It's great that the transwomen can take up the task of writing tirades against all the "ladybits" and "ladyparts" nonsense, coming at it from a more justified perspective than my own which would be "It's juvenile and idiotic [rolls eyes]".
online activist
PROBLEMATIC!!!!!!
/online activist
I know, I shouldn't mock people who are basically on the side of the angels, but the discourse of online progressivism does get pretty darn tedious after a while.
No need to go so problematically Angelface on us 2.
I don't know about "ladybits", but I feel very essentialist about my balls.
"Juvenile" is deprecated as a term of abuse because what about the boys?? and I'm sure that (for real this time) so is "idiotic" because it originated in a medical classification or something like that.
Periodically I get frustrated, thinking, "if we have to give up all the terms of abuse that have pudendae origines, or have origins pertaining to medical categorization or whatever, how will we abuse others at all??" but I guess that might not be so bad anyway. Plus, creativity.
how will we abuse others at all
The answer in online activist practice seems to be "in a very passive-aggressive fashion".
So it's another "while I kind of support this initiative, I think it is more important for everyone to recognise that I am morally far superior to everyone else involved, including the people who came up with the idea and are doing all the work".
I never even knew it was supposed to be a "faux-conservative euphemism". Is this something conservatives actually say? It works about as well as the persuasive and thoughtful anti-religion arguments about the "magic sky fairy".
How does "Juvenile" reflect or imply gender?
First, "Lady Parts" isn't exactly a playful euphemism: it's a faux-conservative euphemism which is supposed to be super gender-essentializing and biologically hand-wavy. Which is central to their point, that conservative men are making decisions that about biology that they find grody, based on old-timey gender roles
Indeed. Wasn't there a situation relatively recently where a state legislator got ordered out of the chamber or reprimanded for saying "vagina" when talking about reproductive rights/health?
I think "Lady Parts" is actually a term from 1950s girls manuals about how to transition to Ladyhood, or one that mothers used to discuss Lady Bleeding, and that sort of thing.
7 is beyond inappropriate for a mouseover given its use of the hierarchonormative and anti-catholic term "superior".
I thought the linked piece got it exactly wrong, in that it's perfectly appropriate to be gender-essentialist about human parts - some of which really are appropriately designated with a gender. The problem is being gender-essentialist about humans. The proper lesson is that humans aren't properly thought of as the sum of their sexual parts.
Slate has really taken a long position on LGBT and, especially, trans issues lately. Vying for a younger, less Michael-Kinsley-esque readership, I assume.
9: good point. "Juvenile" will have to be deprecated for a different reason.
Nosflow confused the derivations of "juvenile" and "puerile"! Point and laugh at Nosflow!
Is use the word "lady" really no longer fraught?
Isn't use of LP a tongue-in-cheek double reverse on that?
It's a silly name for a campaign, being derived from an Internet in-joke. Might as well call it LOLChauvinism or something.
17: The word "lady" is the young and hip way to say "woman". "Woman" is too old and "girl" is too young. There needed to be a female equivalent of "guy".
The word "lady" is the young and hip way to say "woman". "Woman" is too old and "girl" is too young.
What's wrong with damsel?
What are you trying to say about my ass?
Is use the word "lady" really no longer fraught?
How do I know I'm old? Well, the last time I really checked on this sort of thing, "lady" was deprecated because it implied a social hierarchy (not all women are considered to be ladies) that was dependent on whiteness (and historically "lady" has been used to refer mostly to white women). Times change, I guess. I regret all my wasted outrage now.
Although honestly, that particular brand of internet humor ("We'll call it 'lady business' - we are cutely transgressive! and all about sex in a youthful and fun way!") grows a bit wearing. I'm looking forward to the return of some kind of cynical pessimism.
On topic: What Is a Woman?
The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism.
to the return of some kind of cynical pessimism
It went away?
(A) the word "lady parts" is in an idiom that I find kind of annoying, so I have no problem with it going away. (Although there's a Tina Fey routine from SNL talking about waxing, where she says something like "Used to be most women had a ladygarden the size of a slice of New York pizza" which the term reminds me of, and which reliably makes me giggle.)
But (B), I have to say that I don't understand the political position (or rather, that I think I disagree with it, but recognize that it's not my issue, and I haven't thought about it deeply, and I could probably be talked out of it). Trans women generally (not universally, but generally) do a number of things to alter their physical presentation on transitioning; electrolysis or really careful shaving and makeup or something to reduce the appearance of beard hair; vocal training, formal or informal, to approximate an average cis woman's vocal pitch; either surgery or prosthetics for breasts; whatever makes sense for them in terms of hormones and genital surgery. And generally they do these things because the average physical differences between cis men and cis women interact with and form part of gender expression, so it makes sense for trans women to (insofar as they want to) express their gender partially by altering their physicality in a way that puts them inside ordinary ranges of variation for cis women.
