Gender Pronouns - Steven Pinker on Politically Motivated Campaigns to Change and Abandon Language
2017 ж. 16 Қаң.
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Gender Pronouns: Steven Pinker on Politically Motivated Campaigns to Change and Abandon Language
This is an excerpt from episode 14 of Tyler Cowen's podcast Conversations with Tyler, published on the 2nd of November 2016, in which Steven Pinker takes a question from an audience member regarding the way language can be used politically, politically motivated campaigns to change language, specifically touching on the bubbling fervour over gender pronouns.
You can listen to the entire episode on the Conversations with Tyler site: medium.com/conversations-with...
You can also listen to this episode of the podcast on SoundCloud: / steven-pinker-language...
You can find more episodes of the podcast here: / conversations-with
We already have a gender neutral term: "dude"
Jaaq Ess But that’s the male counterpart of “dudette.” 🤔
Jaaq Ess, Duuuuuude! You got that right! 😂😂😁😀😉
im a dude, hes a dude, shes a dude, WE'RE ALL DUDES, HEY!
No, it's comrade
No, it's compatriot.
How about people just stop getting offended? It'd make life so much simpler and we can all get some fucking peace.
How about we all call you MrVagina? Presumably you’d be OK with that.
@@TheRealTomWendel You can call me anything you want, mate. It takes a lot to make me cry.
I rarely hear "African American" anymore. Nowadays, it seems like every black person I know says "black," and every PC person says "people of color," or sometimes abbreviates P.O.C.
While it is acceptable to use the term "person of color", it is not acceptable to use the term "colored person" even though the two phrases, on their face, mean the same thing. So much bullshit.
Doesn't P.O.C. essentially refer to anyone who isn't white? I'm troubled that the language has now been formed to seemingly pit unrelated groups together against the dominant group. What good can come from this?
"though the two phrases, on their face, mean the same thing" So you recognise there's more to language than merely surface-meaning? Good - that's where you start.
LOL the stupidity of you microbrains is hilarious. "'I'm troubled that the language has now been formed to seemingly pit unrelated groups together against the dominant group. " You are indeed troubled slackjaw but it's your own genetic failings which are at fault. You greasy little failure.
Or perhaps,Amadan Dubh...I can't decide.
A few years ago Ricky Gervais predicted something I've just heard. A perfect example of this. He said that "Spastic" was no longer used politely. A DJ called Chris Moyles used the term and was pilloried for it and the UK Spastic Society changed it's name to "Scope". Gervais predicted that sooin people who wanted to imply the old connotations of spastic such as in the language" You spaz" or "You spastic" would soon use the term "You Scoper" or "Your Scope".. And that's exactly what's happened. I've heard the word used pejoratively dozens of times in the last 15 months or so. The same happened 30 years ago when the stopped using "Backwards" and replaced the term (officially I was surprised to learn) with "Special". Soon after people who made mistakes were being told they were "Special" by their friends. Contrary to what many linguists and lexicographers believe. Changing the language rarely, if ever, takes away the emotion or prejudice. It just moves it sideways. It's a battle you might as well fight a different way. Compelled speech or language policing is about the worst way possible. and it never works. So why do politicians and the SJW community insist on it?
Paul Rone-Clarke great comment.
Another example is obese. That's used pejoratively all the time now, but started as the neutral scientific term. People who want to speak of a certain group pejoratively or flippantly will always find a way, no matter how much you try to legislate language.
This is a fascinating comment; I hadn't heard "Scopers", however I have heard "sperg out" and it has an interesting and similar history. I'm on the high end of the autism spectrum and people with Asperger's have mostly reclaimed "Asperger's" as a self-proclaimed identity trait (which was right after the DSM removed it as a legal diagnosis, interestingly). And soon after, "sperg out" began to show up as a pejorative. Like that quote from Jurassic Park about life finding a way -- Words will always find a way. Therefore trying to control them will never work.
My favourite example was the department relabelling it Special Education. The kids just called them Speds
I'm very interested to hear what you would think would be other ways to fight marginalization and stigmatization, than through informal language 'policing'. "Hey man, I'm not digging you using that word." for example. I'm not saying attempting to change language works, but actually interested in what you would think of as these different ways of fighting 'the battle', as you call it.
Thanks for the upload.
A black man walks into a bar. The white bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve your type here." The black man, indignant, says "Excuse me?!" "Oh, no! what I meant to say is, we no longer serve your type of drink here. Our usual bartender told me about some of the regulars here and what they like to drink, including yours, you're Jerry who always orders Coors, right? I'm so sorry for the confusion. Can I offer you something else on the house?" "Ah, OK, I see." said Jerry. "No harm no foul, brother! I'll just have a Budweiser, thanks!" Moral of the story, the bartender wasn't racist, and neither is this joke. Jerry was a convicted felon.
