too much about it. Every native speaker knows that its difficult enough for learners to get basic German right - so we don't expect anyone to get the ins and outs of gender-concious alternatives. :)
That was just a curiosity of mine, I'm still struggling to remember if a sandwich or a banana is male or female or neither =)
My native language doesn't have gender pronouns at all, so for me it's easy. I've actually made it a game to try to always use "they" when I'm speaking of someone in my family for example.
I might want people to know I have a child, but I don't want to reveal their gender to the whole of the internet. (See what I did there).
I also talk about my Significant Other and they do this and they do that. I don't need to share the knowledge of mine or their gender just because pronouns in english are gendered.
Being a parent to an inter* girl kind of made me go through this whole process in an expressway, so I’m rather comfortable now with things like preferred pronouns. Meeting people in person and addressing them with their preferred pronouns helped normalize it for me.
At the same time, I feel you. Growing up in a heteronormative, binary society left a mark on me and if it wasn’t for my daughter, I wouldn’t have dived as deep and quick on the topic as I have.
As someone bilingual its difficult to do because in Spanish everything is gendered.
Yes, it was weird at first. But I'm used to it now.
Nope. I knew some pedants (peers who would interrupt conversations to correct it) and English teachers who would insist on "he/she" ("he slash she" or "he or she"). Sort of through an intellectual laziness as kid I accidentally stumbled into progress (jk). Bridging the gap from an unknown to a known person didn't seem like too big a jump. In fact, I generally opposed the use of neopronouns because we had a pronoun that worked with less friction than new words.
I could see how if one was really hung up on the grammar and strict adherence to the rules it could be a thing.
Thank you for sharing this; it was very interesting, and I think it puts into words some thoughts on gender that I'm too dumb to say coherently myself. I'm going to have to see if my library has any of their books in stock next time I'm there.
A good short essay they made on gender performativity: https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/1650/butler_performative_acts.pdf