• lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    English is so inconsistent at this point.

    At this point? At this very point, specifically due to the historically valid usage of one gender neutral pronoun? Now is the time that it’s finally become an inconsistent language? Singular “they” is the thing that has pushed English over the edge from logical and sensical to arbitrary and confusing? Of all the foibles and quirks, this is the one that is simply unforgivable and must be changed?

    • CarrotsHaveEars@lemmy.ml
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      14 days ago

      I didn’t say anything you said.

      I think a more sensible way to include LGBT+ group is to just make “she/her” obsolete. We are all “he/him”, and we are “they/them” when in a group. Way cleaner than this, excuse me, shit that we foreign English speakers have to adjust to for every few years.

      • dont_lemmee_down@lemm.ee
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        14 days ago

        We agree. We make he/him obsolete and we’re all she/her, as there are more female people on the planet, so less people have to adapt

        • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
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          14 days ago

          “he/him” probably isn’t he/him in their non-gendered language. In some languages there’s no he or she, there’s only a pronoun that means “that person”

          Armenian, Persian, Tagalog, Finnish, Georgian, Turkish, Swahili &c

          • lad@programming.dev
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            13 days ago

            That’s true, but you can’t help but notice that when people coming from this background are taught English, they are usually taught that ‘male’ pronouns are the default.

            If anything, I would support the removal of ‘he/him’ for all the backlash it will generate.

            • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
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              13 days ago

              in france “they” invented “iel”, a gender neutral pronoun, to replace “il” and “elle”. Young people (some?) adopted it rapidly and were using it naturally but the state banned the use of “inclusive language” on all official communications (which includes schools)

              i remember thinking that inventing a new pronoun, like they did, was a better solution than choosing one of the two as gender neutral

              • brsrklf@jlai.lu
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                13 days ago

                I’m working in (local) French public service. We’ve developed apps with basic gender inclusive language (not iel, more like including genders in form titles and messages), a while before the government banned it from official communication.

                As of now, nobody has done anything to remove that from the apps, because we don’t see the point and we have way more important things to do to actually improve services.

              • lad@programming.dev
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                13 days ago

                Outright banned, I’m guessing because blindly following rules by the book, but I think it’s not a move in the right direction.

                In Spain people are trying to make neutral words by placing @ where a/o should go in the gendered words, I think it never made to any documentation but it wasn’t banned yet, at least.

      • belastend@slrpnk.net
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        14 days ago

        Mate, english is my second language too and this is not that confusing.

        Singular they/them has been here for hundreds of years and using it as a gender neutral alternative to she/her and he/him isnt shit, its part of the english language.