InTheMannerOfTheGrover 0/8
Visda58 that's great! Exactly my type of humour.
You really went around the block for that one.
Visda58 I see what you did there at the end with the convicted felon. Interesting how this joke can lead people into thinking oh another racist joke then totally pull away from it, all the while readers may think the bartender was trolling him from the start. So we think right no harm done. Then the last sentence reinforces racism in the most subtle way without any chance of readers disputing it as in the context of the joke, this was supposed to be true. leaving us walking away thinking the black man was a convicted felon. Now saying he was a convicted felon isn't racist at all, but just saying it has powerful effects, especially when Jerry is black and you mentioned racism in the paragraph. You with me still? You can do the same joke and use the term mixican using the name Jose, and end it with, Jose just crossed the boarder without documents. You can even use this the other way around and use the word white boy and a name like mike and have the last sentence being, mike is has an ongoing court case for a school shooting. Your joke fools the fools but not me
Visda58 stupid.
all the black people i know call themselves black
Hunter Powers that's the only thing that confused me a little in this video as I've always referred to black people as "black", as have they.
@@ManuLeach i refer to them as people
@Mike N and don't forget that if you're not in America, no-one will be African American because they aren't American.
@@KinnArchimedes great but how is that relevant?
@@ManuLeach relevant to what specifically.
Well, as it relates to the label of "African American", I've found (having worked with and continuing to work with many friends and associates from Africa) that this label is somewhat offensive to those coming directly from Africa (and maybe even those who are second generation from Africa). For example, I've had some of these colleagues suggest to me, as a Black American, that I should not call myself African American because this label is more rightly ascribed to them, as they are directly from Africa itself. Further, they indicate the label was perfectly fine in the distant past because, through slavery, we really were "African American." Just another way to consider how racial labels are continuing to change...
Hmmm something went wrong... I don't know if my reply posted or the edit failed, so here's the slightly edited post, to see if it will post: I always felt that Italians who decide to come to America have a legitimate right to honor their heritage, but should do so by calling themselves American-Italians. Likewise for Irish, use American-Irish. Now "Native" American makes no sense, because, like me, any person in the western hemisphere either came from or has relatives who came from Eurasia and really we all have relatives who, ultimately came from Africa, so really we are all "American-Africans". I was born here - I'm as "Native American" as anyone else here. In a proper world, we would not really need to refer to a person's ancestry - I'm with MLK that the content of one's character is much more important than "who's your daddy" or how much and what type skin pigment you happen to have. What about someone who's an albino - which, I understand, is quite common in at least one African tribe - and apparently the practice there is to find and kill them for some reason. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1215949/The-albino-tribe-butchered-feed-gruesome-trade-magical-body-parts.html
Its easier for some people to invent oppressors that it is to solve their own problems.
That's the smartest comment I've read in quite a while.
Good point. How often do you hear sports teams talk about the opposition not respecting them? It's a tool to hype themselves up. Easier than coming up with internal motivation. I imagine these things are related neurologically, although that's pure speculation on my part.
I'm gonna steal this sentence :)
I could say the same thing about you. Transgender people have been thoroughly studied and it's an unchangeable thing. the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis is a region of the brain that is different for both sexes (larger in men, smaller in females) however, transgender people have the secondary characteristics of one sex yet they have this region of the brain from the opposite sex, making them BE the opposite sex but never looking like it, which causes terrible depression and other mental disorders.
What do you mean?
The Norman invasion of England changed the language in a noticeable way, I go with the meat in the field versus the meat on the table. A cow (Anglo-Saxon) is beef (Norman) on the plate. A hog/pig(Anglo-Saxon) is pork (Norman) on the plate. I may not be fully accurate here, but I know the Norman invasion of England altered the language permanently.
Honestly, I just wish people would become more honest. I don't like when it feels like most people think something but just can't say it. I'd rather people be blunt, warts and all. Not stupid or vulgar, mind you, but honest.
Pinker dodged a bit here in not addressing the top-down attempt to use the state to enforce pronouns, but perhaps that is a sidebar to his otherwise interesting answer. But even laying aside the Canadian debate, there is something markedly different in the new PC insistence on the gender pronouns and civil rights leaders encouraging the adoption of the term African-American. The latter was done in an organic and invitatory way, representing a kind of bubbling consensus that another term was needed. The former is now being espoused as a scary and intense formalism that will demand instant ostracization if people do not climb aboard to use a vast list of pronouns that are wholly impractical and which effort represents a Stalinist mind-rape of sorts.
I just stumbled across your channel
The use of the term Asian to refer to people who used to be referred to as Oriental is was absurd for two reasons. First: the term Oriental was never derogatory, it simply meant people from the far east, people who happened to have a particular genetic makeup that manifested itself in a particular set of physical characteristics. Second: India is part of Asia and therefore Indians ought to be included as Asians, but nobody who uses the term Asian ever means Indian.