I don't think this is objectionable gender-essentialism from trans women, and I don't think there would be anything wrong in talking about the goals of those intentional changes in physical as a feminine or woman's face, or voice, or breasts, even though there are cis and trans women with facial hair, bass voices, and flat chests. (Identifying a particular woman as not having a woman's face, voice, or breasts would be being an asshole, but I don't think generalizations not directed at excluding an individual have that same effect.) At which point I think it's inconsistent to object to 'lady parts' as a description of the genitals and reproductive system of a cis woman within an ordinary range of variation.
SPECIAL PHYSICAL ORGANIZATION
"lady" was deprecated because it implied a social hierarchy (not all women are considered to be ladies)
Nope! Just ask history's worst prose poem.
I noticed recently that my parents still use the word "lady" a lot when I would say "woman".
Just remembered a song with the chorus, "She's a lady! ooh! ooh! ooh! she's a lady!"
What does that mean? Is the singer all excited because she's so classy?
History's best prose poem isn't that much of an improvement.
I want to work the phrase "ladygarden" into my conversation today. And, yet, somehow the comparison to a slice of NY pizza makes me think of Donald Trump eating a slice with a fork. Suddenly, I am not hungry.
I'm a lady between the sheets, and a freak in the kitchen.
39: That means you don't follow recipes, and you ask politely before initiating sexual relations.
I suppose "dudette" could have had a bid for joking-neologism-to-self-conscious-neologism-to-normal-word legitimacy at some point but that day has passed.
It bemuses me that "lady" is almost always minatory or dismissive as a form of address. A cowboy on a dirt road in Wyoming, who was checking if I needed rescue, used it in a perfectly neutral civil way, so the word is fine; but in the city "Lady" bodes ill, even though "Ma'am" is neutral to obsequious.
39: which one, though? Macbeth? Bracknell? ("Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent position. It is most indecorous.")
42: you'll be unsurprised to learn that "lady" is alive and well in the Central Parts.
Is there any opposition to gender-neutral "dude" and "guy", especially but not only in the plural? Or does that take us too far down the "male is default" road?
I can't think of when someone's called me 'lady'. I think it may be perfectly obvious that I'm not much of one.
I had a kindergartner who didn't know my name call me Mister Man.
42- almost all of my female friends refer to themselves and each other as "lady" to the exclusion of all other (gender-based) terms. Including as a salutation ("hey lady", "okay ladies"). I have also been called "lady" by male friends but probably less often. Anyway, not dismissive in all contexts. 19 is right.
I seem to mostly encounter it in the context of people referring to women while addressing children. "Don't bother the nice lady, dear."
47: My personal usage is dude as gender-neutral address in the singular, but I think guy is gendered for me. I don't have particularly strong feelings about it.
Oh yes, and also "am I right, ladies?" as per 50.
in the Central Parts
Commonly known as the hoo-ha. See also: penetralia.
50: Generational breakpoints are fun. I'm not sure exactly where that one is, but people my age and older do not use lady like that, unless they picked it up directly from people in your age bracket.
Generational breakpoints are fun.
Like when I need to address a strange woman and I can't figure out whether to say "miss" or "ma'am". Maybe I'll switch to "lady" regardless.
Interesting, "dude" is slightly more gendered for me, but "guys" is gender-neutral for me. Especially "you guys." I guess "guy" in the singular is gendered, and that doesn't strike me as useful at all. I do try to avoid words-that-I-intend-as-gender-neutral-but-are-commonly-read-as-male around transwomen, though, so I guess I don't really believe myself yet.
56: Be sure to turn off your breakpoint when you're done, or we won't ever make progress. (Bad programming joke. Ignore me.)
I actually do bristle a little internally at "miss": I'm forty-two years old and I don't get the grownup form of address yet? But I realize that it's insane to expect people to guess what I'd prefer, so I keep it internal.
I think for me "dudes" and "guys" can be either male or gender-neutral, depending on context. So "dudes and ladies" wouldn't be weird, but you could refer to the same group of people as just "dudes" if you wanted.
50: I don't think you could use "women" in the vocative. You couldn't say "everything OK, women?", whatever generation you were from. Ladies, yes. Girls, yes. Guys, dudes, etc.
59: I'm probably being idiosyncratic here -- I don't really use 'dude' as a neutral form of address. It comes out mostly in conversations where I'm trying to convey "I question your judgment, but in the most non-threatening and affectionate way possible," which is something I want to say to men and women about equally. Think "Dude, really? Dude."
