"It"! This heebie, it is being disrespectful!
If 'it' is too dehumanizing, why not just the cat's name? (Kittler?)
Jesus shibboleth-manufacturing Christ.
Right. I doubt people were confused when she used the plural singular with two cats because of cis-normativity, but rather because if you have two of something and use the plural, it's assumed you're talking about both of them.
I think the point of not using 'it' was that she wasn't using gender neutral language out of respect for the cats' feelings/gender identities, because they're cats, and who knows what they think. She was doing it as deliberate practice in using gender-neutral language and pronouns about her friends who use them, so it made sense to use the same pronouns her friends wanted.
Oh so now basically I'm just as special as a cat. Assholes.
Also I think a cat would find bun/bun/buns/bunself offensive.
Remember to spay or neuter your political statement.
That article is silly. Cats don't have gender, they have sex. I know this because I can hear them yowling from my apartment.
In half my family, the problem is calling my female dog "he." Because all dogs are der Hund. In the wife's village, people were scrupulous about calling girls "it." ("Aet" actually.)
The cat identifies as having had its balls chopped off.
Tell me more about these human cats dehumanized by use of the word "it". Are they like infantilized newborns referred to as "babies"?
What's the issue? Isn't it customary to use the plural for a monarch?
15: See my 5 -- she's not worrying about the cats' feelings, she's practicing on her cats so that she's more fluent with gender-neutral speech when she needs it for people.
Like when people buy a dog before having kids to see if they can keep a mammal alive.
We did that. And then we figured that kids would probably bite us less often than the dog did.
I've been bitten by a dog once and a kid many times. The dog never broke the skin but the kid did. That was the first time I ever screamed at him.
Dehumanize isn't the right word, but I do think it's wrong at some level to refer to a living sentient animal as "it".
"Two legs good, four legs is also perfectly acceptable."
I get that cats are technically sentient, but they aren't advanced enough to trigger the Prime Directive. I think that's the cutoff for using 'it'.
This is why we need a pronoun that's + animate - human.
Technically, we had a non-gendered + animate pronoun, "he," which became reanalyzed as + animate +masculine in contrast to "she" (+animate +feminine), because we like symmetry in our language.
(We also used to have a three way 2nd pers sg/fml/pl split, but then we eliminated 'ye' because it was too old timey* and 'thee' because we hated Quakers** which is why we refer to all second person addressees with the plural form, which is why most people reanalyzed 'you' as singular, so we then had to invent y'all/yins/youse. If third person pl as gender neutral singular keeps up, we're gonna end up with the'all (they all), theys, etc.)
*probably not the real reason, I just made it up
**actual real reason
I figure it would be interesting to try to raise one's cats gender-neutrally, just because it's so easy to perceive so much imaginary gender stuff about them. I often refer to Professor Doctor Cat as a beautiful princess, for instance, but I would never refer to my other lifetime favorite cat, Evil Orange Caesar, as....oh, as being as constant as Plotina or as fierce as Boadica. "Who is a little queen of the Iceni? You are!" I would never have cooed to him.
But as usual, this all falls down because while "they" is a decent gender-neutral pronoun in a pinch, the plural/singular thing always causes some confusion. Perhaps we could add a tongue click to indicate the plural they or something.
Given that the cats have names, responding to "How's your cat?" with "they" when you know "they" is ambiguous in that context, when you could just as easily have said "which one?" and then said "they" or said "[cat's name]" leads me to uncharitable readings.
Also, what are the cats' preferred pronouns?
Sometimes I think about having a cat, but then I get afraid of catching depression from it.
There's a Russian joke about identifying the sex of a cat via the language used to describe how the cat moves but I'm not typing the whole thing up on the phone.
Technically, we had a non-gendered + animate pronoun, "he," which became reanalyzed as + animate +masculine in contrast to "she" (+animate +feminine), because we like symmetry in our language.
Wrong temporal order, no? I thought 'he' was masculine, 'she' was feminine, and 18th century grammarians came up with the idea of 'he' as non-gendered because they saw a gap to be filled.