When changes in language reflect changes in the thinking of free individuals, we're in good shape. However, when one set of individuals attempts to regulate everyone else's language as a means to change thinking, we're in big trouble. Good ideas will always change language naturally; they need no help. It is only the bad ideas that require the policing of language to hide their weaknesses, contradictions, or malice.
Such an interesting guy.
There is a perfectly good gender-neutral pronoun already. It is generally used the first few times our humanity and existence is even acknowledged, and much more often with love than not."When is it due?""Have you felt it move?""Is it a boy or a girl?"If you opt out of biological gender assignment, why object to the pronoun used before your gender was assumed?
lol, but people would be insulted!
sandra McDonald All the examples you give precede the 'arrival' of gender, though, and that's the only reason it's used. People don't like to be referred to as objects, in my experience lol
You use 'it' as a provisory pronoun, used until more about the 'it' in question is known. Who is it? It's the pizza delivery dude, ma'am.
I am a big fan of "it", as a perfectly established gender-neutral pronoun in the singular. Why bother inventing new ones when we have one? Francis White and Sophie Dockx, I take your similar points, but if people choose to reject the biological binary nature of sex differentiation, they can reject the much more socially-derived problem with calling an adult by a neutral pronoun.
Language and biology need not be one-to-one congruent. They never have been. all of our languages predate the first real knowledge of biology. Besides biology is not that binary. It is ternary. Animals are built up out of three basic cell layers: endoderm, esoderm and mesoderm (if I remember correctly). Males with a 90% feminised skeleton are not that rare, as anthropologists have discovered a decade ago. Many skeletons dug up on medieval archeological sites before DNA analysis of bone matter had been developed turned out to have been mis-gendered. The same is true for transsexuals. the diagnostic procedure ends invariably with the conclusion of a counter-sexual nervous system. FMRI scanners have already reached a point in development where functioning brain wiring is starting to become visible, but the post-mortem research by L.Gooren et al (1995) had already come very close, identifying brain wiring in dead tissue. Conclusion as it stands at the moment: 0,03% of the population is mildly to severely transsexual. Most people are biologically of mixed gender. If we weren't we would all have been Ken or Barbie. There is a reason why they can't exist in flesh, blood and brains, in the real world: they wouldn't get along and kill each other from the moment puberty sets in. X and Y chromosome theory is old hat. It has been since the seventies, when Turner described 'Turner Syndrome' and other anomalies. Y chromosome doesn't code for sex. It starts up a masculinisation program that runs largely on hormone interactions that are not guided by genetic code. Gender in the biological sense is a polar, not binary phenomenon. It has two poles, but what the SJW's are doing is defining gender identity using a fictional extra dimension, that doesn't exist in biology, and that doesn't exist in language either. There are but two gender poles and some gradation between the two poles, but gender is not the two-dimensional 'spectrum' 3rd Wave feminism likes us to believe. 'Biology' is too vague a word and 'binary' is downright wrong. It is feminist newspeak, that we should NOT adopt for ourselves. Chuck their definitions of 'patriarchy', 'gender', even 'feminism' and 'social construct' because all of these words meant something different, for centuries, before 3rd wave came along and arrogated to corrupt the English language. I am old enough to have witnessed their attempts at bullying and bribing linguists responsible for dictionaries into changing on-line dictionaries and Wikipedia entries. They have even partly succeeded in that, by the way. "Totalitarianism starts with the corruption of language". Orwell, Kafka and Hanna Arendt more or less concur on this. Or am I such an incorrigible language nerd that I can't but see everything from a linguistic point of view? Could be. Buffs are always biased. :)
"It." There! Problem solved.
The notion that if someone tells a joke about blacks or whatever, means they're a racist is just so stupid I can't believe an intelligent person could say it.
I've never heard a good reason why 'oriental' should be offensive.
It's probably because of the context it was once used in. I don't know the history of the term 'Oriental' but if you take the word 'Negro', it literally just means 'black' in Spanish, the word that is an acceptable one to use in English today. But because it has links to the slave trade and racism it's fallen into the offensive category. Words don't exist in a vacuum.
Thanks for the reply. I think you're correct about context being the key. Since members of the group that the word refers to were the victim of (real or perceived) racism, the word was used disdainfully by some outside that group, and therefore became a pejorative in the eyes (ears?) of those within the group. The end result is a case of someone first deciding to be offended by the word, and then backsolving to find a reason for the offense. Some of the "reasons" that I've heard are lame at best, and completely illogical at worst. Nobody wants to admit that they decided the word is offensive because some hateful people use it (even though the vast majority of people use it innocently as an neutral label for people who fit a set of objective criteria. They prefer to imagine that hateful people use it because it's offensive and then invent reasons why it was offensive to begin with.