Another weird one - there's no plural form of "sir". A waiter could say "is everything OK, ladies" but not "is everything OK, sirs?".
"guys" is gender-neutral for me. Especially "you guys."
For me, "guys" or "you guys" functions like "ils" in French, in that I would would use it to refer to a group consisting of either all men or a mix of men and women, but never a group consisting entirely of women. So not quite gender-neutral, but not exactly gender-specific either.
So where does everybody come down on "bros and lady-bros"?
60: Yeah, that's iffy. I've ma'amed people, no rancor intended, and received deathstares. I don't think I've ever missed anyone, though. Whereof one cannot speak, it is better to be silent.
I guess "mizz" could be used as a safe alternative, similar to what it did for titles...but we don't, for whatever reason.
I'm fairly certain I've heard "sirs" used before, especially by waiters.
55. The list of words that rhyme with penetralia is delightful.
I don't think I've ever missed anyone, though.
When dalriata shoots, he shoots to kill.
70: This issue seems to be whether you get ma'amed based on absolute age or relative age.
So where does everybody come down on "bros and lady-bros"?
Should really be "dude-bros and lady-bros."
72: But missing the most obvious entry.
65: Also interestingly, that sentence breaks if you make 'lady' singular. "Is everything okay, lady" only works from a construction worker, not a waiter. From a waiter, in the singular you'd need either Miss or Ma'am.
I think the explanation is that "lady" is parallel to "gentleman", not to "sir"; unless you're addressing the wife of a baronet or something.
LB's list of forms of address is almost Oriental in its complexity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_honorifics
qie: Referring to oneself (commoner); Employed as an apology when appearing without advanced notice
lǎoxiǔ: Referring to oneself (the aged) This old and rotting one
xiánzhì: You, my virtuous nephew
zhuōfū: That clumsy man. Employed by wives to refer to their husbands
64: I think that's pretty common. I often use it jovially, especially when I'm impressed by an interesting idea or formulation. (I may have just outed myself as a bro.)
65: We usually use "gentlemen" for that context.
75 is correct.
"The Dude of Shalott" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
I'm uncomfortable with "lady parts" as two words, I think. Especially because Lady Parts Justice sounds like the worst superheroine Todd MacFarlane or someone like that could think up.
I was really annoyed during a lengthy hospitalization by the nurse who kept referring to my "boy parts." "I have to inspect your scar, but you don't have to show me you boy parts." "When the catheter comes out you may have some pain in in your boy parts." I was over 40 at the time.
Not exactly relevant, but when else can I mention this?
"everything OK, women?"
Interesting how weird that sounds. It's like "Everything OK, female humans?"
So "dudes and ladies" wouldn't be weird...
Although at that point it might be easier to just go with "guys and dolls".
78: Oh, you have no idea. There are particular endearments that are used only when I am stifling negative feelings toward someone I generally feel warmly toward; children for whom I am currently responsible are "Rabbit", it's a wonder anyone understands me at all.
"The Dude of Shalott" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
The bitch with the undersized onions?
83: If you have a catheter, she could just refer to your catheter sheath.
"The Dude of Shalott" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Down flew the beer that once he held
On to the floor, by shock impell'd;
"The ice has come upon me!" yelled
The Bro of Shalott.
Is there any opposition to gender-neutral "dude" and "guy", especially but not only in the plural?
Yeah, I thought of "guys" as neutral but was gently corrected on this by a lady friend.
I take "lady friend" to imply a romantic relationship.
"Ladies" is also a common form of address among certain gay men, but that's another can of gender-indeterminate annelids.
I think annelids tend to be what Kipling called giddy harumphrodites.
I use "guys" gender-neutrally, but only in the plural (like addressing the ladies at the front desk when leaving work - "Have a good night, guys."). Singular "guy", however, is male. Hmm.
91: I would as well, under the assumption that I'd stumbled into a time machine.
I seem to mostly encounter it in the context of people referring to women while addressing children. "Don't bother the nice lady, dear."
Going the other direction, I found myself addressing a kid as "son" the other day. This 7- or 8-year old boy was on a crowded escalator coming out of the subway at rush hour, and he kept standing on the left side. His dad was standing on the right side and made halfhearted attempts to get the boy out of the way of people walking, but the boy popped back over to the left side after each time he let someone pass. I said something like, "Son, if you stand on the right then people can get by you." I was a little shocked at myself. I think it may have come out of wanting to position myself as being an ally to the dad, who at least realized the kid was being a pain, even if he wasn't explaining to him why or how.
91: I think I could see it used either way; both "a lady friend" and "my lady friend" sound fine to me.
I think part of my desire to find more gender neutral descriptors is that I don't like the phonology of "people," and it doesn't allow for all these slight colorings of formality and tone and familiarity that all these other words could allow, dudes.
