Comments on: Twitter and gendered language

By: A

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:54:47 +0000

“OHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN’T USE A PLURAL PRONOUN TO REFER TO ONE PERSON. THE WORLD WILL BE CONSUMED BY THE WRATH OF THE GRAMMAR GODS IF YOU COMMIT SUCH AN ATROCITY AGAINST MANKIND!”

My two core loves are feminism and grammar. They are the opinions I hold strongly to and the things that I hold most dear. I agree with that quote, even though it’s meant to be a mockery. We truly need a gender neutral singular pronoun. I like s/he best.

By: Steffanie Michalicek

Steffanie Michalicek — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:53:08 +0000

hmmmm…i don’t think I go along with everything that you wrote, but I like the way you express yourself in your thoughts. I’m following your RSS.

By: codieface

codieface — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:38:20 +0000

I just came back from six months on exchange in Germany, and that hardly makes me an expert on the culture but I did notice there were a lot of differences between the Australian and German culture. In Germany, I was really shocked to find that the nuclear family ideal is alive and kicking. Most women stay at home until their children go to school – that sounds ok? Except kids start school at six or seven. If you have two kids, two years apart, that means you’re could be out of the workforce for nine years. And school goes from 8am-1pm, and if you don’t want to abandon your children (which all women who work do, of course), it means you can only work part time.

And I was noticing this at the same time that I was learning the language. I was watching Bend It Like Beckham (one of my favourite movies of all time), in German. Now I’ve seen that movie so many times in English I could recite the dialogue to you off the top of my head. At one point of the movie, a (kind of douchebag) guy catcalls a member of an all-women football team – one of the characters asks if they couldn’t see the all-female football team ‘just as football players’. The meaning was COMPLETELY lost on the German audience – it translated as ‘can’t you just see them as female football players’ because every noun that applies to a person has a male and a female form – a male player is a ‘Spieler’, a female player is a ‘Spielerin’ – the male plural form is ‘Spieler’ (the same as the single), but the female plural form is ‘Spielerinnen’.

I’m not sure if the two are connected – I only speak English and German, and I’ve only ever lived in Australia and Germany, but I think it raises some pretty interesting questions about language and culture.

By: Amy CT

Amy CT — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:02:10 +0000

I tweet. I’m not really sure why, except for the fact that when you start, it gets really hard to stop…

But this comment was GENIUS -

Ha ha!!

I’m a grammar despot (sorry), and that made my day!

By: Lighthouse Boy

Lighthouse Boy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:46:36 +0000

I have a Twitter, but, don’t use it all that much. This has nothing to do with gender (whoever said ‘Straight guys don’t Twitter’ is both wrong and an arsehole), but, all top do with the fact that Tweets are limited to 140 characters. For me, that is extremely limiting.

I think Twitter can be summed up as ‘blogging by text message’.

I can put my opinions on my own website, on a forum, in my notes in Facebook, without any limit.

Unless I was writing a frivolous post (sorry, Tweet) about who fncies who, or a Tweet saying ‘I’m out tonight, who else is?’, to get anything more meaningful, the only way I can see is to put a few words, then a link.

By: Tea

Tea — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:10:06 +0000

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102518565

By: Tea

Tea — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:09:51 +0000

You do get used to it, to a certain extent, but gendered objects still have an effect. There was a study done on people speaking different languages where specific words have different genders.
“When asked to describe a “key” — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — German speakers were more likely to use words such as “hard,” “heavy,” “jagged,” “metal,” “serrated” and “useful.” Spanish speakers were more likely to say “golden,” “intricate,” “little,” “lovely,” “shiny” and “tiny.”"

The full story on NPR is here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102518565)

By: Helen H.

Helen H. — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:25:56 +0000

Arabic is my mother tongue. As far as I can tell, it’s even more gendered than Latin languages. So, studying French and Spanish wasn’t as irritating as it could be for people who speak gender-neutral languages.

I don’t really tend to think of objects as masculine or feminine. Maybe it’s because I’m more fluent in English. When speaking a gendered language, I always feel like the femininity or masculinity is restricted to the language. I think you just get used to it.

By: Rogue

Rogue — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:05:12 +0000

I use “they”, consequences be damned!

By: Grace

Grace — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:03:20 +0000

I once read that those who speak gendered languages are more likely to think of objects as masculine or feminine, and describe them with adjectives associated with their gender. I wondered whether seven years of French class had affected my thinking that way.

Also, why is the verb for commenting on Twitter “to tweet” when “twitter” is already a verb?