I thought it was because "oriental" implies a direction, like "Far East" or "Middle East", and that direction is based off of Europe. So basically oriental implies that Europe is the center of the world, like it's "better" or something. Ethno-centrism. The same idea is behind how we changed our calendars from "B.C./A.D." to "B.C.E./C.E.". It was because the old way was based off of Christianity which is just one religion (albeit the biggest one). I imagine ancient cultures that were never Christian probably get annoyed at having to conform to someone else's cultural calendar. I think that's how it works at any rate. I bet the people who actually get annoyed at stuff like "oriental", who aren't themselves "oriental", probably complain a lot about power dynamics. Imperialism, colonialism, yadda yadda...
Yeah, I've heard the directional, "Euro-centric" reasoning before, and it doesn't really make sense to me. "Oriental" is an English word, and England is in Europe, so it stands to reason that the people who speak English would describe the people to their east as "Eastern". I don't speak Mandarin, but I would assume that the Mandarin term for white people is based in part on the direction that a Chinese person would have to travel to find some, and I would not be at all offended by that term. I think people decided to be offended by "oriental" first and then tried to figure out a reason to be offended, which is why none of the reasons make much sense. They're retro-fitted to a situation that doesn't have a good reason as its start-point. By the way, I'll start using "BCE/CE" when someone comes up with new names for the days of the week (named after Norse gods) and the months of the year (named after Roman gods).
it's partly because it was used for arabs, indians, chinese, vietnamese, persians, turks, so on and so forth. Ofc the word asian is still bad, because it's used as a racial word, when "Asia" refers to the most diverse and populated continent, thereby giving priority to east asians over indians, for example.
Give primacy to person before colour...
There are languages that have no gender pronouns* (Finnish and Hungarian, for instance) and they are just as stuck in the gender binary as the rest of the world. * they have the same word for "he" and "she" and a separate word for "it", so there's a difference in animacy but not in social gender
Native Polish speaker, can confirm. Polish has a gender-neutral case used mostly for children and animals, the default form of adress is still the masculine. Some leftists here have started using the female pronoun as default in writing, the effect is jarring but interesting.
NotAffiliated Interesting. I'm working on a science fiction world with its own language and I had the idea to give it masculine, feminine and child pronouns and that they would adopt the child pronoun for gender neutral cases.
Here in Finland we only have "heorshe" and "it", but only grammar nazis would object to talking about "it" when referring to people in a non-formal discussion.
I'm Chinese and the while we have the same third person pronouns as English they are all pronounced in the same way. Strangely this means my speech is not oppresive to non-binaries but it becomes oppressive if I write it down. Also I find that it no way hinders my ability to be sexist and oppress women. :)
Exactly, part of my family is Armenian with only one pronoun for the 3rd person. That does NOT change the fact that women are treated as inferior to men in some ways.
Why am I referred to as white instead of European American?
"it" ... gender neutral. Been in the language since forever.
Salamihawk Really? It is what you call a non-human thing, like a lamp or a cup of coffee. Can't imagine anyone wanting to be refered to as 'it.'
Exactly. But "it" is the term for those who refuse to use any of the terms we use for humans, like "he" or "she". If you're not "he" or "she", you're "it".
> It is what you call a non-human thing That's so wrong it hurts. People have been posting examples all over this comment section: "Is it a boy or a girl?" - baby = human, "Who is it? The delivery guy." - delivery guy = human. "It" isn't just used for non-human objects.
SebastianMisch Yes but I can't imagine someone wanting someone talking about them as an it. "It had a haircut" "it drives a blue car" "don't hurt it's feelings." Surely they and their are more humanizing in every instance.
I prefer "that". E.g. "Would That like something to drink?"
I find it ridiculous to care about 'he' as if it cannot mean 'unknown gender'. In French and SPanish whenever something is plural, it's masculin. If they're all women we'lle say "elles" in French or "ellas" in Spanish. If there's at least one man in the group it'll be "ils" in French and "Ellos" in Spanish. It doesn't mean or imply anything. Just because I use "he" in a text when the gender is unknown doesn't mean anything it's just practical. We can always make a language more complicated, like adding another pronoun, but doesn't mean it's useful. In Spanish you get tons of different conjugasion when in English there's just a few, and it works just fine. If a 'key' is feminine in French it doesn't mean or imply anything, it's just how it is. Same for saying "ellos" instead of creating another plural form for 'they'. Doesn't imply anything, it's just practical. The using 'he' instead of 'she' is a non-issue. Let me give another example. "We should care about keeping marriage only between a man and a woman" doesn't use any bad words, but is homobphobic. "Why are you against gay marriage you faggot? You afraid you'll spend your life with a queer or something?" uses bad words but is actually in support of gay marriage. It's basically getting cought up in the details instead of focusing on what's really important and the intentions behind the words
"they" used to be used as a third person personal pronoun, but it was stopped because it was too ambiguous as to whether you were referring to one person, or a group of people.