95: Now I always unplug the time machine when I'm through using it.
89 is delovely.
Oh life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of dark penetralia
And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I'm Mary Anne of Westphalia (Maryland.)
96: I usually use "young man" or "young lady" in those types of circumstances.
91: so, transitively, "friend parts"?
100: We should bring back "young master" for annoying children.
Also, it probably goes without saying, but "Mrs." gets used absolutely never, with the grandmothered-in exceptions of grade-school teachers and mothers of childhood friends.
100: "Kid" is the vocative form I use in that situation -- only for clearly 10 and under, though. Anyone arguably in the teen years, I'm not quite sure what I'd do, but probably not "kid".
I don't like to think what "brony parts" might mean.
Last time I was visiting friends in Narnia their helper (=maid) insisted on referring to me as "Sir Ajay" which gave the whole thing a not so much Victorian as positively mediaeval feel. (Strangely she addresses my friends, i.e. her actual employers, just by their first names, no "Sir" or "Lady" or anything attached.)
105: "Here's looking at you, small bro."
Ok, everyone has to use the word "penetralia" out loud in a sentence today. Bonus points if you can work in one of the rhymes.
96: I have awfully wanted to use "kid" as an old-fashioned form of mildly annoyed address toward the young, but am nervous of mockery and beatings.
I use "kid" only for teenagers or young adults that look like teenagers because I'm so very old.
A young engineer from Vandalia
Admitted his car was a failure:
It looked worthy of pride
When seen from outside
But was let down by its penetralia.
Oh, I refer to anyone younger than me in the workplace as a kid. Not in the vocative, and I try to remember not to, but I do.
Smallbeer for my smallbros!
Of course the issue with "The Dude of Shalott" and "The Bro of Shalott" is the single syllable; hence, "The Dudebro of Shalott" which even has the same meter as "lady".
91: I would as well, under the assumption that I'd stumbled into a time machine.
That strikes me as strange, because I don't think of "lady friend" as a particularly anachronistic thing to say with that meaning. It seems practically fresh, modern, current, newsy, idiomatic, chromium, bright, omnispectric.
I often address people older than me with "kids" or "children".
"Lady friend" to me sounds like someone Archie Goodwin goes dancing with. Romantic relationship, not necessarily exclusive, and involving single adults rather than anyone very young.
82: I suspect he could do worse. Possibly in collaboration with Rob Liefeld.
We just got rid of having to know a woman's marital status before addressing her. Let's not require knowing everybody's immigration status.
Curiously, I address my kids as "units" or "mammals."
In The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death", a character opens an address to a mixed group of people with "Hey, cats and kitties, be hip to my lick." I am clearly not someone who could ever address people as "Cats and kitties", but I sometimes regret that about myself.
I have definitely seen "cats and kittens" but never "cats and kitties".
123 - You'd have to have the Chicken Man following you around to translate your trade unionist propaganda.
|| Another DC Circuit case on the ACA today. It really matters who's on the panel. http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/0DAD4A1E3A868F6385257D24004FA91E/$file/13-5202-1504947.pdf |>
123 Mary Astor's character in The Palm Beach Story enters a room with "what's knittin', kittens?" which I'm not sure I can pull off, but I may try.
(Oh life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of bliss and euphoria,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Astoria.)
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2
The members of the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund, an all-volunteer group that helps to pay for abortions for those who can't afford them, are mostly young women; Alison Turkos, the group's co-chair, is twenty-six. In May, they voted unanimously to stop using the word "women" when talking about people who get pregnant, so as not to exclude trans men. "We recognize that people who identify as men can become pregnant and seek abortions," the group's new Statement of Values says.
-----
I trace the generational recuperation of "ladies" to hip hop, where it's been the counterpoint to "fellas" for as long as I remember.
Centralia Pennsylvania
Has a fire in its penetralia.
That strikes me as strange, because I don't think of "lady friend" as a particularly anachronistic thing to say
This is common is my circle of friends, especially "special lady friend," on the understanding that it is derived from The Big Lebowski.
Oh, life is a militant circle of song,
A chorus of plunder and pillage,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of the Village.
(I'm working on other neighborhoods).
This is common is my circle of friends, especially "special lady friend," on the understanding that it is derived from The Big Lebowski.
But the quote is contrasting "special lady" against "lady friend", not conflating them into one.
135: True! I feel like all three are in circulation, but I might be confused because I am usually on the receiving end. And I haven't seen the movie nearly as many times.
