Nolakai
Member
Actually English has the singular “they,” which is quite useful in exactly the situation you’re describing. Here’s a little article from Websters about it and its expanded use today: Singular 'They'
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Elon & Twitter
- Thread starter Buckminster
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Raisin45567
Member
Maybe Elon has the right to be as bigoted as he wants to be. But like other numerous bigoted executives, it would be fantastic if had the good sense of seeing the line between public and private speech.
It’s a good guess the leadership at Ford, Toyota, and GM aren’t exactly sincere about trans rights, but they leave room for customers to enjoy their products in peace. They shut up. It’s called being civically minded.
It’s actually in the job description of a CEO to protect the stock price. If he doesn’t want to shut up to protect the stock price, then we (us stockholders) have a problem. No doubt more PR crises are in our future, if Tesla doesn’t pay more attention to this.
It’s a good guess the leadership at Ford, Toyota, and GM aren’t exactly sincere about trans rights, but they leave room for customers to enjoy their products in peace. They shut up. It’s called being civically minded.
It’s actually in the job description of a CEO to protect the stock price. If he doesn’t want to shut up to protect the stock price, then we (us stockholders) have a problem. No doubt more PR crises are in our future, if Tesla doesn’t pay more attention to this.
italian bread
Member
I agree with everything you wrote except the line quoted above. Unless we have some evidence to think so, I don’t think we should libel anyone.
There’s a Chinese saying that, loosely translated, says “we must be even more careful of what we say than what we eat.”
italian bread
Member
In the end, using someone’s pronouns to refer to them is a matter of respecting them enough to do so. Such a small effort to avoid causing someone distress.
It’s similar to when we meet someone with an unfamiliar and difficult name to remember. It’s respectful to try to learn their name, rather than say “oh, I’ll never remember that, how about I call you Joe instead?”
It’s similar to when we meet someone with an unfamiliar and difficult name to remember. It’s respectful to try to learn their name, rather than say “oh, I’ll never remember that, how about I call you Joe instead?”
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
That is one take. I am a physician, one of the few trained specifically in transgender medicine (Pediatric Endocrinology), and what you describe is only the most superficial of layers of this subject, a subject that has become nearly entirely political. What is not covered in the lay media are the deep-rooted psychological nuances of Gender Dysphoria and that many people historically equate pronoun usage with biological gender (and there in lies the root of the controversy - some people believe that this cannot be changed and others believe it should be disregarded).
Even amongst my Pedi-Endo group that I worked with, there was only ONE physician that would care for these kids, it was so controversial even among the physicians, on the biology side (forget personal preference reasons).
When I interact with someone that has non-traditional pronouns it has become my custom to refer to them by their name, and nothing else. This is the "cleanest" way to address that situation, so as to not offend all parties involved.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Twitter alternatives like Mastodon see downloads plunge
Emerging rivals include Mastodon, Hive Social, Counter Social, Post.News, Spoutible, and Jack Dorsey's upcoming Bluesky.
www.businessinsider.com
Raisin45567
Member
Raisin45567
Member
It was curious that Elon framed his answer to Earl as a choice between sharing his views vs stock price. Certainly that wasn’t the question posed to him. That might’ve been an admission, on his part, that there’s some link or brand damage done by his messaging?
philw1776
Member
I used to think that "The Lives of Others" could never happen here, but it has. Even small conversation with acquaintances must be guarded for those of us with certain opinions.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Probably because they kind of suck. Mastodon seems clunky with all the different servers, I can't seem to see anything on Post or bluesky unless I sign up, haven't tried the others.
Twitter alternatives like Mastodon see downloads plunge
Emerging rivals include Mastodon, Hive Social, Counter Social, Post.News, Spoutible, and Jack Dorsey's upcoming Bluesky.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Kinda gives a bit of confirmation on why Elon bought Twitter instead of starting his own media platform. It's easier said than done. Even though we can all agree it's been a *sugar* show since day one of how not to do . . . everything regarding a media platform.
Raisin45567
Member
Here’s the thing. Musk is bullying. I don’t care if he understand that or not. And I don’t want to hear about how his childhood excuses it.
But the basic problem is that he’s saying he can’t be made to shut his mouth by societal pressures and what many of us would call societal obligations.