Don't agree with the part you wrote about "key"; it does have an impact, see e.g. how different cultures describe persons; "sun" is female in German and is more likely used to describe a female person; in another language it's male and thus more used to describe a male person; I think there's even a TEDx about this. So, it does imply something but I agree, using "he" when the gender is unknown is just comfy and apparently it's ok to use "they", too.
I for one believe that there should be gender neutral usage, though voluntary and just encouraged and not enforced, of the term person over specific gender pronouns as it wouldn't have any ramifications on any single person's rights written in legislation (law) or status(social standing). But this humble proposal of mine in casual conversations on this topic had unintentionally caused an almost aggressive back lash from the persons I presented the idea to and to whom it concerned the most because the proposal undermined the agenda of unique recognition and special status the supposed equality seekers of the specialized gender classification sought! I, straight white and male, agreed that a neutral model of reference would set the grounds for greater equality legally and economically was rejected because it deprived the neo social justice warrior group of having " their turn" at holding hierarchy over because of my spirit to support true equality and not revenge quality, ya dig? Ernest equalisers want justice for all, and not their turn for special treatment. The enemy of sub groups is social status, not sex identification. Be gay (if you are), but be human too! Equality is us all! Not celebration of one over the other. No pride. No shame.
When a person says "These are my pronouns", they actually mean "These are the terms that YOU must use in referring to me when I am not there".
Pinker makes a lot of sense here, but I think he also downplays the importance of linguistic determinism. As Chomsky says, language is how we comport thought, so the type of language we learn is very important. Malcolm Gladwell spoke about this at length when explaining why children with Asian first languages (Cantonese, Japanese, etc.) were better in math than their Indo-European classmates: it's because linguistically the computations make more sense in the former languages as opposed to the latter. Fascinating stuff.
Can we or can we not thank Beavis and Butthead for shattering the taboo that formerly hung over the word 'sucks'?
A recent euphemism that particularly irks me is the one in which an English suffix is imposed on Spanish grammar: "LatinX." What? People don't like that the "-o" and "-a" endings in a Romance language denote gender? Then why not just use "Latin" or "Latin American" or even Spanish speakers' preferred term "Hispanic"? 98% of them reject that corrupted form! It is the height of American imperialism to anglicize another culture's language. Even worse, it actually undermines its intent. If, say, a Hispanic is born with male genitalia, but identifies as female, then use "Latina." And if a Hispanic born with female genitalia identifies as male, then use "Latino." How insulting to neutralize their preferred identity! I mean, c'mon, what's next? Are they going to enforce that neutralization on the entire Spanish language, expecting Hispanics to utter phrases like: "Mi hermanx es soldadx, y muy patrióticx. Está casadx, su esposx es enfermerx, y tienen tres hijxs muy listxs y simpáticxs."
I really hate the clumsy attempts to be "gender sensitive" by using phrases like "he or she," "she or he," or even alternating "he" and "she" in articles. This could be improved by using "s/he" as one word, or in the case of the terminally politically correct, "s/he/it," which sounds exactly like what it is!
I do often want a gender neutral third person singular, and like it or not, 'they' has become it. Though, if it had remained 'he' like it once was, I would probably still feel fine saying that. But, would I be less inclined to think of women and equal and mostly the same as men if that had never changed? I think in some slight degree at least, yes. Having said that, I have come to think that women are more inherently different from men on average than seems to be popular to believe. That is, typically women are certain ways that typically men aren't and it's not solely to do with enculturation, though I do believe that the vast majority of attitudes that we have about everything are cultural.
Always used 'they' and it was common in London as far back as at least 40 years ago (when I got it), and doesn't remotely feel clumsy to me - works really well for a lot of language use particularly when the gender isn't known.
The biggest mistake we ever made linguistically was creating gendered pronouns, conjugation, and noun forms. The term man or men should refer to all human beings. The term should not carry with it a gender. Many works of fiction throughout history have made subtle jabs at this (probably not on purpose), especially in the 1950s and 60s sci-fi era when almost all alliterative forms of alien or talking beast refers to all humans as man. Male and female are gender terms and the word woman should have never been invented. It is hard to fix the issue now. Worst part about time, as it passes we learn more which you would think is a great thing...yet, it always reveals new ways in which we as a species have just been utterly terrible to one another and usually for no other reason than a few words.
