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Gender specific pronouns

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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by Senior Chief   » Tue Oct 07, 2014 8:49 pm

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Laz48 wrote:First off, I apologize if this has been done to death. At least I'm not bringing up <shudder> the dreaded grav lance topic.

Has anyone ever noticed that a person always uses their gender's pronoun. Honor will say something about a non-specific person with 'she' or 'her' while Hamiish would use 'he' or 'him'.

It doesn't feel pointed or sexist when they are saying it. It just seems like that is the conversation style.

My question: is this intentional by RFC to show gender equality? It sometimes feels forced. I would have thought, in a gender neutral society, non-gender specific descriptions would be used, such as they, them, etc.

Now I can sit back and see myself get skewered on this tiopic. My work is done.




I am so involved in reading story that I do not even know what everyone is talking about. As long as what ever everyone is talking about does not distract from the story I pay no attention. Now mispelled words or poor grammar, now that is distracting. I tend to not be a PC person because it is too distracting trying to keep different groups of people happy that are just thin-skinned... I like Don Rickles...
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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by Amaroq   » Wed Oct 08, 2014 5:43 pm

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roseandheather wrote:As a woman who is sick unto death of being the exception rather than the default, I would like to give a massive salute to RFC for doing this. It was a bit jarring for me too at first, but now it just seems normal.


Same here. It gives you an idea about their society; that the character doing the talking or thinking automatically assumes that a woman could potentially be in a position to do the things they are speaking/thinking about. The character takes for granted that a woman (in the case of a female character) has complete equality and ability to do anything she wants to do in their society.
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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by Tenshinai   » Wed Oct 15, 2014 2:10 pm

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It pretty much has to be done intentionally.

And while sometimes it can look wrong or disjointed, i think it´s generally a good style.
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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by cthia   » Fri Oct 17, 2014 10:51 am

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For me, it adds a bit more credence, significance, substance and ... intimacy, to the characters.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by phillies   » Sun Oct 19, 2014 4:58 pm

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cthia wrote:For me, it adds a bit more credence, significance, substance and ... intimacy, to the characters.


I would have said it gives a language which is very slightly different from ours, not in a jarring way. The usage appears to be that the general pronoun is your own gender's pronoun, as a convention. To my ears it seems to work well. Whether the speaker is thinking 'we are equal' or 'I think of all officers as 'her' because female officers are superior' is another question.

But as usual Cthia has made an excellent point.
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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by dreamrider   » Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:51 pm

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Laz48 wrote:First off, I apologize if this has been done to death. At least I'm not bringing up <shudder> the dreaded grav lance topic.

Has anyone ever noticed that a person always uses their gender's pronoun. Honor will say something about a non-specific person with 'she' or 'her' while Hamiish would use 'he' or 'him'.

It doesn't feel pointed or sexist when they are saying it. It just seems like that is the conversation style.

My question: is this intentional by RFC to show gender equality? It sometimes feels forced. I would have thought, in a gender neutral society, non-gender specific descriptions would be used, such as they, them, etc.

Now I can sit back and see myself get skewered on this tiopic. My work is done.


Yes, he does it deliberately. I've heard him answer the question.

dreamrider
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Re: Gender specific pronouns
Post by John Prigent   » Mon Oct 20, 2014 5:22 am

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For me it seems perfectly natural that, in a society where gender distinctions are ignored for most purposes, any speaker using a 'general' term for a person of unspecified gender would use the one of their own sex. So for people known to the speaker it's 'he' for sych as Kumalo, 'she' for such as Honor, and whichever the speaker is for anyone they don't know. Naval ranks don't specify gender so if you don't know which term is appropriate you naturally use your own.
Cheers
John
phillies wrote:
cthia wrote:For me, it adds a bit more credence, significance, substance and ... intimacy, to the characters.


I would have said it gives a language which is very slightly different from ours, not in a jarring way. The usage appears to be that the general pronoun is your own gender's pronoun, as a convention. To my ears it seems to work well. Whether the speaker is thinking 'we are equal' or 'I think of all officers as 'her' because female officers are superior' is another question.

But as usual Cthia has made an excellent point.
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