My roommate has 3 cats, who are alternately charming and irritating in their own special ways. My favorite is a former Burmese show cat who is also an endless font of neediness. I hold and cuddle him and make baby talk noises at him, which he loves, and then I realize he's a 14 year old male former stud cat, which means he's the roughly equivalent of a 65 year old man and a father of many, and I treat him like a human baby. Then I think it's stupid to anthropomorphize a cat. I also practice nonconsensual petting/holding, which would make me a monster if I did that to other humans, but with cats I am clearly the favorite of the two roommates, so it's obvious they do like being picked up against their will. They also like me dangling string in their faces, but when I try that with a human it gets annoyed.
26: Evil Orange Caesar did not belong to me and was actually just named Caesar. His Caesarness had nothing to do with his orangeness, sadly. He was a beautiful creamsicle orange and very, very clever. Sort of a mid-sized cat with a big head but only average-sized ears such that his ears looked fractionally smaller than is usual.
means he's the roughly equivalent of a 65 year old man and a father of many, and I treat him like a human baby
I could picture some old men that wouldn't mind this.
but then we eliminated 'ye' because it was too old timey*
From what I can remember it was still just "the" and "ye" was a kind of compromise on how to print it because the printing presses were all made in Germany and didn't have the letter we were using to write it ("þe"), and "y" in a gothic script looked sort of like it. Þen later we switched to just using two letters to indicate that sound instead. So, same word but we lost a letter due to the interference of the Germans and their printing presses. (It wasn't the only one too, I think. English used to have way more letters.)
[S]he's not worrying about the cats' feelings, she's practicing on her cats so that she's more fluent with gender-neutral speech when she needs it for people.
I would submit that making other people use gender-neutral terms for the cats, and watching them squirm when she corrects them, is a non-negligible portion of the appeal for her of this exercise. Something morals, genealogy of something
33: I shouldn't have asked. It was better with the mystery.
I think what throws people about "they" or what makes it awkward is that we don't really use it as a gender neutral pronoun so much as gender not specified/known one (sort of? I know there's a real description of what I'm talking about here but my brain has lost it).
So it sounds abnormal when you're using it in a context where it's clear that you're talking about a specific person who you know or using their name or whatever. "I gave it to the person with the red hat and they gave it to Susan" versus "I gave it to Charlie and they gave it to Susan". The first is normal and the second one sounds like a newer usage.
37: It was. But think of it this way - I got to reminisce about one of my favorite cats. He was so smart! And so sardonic! I miss him still.
(Although even that second case seems a bit less odd because of the gender neutral name.)
I miss my old dog, but I'd bet that the small birds and mammals of the area don't. He killed more birds than a cat.
38: Right -- the long-established singular they is something that you might describe as neuter-indefinite: when there's an unspecified person being discussed (there was a Language Log post that I remember as making the point that the indefiniteness generally, rather than specifically unknown gender, is what made 'they' sound right: "Hey, someone left their bra in the women's locker room!" is a perfectly cromulent utterance, even though dollars to doughnuts the person referenced is a woman).
So the modern gender-neutral singular they really is an extension/alteration of the older usage. Doesn't make it wrong, but it does mean that people talking about how old singular 'they' is are a little off-point -- there's an innovation happening here.
I think maybe the doughnut has appreciated against the dollar since that saying was first uttered.
True fact. Wait a couple more years and "doughnuts to dollars" will work.
Of course, lower oil prices might cause the doughnut to depreciate.
I'm hedging by stockpiling croissants.
I would submit that making other people use gender-neutral terms for the cats, and watching them squirm when she corrects them, is a non-negligible portion of the appeal for her of this exercise. Something morals, genealogy of something
All the while seeing herself as a reasonable moderate on the issue by not using "zir" or something.
47, etc: This was not the vibe I got off her article at all, and I say this as someone who hangs about in circles where people really do smarm horribly about how enlightened their pronoun usage is, etc. If she were that type of person, she would never have knuckled under at the vet, or if she had knuckled under at the vet, the rest of the article would have been about how tearfully oppressed she felt, and how this is why we can't have nice revolutions.