129: I'm glad to see this site suggests doing away with "person with a uterus," which drove me bats. I guess that on balance it's helpful, but it can't change the fact that gender-neutral terms in English reinforce masculinity by default or at best make people think of a gender-balanced group, and so it perversely serves to obscure the women in the set. There isn't a good fix, though.
Hello, hello, who's your lady friend?
I gather that in the '50s a hipster/drag-racer/greaser/Beat thing was to introduce one's ... particular female-gender-identifying friend was "my witch." I tried this once.
133.very tangentially, but since this is the doggerel thread:
Oh, look outside the window
There's a woman being named
They've called her special lady friend
And now they're being shamed
But I'm sure
It wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends
141: So possessive. A progressive gentleman just says "a witch."
I tried this once.
Flippanter IS Joe Piscopo in Johnny Dangerously.
Yay, a doggerel thread when I'm home sick! Just for you, Mister Smearcase, with credit to Scomber mix for the concept:
Once Mister Smearcase walked into a crowded room
Walked past a sick man who coughed and sneezed
And his cough was dispersed in a contagious aerosol
You'll have the walking pneumonia with me
Chorus:
Headache and weakness, lingering tiredness,
Sore throat and ague and coughing sprees,
You'll hack, and you'll bark, and you'll spread mycoplasma:
You'll have the walking pneumonia with me
Down came a germ cell to infect his bronchiole
Chlamydophila it chanced to be
And it sang as it nestled down in his alveoli
You'll have the walking pneumonia with me
Down came the doctor bearing a stethoscope
Down came the nurses, one, two, and three,
Which is the microbe you've got in your bronchiole?
You'll have the walking pneumonia with me
Antibiotics, plenty of fluids,
But sulfonamide is no use for thee;
It's time, and it's bed rest, and little else will answer
When you have the walking pneumonia with me
142: Ha! There would definitely be shaming by others if the quote was gotten wrong. They aren't quite up to the level of cosplaying at a Lebowskifest, but it seems like a very near thing sometimes.
gender-neutral terms in English reinforce masculinity by default
What can be done about this? Aggressively use gender-neutral terms for all-female groups?
Speaking of terms for "woman" and Coen brothers movies, in Miller's Crossing the slang term that the gangsters use "twist". I don't know whether that is a genuine bit of 30's slang or if they just made it up for the movie.
I think it's Cockney rhyming slang -- twist and twirl rhymes with girl.
149/150: They also use "frail".
140: one of my biggest regrets about getting married are losing the ability to refer to my better half as the father of my illegitimate child. "Father of my formerly illegitimate child" just doesn't have the same ring.
More generally, tge problem with Citizen is some people are actually still subjects. As I delight in regularly reminding my beloved partner, aka FOMFIC.
I find being addressed as "Frau" surprisingly distressing.
152: That one's authentic period slang—just ask Cab Calloway or Mister Smearcase.
153: I was under the impression that "baby-daddy" was the preferred nomenclature.
is not are, the not the - it's astonishing how bad my phone typing is.
the not the
A delightfully subtle distinction!
I'm guessing the rest of you don't have to hear/see people referred to as thots practically ever, but boy do I hate that more than "female" as the term of choice! (For "that ho over there" or plural thereof, and it was totally unnecessary and is all over the place for that lack of reason.)
At least until about 8-9 years ago the form to apply for UK citizenship for children born abroad to one UK citizen parent and one non-UK citizen parent referred to children born out of wedlock as bastards. I'm told the very nice young woman at the SF consulate was very apologetic about this.
oh perfidious inconstant autocorrect!
158: I've never heard that! Is it pronounced the same as "thought"?
the not the
Everybody walk the dinosaur?
Which is the microbe you've got in your bronchiole?
Hee. Cough.
153.3 -- Think of it as vrouw, and picture whoever is saying it as wearing wooden shoes and carrying a tulip. Your distress should melt away.
I saw the term "juggalette" as a term of self-identification on Twitter today. That seems like an unnecessary gendering.
166: the precise mechanism eludes me but I'll give it a whirl!
belatedly; I've been in groups addressed as `women' an it seemed perfectly natural, but I am in the earnest PNW. We were wearing comfortable shoes unironically.
I've used "significant bimbo" but one needs to know one's audience. Otherwise, "y'all" works just fine for any combination ever thought of by the writers of Penthouse Letters.
"Y'all" is limited geographically. "Yunz" works the same way, but I can't do it without irony.
We were wearing comfortable shoes unironically.
Do people wear comfortable shoes ironically?
"Y'all" can be expanded to "you all" when geography demands it.
In that case, you may as well just say, "all of you".
Is "yunz" distinct from "yinz"?
Yes, when comfortable shoes are described as nothing more than an avowal of Sapphic sensibilities, some people who may merely have feet (unmetered) wear them ironically.