Language, and its development, is not a mistake. We use gender pronouns because there are two genders (yeah, I said it). If we reproduced asexually, then gender pronouns would make no sense. However, since we reproduce sexually, the gender binary is at the core of human existence. It is not a social construction. You view this development of language as a "mistake" because lately, society has been indulging and pandering to narcissistic individuals, pejoratively "snowflakes" who think that the world has to adjust to them instead of them adjusting to the world.
The conscious and continuous use of "they" or "their" as ostensibly singular pronouns, is what many people find confusing, even grating. It's a form of narcissism that we shouldn't be indulging.
Using grammar, in particular the gender of lexical items, to refer back to a society does not make sense generally. First of all, animals in English are typically referred to as 'it', i.e. neutral gender, which could not be further from the truth. Additionally, some languages that display a richer variety of inflection than English do make obvious the disconnect between grammatical and natural gender. In German, babies are neuter grammatically which clearly has no basis in extra-linguistic reality as they clearly have a sex (or a gender, for that matter ). As a side note, speaking of the 'invention' of grammatical features highlights linguistic ignorance. Language change is not determined by any kind of volition on behalf of the community of speakers.
2:30 *****will just result in a new label ****
Definition of 'it' from the OED: 1.1 Referring to an animal or child of unspecified sex. ‘she was holding the baby, cradling it and smiling into its face’ ‘We are now happily married and already expecting our first child - I hope it will be a girl.’ ‘When the child was a child, it had no opinion about anything.’ ‘The fish is only as sick as the water it lives in.’ ‘He managed to shoot the unsuspecting bird down; it squawked and fell to the ground.’ ‘Cumbria Police said the sheep appeared to have panicked as the men chased it.’
I just listened to a 50-minute talk given by Pinker (in the UK, I think), where he used "she" for all indeterminate (animate) pronouns. I don't like "he", and have switched in my dotage to "they", so I find "she" very weird - bending over backward just to commit the same crime. Maybe he did it only in that talk to make a point, but it didn't seem so. BTW, when I use that indeterminate third person singular, I still conjugate it in the third person. The result is: In the convent - everyone says what she wants to say. In the monastery - everyone says what he wants to say. In mixed public - everyone says what they wants to say. It's not gonna catch on, but it's fun.
Some authors rly use "she", if I remember correctly Richard Rorty used to do that in some papers; I find it bit weird, too, but after a while you get used to it
There was a movement in academia to start using a feminine generic (I'm going to say in the late 80s/early 90s -not sure exactly), in an attempt to equalize the past. Many historical texts would you the generic male. So I guess some were worried that it effected the self-confidence of your girls seeing themselves as future academics and what not. Now the APA recommends using gender neutral terms where possible, and not labelling subjects by gender etc.
Is there any people without color?
Jens Starborg White people is the implication.
that's kind of divisive.
Albino
I’m not trying to take a side on this pronoun debate but what’s with people saying “politically motivated” like that’s something bad? Like every change in our culture has been politically motivated in some sense
It's politically AND ideologically motivated. It never ends well
Elizabeth H. But yes it does. It’s political institutions and ideologies that have created the great societies we have
Censorship, rejection of science and blind ideologies did not build our societies. They created Nazi Germany, Stalinism and China's Cultural Revolution. This is the problem with people in rich, highly developed countries - you took democracy for granted. You think every change, even the most absurd one, is good because it's [the current year]. Such naivety can turn against you.
Elizabeth H. I literally didn’t mention any of the things you just talked about. Don’t know who you are arguing with here but it’s not me
You said " It’s political institutions and ideologies that have created the great societies we have" and I am telling you that political institutions and ideologies have also created the most murderous, totalitarian systems in our societies
We have a general term for every gender in America: "guys".
That's an English-specific problem. Most European languages have grammatical gender which renders the "issue" FAPP nonexistent.
I use s/he, but that's only useful as a subject for the binary identity crowd.
"African Americans" are actually called "basketball American" now.
I just call them friends and neighbors now.
Not even a good joke despite being boneheaded
olafurhh03 😂😂😂😂
What if kids end up calling other breeds just colors. Like brown people. light brown people, dark brown. I mean, most humans are all brown anyways, just in different shades with bits of red.
White people are pink.
referring to a person as he or she is not an indication of respect, it's somethig we use to refer to everyone and we don't respect everyone by default...I just...geeeeezzzz uhhh..so if you change the label that's some how going to change the mind set behind it? ridiculous. give it a rest already he even admits it holy crap what a load of crap
I understand that. Just look at the language used to discribe low IQ people. Words like morons, idiots...used to be just neutral terms discribing some kind of conditions, but turned in to insult very soon, then people make up new words such as 'retarted', than that turn into an insult too, then people make new words such as 'challenged'... it'll go on an on.