On a "making a fuss about pronouns" level, I always end up knuckling under because I start thinking "gee, if I say that my friend uses "they" pronouns [or does any non-standard gender-related thing], this person to whom I am talking is going to say something mean and cutting about what a special-wecial snowflake my friend must be, and then I will have to hate this person and I'll feel bad and I'll expose my friend to ridicule; better just to lie". I do not find this entirely satisfactory either.
That was pretty much my take -- she talks about her friends stumbling over the gender-neutral language, but she really doesn't call them insensitive assholes for it. If she were setting herself up to be holier-than-thou, I think she'd sound more hostile about errors.
I find myself wrongly regarding my cat as masculine, possibly partly because of the nickname I made for her (Zen/obia => Nob/by). (And possibly because of her standoffishness, even though IMX male cats are actually friendlier.)
There is an indefinite aspect to singular "they" in common usage but I think that's eroding with active practice these days. I just used it in an email for someone whose name but not gender I know.
48, 49: Yes, pronoun-shamers never go all "more in sorrow than in anger" on anybody.
I don't think I've even been pronoun-shamed.
Surely, Moby, you're pronoun-shameless along with the rest of it.
My cat is still singular, for those keeping track, though that could change at any moment. She's wonderfully affectionate and doesn't wake me in the night to ask for breakfast. I suppose it will be nice to share the house with another single mom for the next few montha until the eventual kittens can move out.
We have newish neighbors consisting of a woman who goes by (I assume) her birth name and her partner who goes by L and prefers "they". We only know them a bit, and it is almost impossible to casually mention L*, because without context, neither L nor "they" communicates enough useful information. If we get to know them better, I assume it'll resolve itself, but for now it's confusing at best. It would probably help if I could actually remember the name of the partner who is using a common name, but it remains a miracle for me to remember anyone's name after just a couple of meetings.
Because of stuff around the park, I've been meeting more neighbors, and have FB-befriended parts of two different couples. One of the couples was at our holiday open house, and I spoke at length with them. No idea whether it's the Raufers or the ones with the really long Polish name. Attractive, young, cis white people all look alike to me.
*as in, "I saw L on my way to the store"
54: That makes me feel slightly better about having to think for several seconds to remember the names of the children in the apartment next door. "Oh, good morning! How's ... [Warren? Ward? Whittington? Caswallon? Cymbeline? Taliesin?] ... everything?"
They're Australian, Moby. That makes them little Dundees.
I recently got an Evite for "Party for Mercy" hosted by "Truth's Mom." God bless you for going so hippie you got to Puritan.
58: Please, please tell us that there are kids named "Cotton" and "Increase."
Maybe "Preserved"?
We got a Preserved in my family tree. Also a "Love" and a "Wrestling."
Keep it clean, Spike. Family thread.
I know a guy through work named Forgiveness, with siblings Amnesty and Deliverance.
Hippie parents rather than Puritans, obviously. Anyway, he went on to join the Air Force.
63 The last one after the John Boorman film?
Before, as he apparently has to frequently explain.
IHMHB my brother's HS GF had a sister named Flowers Streaming Love from Heaven.
My daughter's middle name, and grandmother's first name: Hope. More Puritan than hippie . . .
When I was in high school, all the girls were named Jennifer or Flowers Streaming Love from Heaven.
The nurse who filled out the forms had a unique way of spelling "Lisa".
That's why all the boys in my neighborhood were called Dr Michaels Has A Tiny Penis.
I'm disappointed that nobody has an If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned in their family tree.
I can't decide if selling fire insurance fits with that or not.
74: They say in your Father's house, there's many mansions
Each one of them got a fireproof floor
The Old Covenant does not include closing tags.
WHICH IS WHY THE KING JAMES BIBLE ISN'T THE WORD OF GOD WITH ALL IT'S DEVILISH ITALICS