175.1: There's some debate. I hear it as more "yunz" than "yinz" but it's the same noise.
I address my students collectively as "folks," "people," "gang," and when I'm in an especially silly mood, "team."
173: It's not necessary. If one isn't in the South people think "ironic", especially since my accent is sort of New Yorkish.
138: When I interned at a progressive economics think tank during college, one of my bosses (the less famous of the two co-founders) would refer to us as "masses."
"Mofos" is good, better if one is carrying.
The new (old) hot term for referring to your subordinates is "minions".
Rather, he would address us as "masses." He referred to us (and there were rarely more than two at any time) as "the interns."
If you have two assistants, refer to them as "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" interchangably.
181: Because of Skylanders, one assumes.
Otherwise, "y'all" works just fine for any combination ever thought of by the writers of Penthouse Letters.
OT: Somebody is busking with what looks like the bastard offspring of a banjo and a double bass. Except it has more strings than any version I've seen of either.
If you have a queen, you're a subject.
Nope, citizen of the United Kingdom; that's been the case for decades. Check the law.
The law?!??!! When has any healthy relationship let an accurate understanding of the LAW of all things get in the way of effective partner needling? Madness.
If you have a queen, you're a subject.
Not a king, though.
In the National Security state, everyone's a subject. Or a target.
Sure, when/if there's ever a king he's still a subject, also object of international derision, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
|| Speaking of targets: http://www.demandprogress.tv/drones |>
190: Kora? Ok probably not.
OT OT: Do young people think it's fine to look at what is on one's computer screen? My young colleagues seem to think so. Since I am almost always fucking around, this is giving me agita.
199.1: No. It looked very European.
Closer. It had different sets of pegs like that, but the head was round. Is there like an archlute-anjo?
My dad taught me to say "I am a Canadian Citizen, and a British Subject."
Yes, very popular with early 17c. steampunks.
Canadian by birth,
Scottish by ancestry,
Vancouverite by choice,
And British by the grace of God!
I can't find an image that looks close. It has a neck that looks as long as a theorbo neck, but the neck is thicker and doesn't narrow toward the end. And it was really round on the body, like a banjo, except that it didn't look like it had a steel rim.
190: I know what you're talking about, and I thought I knew where a picture of it was, but I was mistaken.
Bandurria?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandurria
Some kind of cittern?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cittern#mediaviewer/File:Hamburger_waldzither.jpg
And it wasn't just a bass banjo?
148: gender-neutral terms in English reinforce masculinity by default
What can be done about this? Aggressively use gender-neutral terms for all-female groups?
dalriata! Use "s/he" or "she or he" or "he or she", I suppose. I'm not so down with the neologisms coined in recent years.
I've been pleased that Fed Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen apparently wishes to be called "Chairwoman". From what I can tell, people resist this, somewhat jokingly mention that that's her stated preference, and then call her "the Chair".
214: no, the early 17c. steampunks busked their way from Southern Europe to South Asia. It took a while, but they were ready for George when he showed up.
My dad taught me to say "I am a Canadian Citizen, and a British Subject."
My dad never taught me to say that. I learned it at a Girl Guides meeting.
214: I did not see George Harrison, but that is as close as I could find to what I saw. I still think what I saw looked more European and more round, but I was a way away.
Did it sound like a sitar? That's often the secret giveaway.
I was on a bus and I don't think the guy was playing while we were stopped. He was to a passer-by.
I don't speak your Pittsburghese. "Yunz redd up needs theorbo played to a passerby." What?
My dad never taught me to say that. I learned it at a Girl Guides meeting
There wouldn't be a clear demarcation in my case; my dad was a King's Scout with Gilwell beads.
"Lady parts"-along with other terms that tie gender to genitals like "man meat" or "boy bits"
Oh right. I hear those all the time.
My dad taught me to say "I am a Canadian Citizen, and a British Subject."
When would you say this? (Just curious.)
When captured by the enemy. It's the next line after name, rank, and serial number.
my dad was a King's Scout with Gilwell beads
Impressive! (not irony, btw, I really mean it).
My dad was a member of the Circle of Squires (St. Pat's parish, our nation's capital) of the Knights of Columbus. Apparently, they were to fight the spirit of Communism through their devotion to Our Lady, or something like that.
I mean, there are numerous situations where one might scream "I'm an American!!" but I'm guessing it's different for Canadians.
The same ones where one might yell "Surrender, Dorothy!"? Or do I misunderstand you?
Canadians don't ever need to tell anyone abroad that they're Canadian. It's right there on the mandatory Canadian flag sewn onto the backpack.