He has an obligation to me as a shareholder to STF up.
That’s fact. We live in a society with a whole web of rules. These allowed him to use his talents to become fabulously rich.
But he could not have done that without a structured society. No banks, no cars, no money.
And when you violate the norms of that society after milking it….there will be pushback.
He just feels that his wealth absolves him from societal responsibilities.
Like properly raising kids, treating employees well, adhering to labor laws, paying people severance, paying rent, paying contractors.
The bill for his behavior is coming due and stockholders are paying some of it.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Truth Social is based on Mastodon (which is open source.)
Post.news idea for micropayment for news seems like a good one. It's just really hard to get people to pay for content.
My point is, had the language evolved without gender specific pronouns, we wouldn't be having this stupid debate. Gender specific pronouns aren't required, and don't really introduce any useful information except in very specific circumstances (you're talking about two people and they just so happen to be of different sexes). Otherwise you're back to having to specify which one you're talking about through means other than pronouns. When I was growing up there were always people who spoke East Asian languages as a first language who had issues with getting "he/she" or "him/her" straight and I'd wonder why they were confusing something so simple. Now I know why: in their mind, pronouns and gender aren't connected. I have the same issues with the classifier words that some languages insert between numerals indicating how many of something there are (and generally have to do with the shape/type of object being counted) and the noun that I do with gender specific pronouns; they also don't introduce any useful information and just serve to make the language harder to learn. And since the purpose of language is to communicate ideas, anything that makes a language harder to learn is an impediment to this end goal.
Not grammatically correct.
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Gray Man
∇x E = -∂B(t)/∂t
Descriptivist grammar always ends up winning out over prescriptivist grammar, in the end. Language changes through use. The singular "they" is here. The ship has sailed.
And that just makes things even more confusing because it's like collapsing the pronouns (in Chinese) "他們/她們/它們' to "他/她/它" and now you've lost information about how many people there are. English is particularly poor at conveying this information in the second person, where it doesn't convey information about singular or plural: the singlular and plural second person pronoun for all of these is just "you". And it causes lots of issues especially because second person pronouns are used when someone is talking directly to others. For example:
"Will you/Can you..." (speaker, talking to a group of people, asks one or some or all to do something)
"No, not just you. I mean all of you." OR
"No, not all of you. Just you <looking at one of them>".
Instead of taking the plural pronoun and overloading it and using it in the singular, create a new one instead. And while we're at it, we should fix the second person ambiguity as well.
Gray Man
∇x E = -∂B(t)/∂t
Sure, I'm not saying it's NOT confusing. Personally, I find it awkward, and it still leads to misunderstandings. I'd be all for gender neutral pronouns, but they never seem to take off.
As those who frequent my “Perpetual Roundtable” in the Investor Sector should be aware, I eschew to approximately 100% in my writing (spoken language, too), the misuse of ”they/them/their” to refer to a single person. I find it absolutely natural to write or say “he or she”, “him or her” or “his or hers”. I find it unnatural to say “they” when referring to one person.
I know with a certainty some of you will disagree with that but I hope the following anecdote is one all will find amusing.
My eldest aunt, a terrifying creature, psychologically towering though physically crippled by a lifetime of multiple sclerosis, was a harridan who made my strict grammarian of her sister my mother meek by comparison. Overuse of personal pronouns were her particular bête noir. The unwary nephew who spake something like “She told me to bring you a drink” would elicit a “Who is “she”? The cat’s mother?” It was her
verbal equivalent of rapping that nephew’s elbow were it found to be perched atop the dinner table
which yes, also happened
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Take that, you neologists!
I know with a certainty some of you will disagree with that but I hope the following anecdote is one all will find amusing.
My eldest aunt, a terrifying creature, psychologically towering though physically crippled by a lifetime of multiple sclerosis, was a harridan who made my strict grammarian of her sister my mother meek by comparison. Overuse of personal pronouns were her particular bête noir. The unwary nephew who spake something like “She told me to bring you a drink” would elicit a “Who is “she”? The cat’s mother?” It was her
verbal equivalent of rapping that nephew’s elbow were it found to be perched atop the dinner table which yes, also happened.Take that, you neologists!
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