Yes. As long as impaired intelligence is considered undesirable, the currently accepted terminology will always eventually be appropriated for use as an epithet,.
djdrocco Exactly. The only way to stop the euphemism treadmill is to accept that the current term will be used as a pejorative and refuse to change it because of that. Or perhaps we should go back to a past term. "Challenged" is too vague and "retarded" implies only slow development which isn't accurate either.
isn't the point of language to be precise in order to communicate sentiment and ideas? so if you keep changing words that would eventually become less descriptive of the actual thing it is supposed to describe, because it is seen as undesirable ... does this mean that the word "nice" will gain protected status and be deigned to lose its negative connotation?
Asian is two syllables. Black and white are each one syllable. African American is seven syllables. Political motivations aside, it insists more from the speaker and that alone is part of the reason for pushback. It was a solution in search of a problem and adds complexity.
Gosh, travel more! This stuff doesn’t matter. I rarely even think of describing someone with their race nor do I find myself avoiding it. In Thailand it is not considered rude to call someone fat. Just grow a backbone. If some says they are troubled by my description as they identify as coconut, I will wish the coconut a good day and move on.
Cool name for a channel, though I hate the argumentative technique.
"Everything is rape."
they is gender neutral ...
My personal pronoun is "god", and I require everyone to use it when talking to or about me.
"make pronouns biological again" -MProBioA
"Since the '70's there have been a number of efforts to introduce a gender neutral pronoun, into the English language ... none of them have caught on ..." Why bother? "He", and "she" and "It". "The word and term 'it' can be used for either a subject or an object in a sentence and can describe any physical or psychological subject and/or object. The genitive form its has been used to refer to human babies and animals ..." Wiki
If we were to actually discuss gender pronouns, we would find that there has been a rapid change in American English in this area (contrary to what Pinker says). Example: "Proper English" would be to say, "Everyone has opened his book." Now, in America, the improper English that dominates speech is, "Everyone has opened their book." This is the politically motivated rapid change in pronoun usage, that Pinker overlooks. Also the idea that language doesn't affect how we see the world is just plain absurd, and should require no further comment.
He, she, it. Sorry, that's all we got.
what about the pronoun "they"? it is used in harry potter, for example, for a third person singular in a case where the gender of that person (here the reader later learns it was ginny) is not known. So there seems already to be a gender neutral pronoun in the English language for a person. I don't see the problem with learning to use it. We learn new phrases all the time (like saying "ok, google" if you want to activate your ok google). I just do not get the "unnatural language use" argument. the word for every newly learned concept must be learned in very many cases "artificially" and it takes time to use the appropriate word. i have learned a bunch of new lanuage concepts well after childhood (so it is nothing that came "naturally" to me) like "I feel that..." or "I think that..." (rather than "you did this and this" or "it's ...") in cases where I want to state my subjective view...
we already have a singular gender neutral personal pronoun: "it" "they" is too ambiguous as to whether you are referring to one person or indeterminate sex, or a group of people. "they" as a singular was replaced with "he" or "one" depending on the circumstances. english used to have some function for form and informal 2nd person (you your, thee thine), as well as ways of addressing plural and singular (y'all youse).
you would think a Linguistics would know Language changes over time but no
dah715 *Linguist. His entire comment, the entire video, was about how language changes. It's highly difficult to change pronouns for the many reasons he lists.
Oh, he know's just a **little bit** about language. www.amazon.com/Language-Instinct-How-Mind-Creates/dp/1491514981
yeah I understand, but most of the NB people I know are fine with the current he/she/they pronouns so yeah
I'm years late replying to this. But I suspect this discussion will be ongoing for some time yet. Pinker was referring to pronouns belonging to the "closed-case" in the English language. The pronouns they/them/their do already exist but just adding an extra definition/usage to a pronoun is no easy task. It has happened before of course: thou/you. But if we look at the Google ngram viewer the usage of thou was at its peak between 1550 and 1650, and then had a steady decline for a few hundred years.
It's a troubled person who is what he says in public and a very good personal test to hear yourself in private speech. All social progress is the sum of individual progress. The keys to personal progress are will and understanding and for many there is a deficiency of both. Too many are stripped of their wills and cheated in their education (yes, it is a right today).
Forcing me to use goofy genderqueer pronouns is ridiculous. I have no mandate to participate in someone else's mental disorder. Never forget that. If genderqueers can force me to use a word they just made up, then someone with OCD can force a genderqueer to help them with their counting rituals. Never forget that either. Besides, we already have perfectly adequate non-gendered pronouns in the English language: 'it', 'them', and 'they'.
"It" is for objects.
I naturally use "They" as a neutral singular, and find it weird and outdated to use "He" in cases when the gender is unknown.
Despite a historic basis for using "they" as a singular, it still sounds plural in my brain. I don't mind "he" for the gender-neutral pronoun, even though I am female and am expected in certain company to stamp a foot and cry out in various shades and hues of umbrage when it occurs Out of consideration for those who do mind, I like to use the TRUE gender-neutral "it".