I've been meaning to say to you Jane, especially after that hockey picture, how much more rooted you are that kind of Canadianness than I am. We were both born in the Ottawa valley, but my parents were not at home there, and disdained the local accent, a version I think of Midlands. They were entirely people of the Maritimes, cut off from their home by careers and unable to digest the changes that occurred back home on our occasional visits. My mother seems old-fashioned and disengaged to her cousins who stayed on the South Shore, who live in a very different world from her memories.
I've never been as at home anywhere as I am in my house in Chicago, the longest I've lived anywhere by a factor of 4. Canada is a dream to me, a country I know doesn't exist as I knew it if it ever did.
213: Parsimon! Ah, I didn't think of going about it that way: try to force a hyperawareness of gender until the "unadorned noun == masculine" reflex goes away. Seems like it could be problematic with reinforcing the gender binary, though. I prefer singular they over the neologisms, but if people want the neologisms that's what they should get (beyond that I don't think I would immediately register "ze" or "ey" or whatever as a pronoun if I only heard it)
And as for the last bit, good to remember. I personally wish "man" was made fully gender neutral, both as a "person who does something" suffix and a word for humanity in a poetic sense. We'd need some other word to describe adult males, which would have the added benefit that woman/women would no longer be derived from the masculine. But that's not going to happen, so back to working with everyone's idiosyncratic gendered word preferences.
230: I've found your distant-in-time-and-space perspectives on Canada really interesting.
189: My god, I should have been addressing my kids as Myrmidons all along!
The Maoist film critics had this all worked out, but it was tiring trying to keep straight all the new spellings.
226: Is that the same thing as the Colombian Squires. I was one of those.
229: Only Americans wear Canadian flags abroad.
We were both born in the Ottawa valley, but my parents were not at home there, and disdained the local accent, a version I think of Midlands.
Yeah, both of my parents had deep roots in the Valley. My mother's side of the family always had lace-curtain aspirations, but my father's family was less respectable, and pure shanty Irish in origin. My father had mostly rid himself of the accent, but in the last couple of years of his life, as he got sick and maybe didn't give a flying f*** anymore, that accent returned.
228: I'm not sure. I actually don't know when to yell "Surrender, Dorothy!" Maybe I should put that into the rotation and see what happens.
In Polish there are two forms of 'they' - oni (masculine) and one (feminine) the male one is used for men or mixed groups of humans while the feminine one is used for groups of women, children, animals, or inanimate objects (regardless of gender). The conjugation is different as well except in the present tense. Grammar can be pretty sexist.
In Spanish, the inanimate objects have genders.
They've got genders in Polish as well, but in the second person plural they're all feminine (the nouns themselves mutate depending on gender, number, in/animate status, what verbs are being used, what prepositions are being used, and other stuff.)
241: Christ, you guys won't be getting many votes for "world language".
In French, you have to use a different pronoun to refer to an inanimate object after someone has had sex with it.
242 Eh, it's just cases - think Latin. The verbs of motion on the other hand are a complete mess with dozens of verbs representing various subtleties of 'to go'.
French of course has the ils/elles distinction, and according to the Wikipedia article on New Zealand English "she" is sometimes used as a dummy pronoun for stative sentences where other standards usually requires "it," most often as "she'll be [al?]right."
I'm not sure. I actually don't know when to yell "Surrender, Dorothy!"
Prior to this thread I just thought of "Surrender, Dorothy" as the title of a (good) album." But, thankfully, wikipedia, is helpful. I assume that LB is refering to this:
The phrase was also later featured in Martin Scorsese's 1985 film After Hours. In the film, Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) relates that her former husband would scream the phrase during intercourse.
I'm now curious if that is the inspiration for the joke from Brief Interviews With Hideous Men which shows up at 0:38 in the trailer.
246: Interesting. No, that wasn't one of the situations I had in mind.
244: Yeah, I could never get very far with verbs of motion in Russian either. Our instructor said she knew of a party of Russian language teachers who'd made a special trip to Moscow to study verbs of motion, and come back more confused than when they left.
But Russian cases are almost as confusing. Or perhaps I just don't have any facility with languages and should stick to English and try to pick up some Pittsburghese on the side.
It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
231: I personally wish "man" was made fully gender neutral, both as a "person who does something" suffix and a word for humanity in a poetic sense.
Coming back to this late, but I'm a little puzzled by this: isn't it the case that "man" has been alleged for centuries to be gender neutral already? The point eventually made has been that, well, while it's alleged to be *used* that way, it actually does assume that the generic person is male, and that's a problem.
I don't see any way that "man" can be decoupled from a default assumption of maleness, though as you say, if it were ever to become so, we'd need another word for biological males. It seems just easier to insist on "he or she" when the sex of the person under discussion is indeterminate.
