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Gender-Neutral Terms?

Gender Neutral Term?

  • Total voters
    27
Spoon said:
How's "I like Nidoking; it's my favorite type of Pokémon," any better? Wouldn't it be "they're" instead?
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well, if the nidoking category of pokémon, sure, it, categories have no natural gender and english doesn't assign them a grammatical gender ?? if the group of pokémon nidoking, then they, them.

"I like nidoking; it's my favourite type of pokémon"; "I like nidoking, they're my favourite pokémon" ??
 
It doesn't matter even if there were no trans* Nidokings! You still can't say "I like Nidoking he's my favourite Pokemon" because either you mean plural, or you mean the design, and in either case what. Like, you wouldn't say "I love giraffes he's my favourite", and you also wouldn't say "wow TCoD is a great website he has so much information".

Really beyond grammar, though, it's just really creepy and disconcerting because it's always about people seeing a Pokemon that fits their stereo-types and making a decision. :( If you question people who do it they're like "what Flareon's just incredibly girly". :|

It's pushing bad stereo-types, and it's really controlling over which Pokemon people can safely like!

goldenquagsire said:
210px-034Nidoking.png

???
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Even if you're talking about the all female species of lizard or something, you still don't say "I love these lizards she's so pretty." An entire species of lizard or Pokemon plural can't get talked about with a singular pronoun because it makes no sense! Unless maybe every Nidoking is just a puppetshell for a single hivemind creature.

It's not seeing a single Nidoking and going "oh this single Nidoking is a guy" (that's a totally different thing), it's about deciding every Nidoking in the world are all the same one guy. Like if someone thought every person in the world was secretly you in disguise.

Spoon said:
How's "I like Nidoking; it's my favorite type of Pokémon," any better? Wouldn't it be "they're" instead?
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I don't see a problem with saying "it" because if you say that, you could mean the design! Like people say "I like the iPhone it's cool" as singular because they like the design of the iPhone and how it works! It doesn't sound weird if you do it in that kind of situation, like how it doesn't sound weird if you call a website an "it".
 
Minish said:
'they' has an established history in being gender-neutral!
'he' is neutral only in a 'male is default' sense so it's not even relevant here
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I meant that I didn't know why people considered "he" gender-neutral, then answered "they" to the topic...
 
I think I would go something like this:

"I like Blaziken a lot. Its design is cool."

"My very first Blaziken, Blaze, was a badass. That's why I name all my female Torchic after her."

You know, like how you talk about animals in real life. It for the species, gendered pronouns for individual animals you know.
 
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You don't know real pain until someone has used 'it's' correctly and then incorrectly within the same sentence.
 
Minish said:
Surely a typo is less annoying than not actually knowing it's incorrect ...
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no i think the point that tailsy is making is that some people literally just go 'fuck it' and guess or alternate between its and it's and hope they get it right
 
Yes, that is what I meant!

'If in doubt leave it out,' I screamed as Kathy drowned
 
My question is still what to use in a different language (other than English or Swedish). I wouldn't know what to say in Dutch, for example; strictly we have three gender pronouns (one for masculine, feminine and neuter), but using the neuter gender for a person makes it seem like they are a table or a chair (you can't use it, you only use it for inanimate objects).
 
"They" for me. He/she seems too clunky and for some reason the myriad of neuter pronouns people come up with feel alien to me.

Hiikaru said:
It doesn't matter even if there were no trans* Nidokings! You still can't say "I like Nidoking he's my favourite Pokemon" because either you mean plural, or you mean the design, and in either case what. Like, you wouldn't say "I love giraffes he's my favourite", and you also wouldn't say "wow TCoD is a great website he has so much information".
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Pokemon names are both singular and plural (and confusingly, the default name for a member of their species as well), so the term "Nidoking" can refer to the entire species of Nidoking, multiple Nidoking, or a single Nidoking. The sentence "I like Nidoking; he's my favorite Pokemon" makes sense only if the speaker is referring to a specific Nidoking (perhaps an episode of the show in which a Nidoking was prominent, or the speaker's own prized Nidoking). For example, I think if someone brings up Pikachu in the context of the anime, it's generally assumed they're referring to a specific Pikachu (even though there have been multiple Pikachu in the anime). This isn't true of any real world animal (although humorously, there was a show on Cartoon Network a while back named Sheep in the Big City which starred a sheep named Sheep).
 
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I don't use he for a thing I can see, per se. If there is a subject which I have not seen, which I am being informed of, usually I call it a he, and most things can be a he, so until I actually see a subject, it's a he. Afterward, it's an it.

I don't know, my silly brain does silly things, although I think I've stopped for the most part. My term is now they-- I don't see a problem with they other than I always considered it plural. Oh well.
 
Mohacastle said:
I don't use he for a thing I can see, per se. If there is a subject which I have not seen, which I am being informed of, usually I call it a he, and most things can be a he, so until I actually see a subject, it's a he. Afterward, it's an it.
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any reason?
 
I've seen xie/hir used lots more than e! Outside of #tcod I definitely view at as the internet favourite, and definitely the irl favourite. While Spivak was kind of its own thing, I'm pretty sure xie/hir sprung up specifically out of non-binary circles, so it's always made sense to me that it's still kind of reigning.

(Off the top of my head, I think they use it exclusively over at Shakesville, for example.)
 
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