Aaaaand here we go!
What would I ever need to contact the White House for?
Various administrative . . . things.
Itâs pretty sweet! Let the people be called what they want to be called
Why is the Water Cooler such a backward place? I suggest that from now on we all sign our posts with our preferred gender pronouns.
Tank,
Cod
He / him / his
My Pastafarian faith has never felt so secure!
Could someone more woke explain to me why itâs the pronouns that are listed. Why not just put âmanâ, âfemaleâ, âotherâ or âprefer not to sayâ after your name?
And what are the woke rules, do the pronouns have to match? Or could I identify myself as âhe, herâ or âshe, himâ?
Final question, to whom is the âthey/themâ reserved to? Someone with multiple personality disorder?
Man/He is kind of the same thing without getting too woke on you. Itâs more of a result of norms than anything. This isnât metaphysics time, but itâs convention.
They/them is deserved for the âotherâ category you referred to earlier.
The Biden administration is making respect as one of the key differences from the previous administration. Respect can mean different things for different people and its meaning can change depending on the context. In letting people choose their personal pronouns (from a select list), the administration is trying to show that they care about the LGBT community and respect their sense of identity. Most people will not have a need to contact the White House, and for the very few who do, they can simply select the pronoun they have always used. On one hand, those on the right will definitely feel as though the government is trying to push the left wing feminist agenda and be slightly annoyed by it. On the other hand, the government is just letting you choose your pronoun, nothing more or less.
One should recall that Biden put out a stern warning that any government employee caught disrespecting someone, they would be fired âon the spotâ. Presumably this could also extend to how an employee addresses a member of the public. I believe firing someone because they used the wrong pronoun to address a member of the LGBT is going a bit too far, but thatâs my opinion.
One issue I see with these gender pronouns is that how will it work on a greater scale, say a large workplace where a lot of people identify as something else than their outer appearance? How can one possibly keep track of everyoneâs identity if one cannot rely on traditional metrics? I believe Immanuel Kant argued that an ideaâs worth can be evaluated by how well it would work if everyone lived by it.
Thatâs a valid concern, although the chances that youâll have to deal with this is likely slim. The LGBT community is relatively small, though its members can be very outspoken. Having said that, one way around this is to simply avoid using âhim/herâ and âhe/sheâ altogether. Instead, refer people by their name (if you know their name), or by their job title. If you absolutely need to use a pronoun, you can never go wrong with âthey/themâ, or âthis/that personâ.
on another note, it didnât take long before a Republican lawmaker mocked a transgender person chosen by President Biden.
Referring a singular person with a plural pronoun is grammatically incorrect, regardless what the woke crowd says.
Oxford and Cambridge seem to disagree with you, though maybe you are more knowledgeable than actual language experts that maintain the English dictionary.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/they
https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/they
even Collins show that it can be used to refer to a single person:
Oxford, Cambridge, Longman, Collins and Merrian-Webster all agree that they can be used in place of a single pronoun.
but fine, if you donât want to use they, another option is to replace the single pronoun with âhe or sheâ, though the better option is to simply use their names, as was my first suggestion, or their job title.
examples:
Johnson told me that âŚ
or This history teacher from Harvard told me thatâŚ
or He or she thinks thatâŚ
I stand corrected.
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Weâre hamstrung: English does not have a singular pronoun for a person of unknown sex.
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The wokeness award goes to Finland. In Finnish there arenât any gender pronouns.
And Sweden invented a new one, han (he), hon (she) and hen (whatever you wish).
So progressive.
It? Although that makes me think of a Steven King movie.
I have maintained for a long time nowâIf I were Emperor, there would be no âgenderâ. Only âsexâ. You can refer to yourself however you please, but official government forms only use âsexâ when identifying individuals. And you have to use the corresponding bathroom.
What a weird thing to have such a strong stance on â I have to say, you spend a lot of time thinking about other peopleâs genitals.
^You donât? Thereâs an entire, multi-billion dollar industry specifically created for focusing on other peopleâs genitals and how they interact with each other.