I understand the desire to rehabilitate "man" as fully generic in order to preserve the poetic power of Hamlet's speech; though I'm not sure Hamlet (or Shakespeare) really did mean 'oh of course women too' are noble in reason, infinite in faculty, and so on and so forth.
Some people now substitute "human" for "man" as generic: it flows most easily with something like "humankind" as opposed to "mankind".
(For all I know, these things were discussed upthread, but verily the thread was long already when I saw it last night.)
I bring this up whenever we talk gender in language, but Middle English did have a marked male-human word, 'wer', and 'man' really was gender neutral human. Wer just dropped out of the language along the way somewhere, leaving 'man' as both human generally and male adult human.
Wer just dropped out of the language along the way somewhere to find foul congress with the beasts of the forest and emerge: half marked male-human, half wolf!
I've always wanted to see a movie about wifwolves.
250: Yeah, part of it is asthetics: sometimes, man scans better than human. I also don't like that the masculine word is the root of all the others. As an alternative, I suggest "he-man" for males. (I'm intentionally starting the bidding low here; I'm sure someone else can come up with something better.) And there are so many profession words that have "-man" as a suffix; you either need to make a gendered female alternative (which I dislike as generally the gender of the actor is not relevant), or do something entirely different.
251: So "weregild" and "werewolf" and what not are gendered? Huh!
Pwned. Wifwolves sounds like a premise for a low budget historical horror/softcore film.
Some people now substitute "human" for "man" as generic: it flows most easily with something like "humankind" as opposed to "mankind".
I was recently rereading some stuff by A.J.P. Taylor and it was kind of jarringly noticable how casually he uses "man" or "men" in places where today people would use "people" or "humankind".
I'm not sure at what point that sort of thing became obtrusively obvious to me. Certainly, when I was in grade school "Man's quest for knowledge", "The achievements of Mankind", & etc. were still the norm.
256: kind of jarringly noticable
Yeah, what's changed is really that it's become jarring now as male-centric: is this just a product of second wave feminist activism, as recently as the 60s and 70s? If so, it's been relatively successful.
254: there are so many profession words that have "-man" as a suffix
This gets mixed up a bit in the generation of surnames as well, back when -- I don't know quite when, we'd need some medieval scholars or linguists to help, maybe -- but there were a lot of "-sons" generated. You had your Smithson and your Clarkson and your Thompson. Smith and Clark the elders were presumably smiths and clerks (I'm guessing); I don't know what Thom(p) did.
Patrilineage, in any case, is the relevant operative here, and that's one reason I'm not so keen on rehabilitating "man" as generic.
Isn't there an anthropologist or sociologist in the house?
And actually, again on there are so many profession words that have "-man" as a suffix
I may be suffering from a failure of imagination now, but I can't think of many still in use:
mailman = mail carrier or postal carrier
fireman = fire fighter
policeman = police officer
There are such terms as "journeyman" or "tradesman" or "lawman", but those are somewhat retrograde, and evoke an earlier time. They may still be in parlance in some realms.
I'm coming up short, though, on -man terms for professions these days. The new terms divorce the sex of the practitioner from her or his profession, emphasizing the latter.
I'm always kind of offended when someone refers to me as a blogman.
Heebie U still uses "freshman" instead of "first year" which seems anachronistic.
Heebie U still uses "freshman" instead of "first year" which seems anachronistic.
"Freshmeat" is gender neutral, but might be controversial for other reasons.
We appear to use both "freshmen" and "first years". "Sophoman" has been dropped.
These aren't all professions per se (and some of them do have a slightly gendered component, e.g. some may argue that a "sportsman" embodies some masculine qualities), but here's a selection from a Scrabble site, ignoring ones that I thought were too obviously retrograde:
Anchorman Assemblyman Businessman Cameraman Chairman Clergyman Congressman Craftsman Deliveryman Fisherman Outdoorsman Policeman Spokesman Sportsman
Meh, I'm too lazy to go through this and filter out the old ones and the ones that end with "-woman", but there really are a lot of words of that form.
259: Should be blogsman.
When bored, I sometimes pronounce such words with a less open schwa, to make them sound like last names e.g. "Supermun."
263: Point taken. As I puttered about in the kitchen just now, I recalled that I myself noted the use of "Chairman" with respect to Janet Yellen.
Methinks most of the cited words can be easily reworked, or have been already. Some are more sticky. But I don't think it's a irresolvable problem, and I don't see why we should need to resurrect "man" as generic in order to preserve them.
OT: can we have food thread soon? Re: puttering about in the kitchen, man,* my household's garden is going bananas this season, and I'm stretching my creativity in coming up with recipes. Got some good ones so far.
* Yes, you heard me. I'll keep this usage.
