Comment on English may be a hot mess but at least we don't have to worry about this nonsense
Dasus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Due to the increased acceptance of non-conforming identities, it’s become more prevalent to either ask for pronouns, tell them to a person you meet, or have them somewhere visible in things like gameshows.
That’s quite as silly to me as this whole “what gender is this washing machine” nonsense is to English-speaking people.
Here in Finland, we don’t have gendered language. Even with third person pronouns, we usually default to “it” instead of “him/her/they”. Except for pets. They always get the proper pronoun “hän”. It’s just respectful.
So yeah, just like the English wonder why they have to learn different words for something needlessly gendered in France, I too, as a Finn, wonder why I have to learn different words for something needlessly gendered in English.
groats_survivor@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Right or wrong, calling a person “it” in English is incredibly disrespectful
Dasus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Which is why I never do, obviously.
This is one of those things that, if translated directly, would be really, really bad.
Now I’ve spoken English for more than a quarter century, so my mouths used to it already, but I remember when learning the language, it was rather hard for the brain to keep switching between “he” and “she”, as it was not a distinction my brain had to make before using English.
I mean obviously I could differentiate women and men, but having to use different pronouns for both?
Quite needless.