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Pronouns (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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[-] dojan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Maybe this analogy will help: Let’s say you meet someone, and you ask them “Do you have a cat?”. Note that you’ve used the singular here, though it’s acting number-neutral in this context. If they respond “I have two”, then it will immediately become ungrammatical for you to continue to use the number-neutral singular and ask “Does your cat like fish?”

This helped a lot. It is true that I do not feel this way about "they", but it does put things into perspective. Thank you.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t, or shouldn’t, try to accommodate non-binary people of course, as is unfortunately often argued, but it does mean that, contrary to what I commonly see people say on the internet, doing so for these speakers does require a constant, concerted effort to consciously override their mental grammars.

This is true also when someone you've known for a while transitions, or changes their name (like in the case of marriage, or just a regular name-change). Most people are okay with you tripping up, it's expected even. It's just when it's done in bad faith that it becomes an issue.

this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
1547 points (92.3% liked)

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