Whell it's not polite to use "it" for a person :p Does it really sound strange to you to say: "If anyone has something to say they are required to raise their hand before speaking."?
Actually, yes, it does. I am very picky about my grammaring (even though I obviously indulge in word creation), and "anyone" is a singular word / "they" is a plural. Probably too many futile attempts at learning the mechanics of too many foreign languages have overly structured my way of thinking about words and how they work together. We have this lovely little gender-neutral word "it" in English going to waste for that very purpose in reference to people, but instead we argue about which "ze" or "za" or "zud" we will use instead. Yes, I know people are likely to find offense in being called "it", but that's only another pronoun prejudice, just as is the one against "he". (Besides, "it" would be a mild insult compared to a lot of the things I have been called.) So let's just reword your sentence: "If anyone [= any one of you] has something to say, please raise your hand -- and wait for me to call on you -- before speaking."
You're full of shit. "It" cannot be used for people you mindless ignoramus. "You" was changed from singular to both singular and group. "They" can do the same.
+Seán O'Nilbud lol, you're killing this 'keyboard warrior' thing aren't you. You tooth brushin' hair comber
Butt Pirate is a good alternative. The Butt Pirate was thirsty so it went to Starbucks for a latte. Why wouldn't they want that for a pronoun? I could imagine Pinker using that to describe transgender.
Lold
Most black people I know prefer to be referred to as black, if there’s a legitimate reason for it. I’m OK with that. Otherwise, I suspect they prefer to be called people.
4:00 my problem with this question is the caveat "if you look for it". I am on twitter a lot and mostly i see reasonable people saying reasonable things, having reasonable discussion and debate. Now if I go looking for drama, I need only click on the feed for say Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump and I see hate filled garbage everywhere. Difference being, I went looking for it. Most people are still polite and reasonable, its just that thanks to news articles always featuring tweet responses from random morons on the internet, its easy to cherry pick the 3 worst most disgusting comments and then represent them as thr consensus. Both sides use this tactic and then we wonder why people think everyone is getting less polite and not just the minorities at either extreme of an argument.
Sex is binary, but is gender binary? Please feel free to answer.
gender and sex are the same thing in most languages they have one world for it
fuck the alt right You just stated that in most languages they are the same thing. I would actually argue that they are not. Gay, bixesuals, and Lesbian people have a binary sex but a non binary gender.
@@fetusimao7018 that's not a thing I'm saying that sex and gender are the same gender isn't a social construction the evidence is clear
What about xe/xer pronouns? Though I’ve found them hard to get used to, they’re perfectly fine gender neutral pronouns
No need for them - There is already a gender-neutral pronoun in the english language - 'It'
Berno Inferno that’s not humanizing at all, nonbinary people aren’t objects
I agree - and I wouldn't suggest doing such a thing. But this is the very problem. Do you really think that referring to someone as 'xer' is 'humanising'? It sounds like you are communicating in an alien language. If you wish to be gender neutral, then you migrate towards being an object . . . why? . . . because objects are genderless. It is a regressive step (hence the newly coined term 'the regressive left'.
Berno Inferno that’s just it though, nonbinary people aren’t and will never be objects, the existence of nonbinary people is a progressive step forward in being able to define and identify yourself, your gender, and the way that you experience your own body and the world around you, it’s like new terms for sexuality, breaking it down and being transphobic towards nonbinary people for using pronouns that they choose is wrong and ultimately useless, I have a friend who uses xe/xer on purpose because xe says it fits xer better than they/them pronouns, in some sense xe believes that it’s still somehow slightly within the gender binary, and I can’t say I agree with that, but xe has xer reasons for it and I respect that because I respect xer, I certainly am not going to dehumanize and reduce xer to an inhuman object because xe uses pronouns that I might think are “like alien language”, it’s all up to the people who use them, what gives us, or more specifically, binary trans people (me, I’m a trans girl), or cis people the right to tell nonbinary people what pronouns they should use? They’re valid, just as valid as cis people, just as valid as binary trans people, and everyone else in the lgbt+ community.
"but xe has xer reasons for it and I respect that because I respect xer" This IS dehumanising. Dont you see?! It's like you are referring to them like they are aliens! This is not about equality - It is about a certain specific group asking (or demanding) to be treated differently from everyone else. I'm not transphobic or any other 'phobic' - I just believe there are only two genders - Male and Female. I don't want to 'get used' to something that I believe is being forced upon me by a minority for entirely political reasons.
I only have a problem with 'They': Its plural. 'It' is perfectly acceptable for fuck sake. We extend simpathy and empathy to bot animals and objects, but we get confused by a pronoun? We anpthopomophise storms and see faces everywhere. But calling someone an 'it' its too dehumanifying. Go figure
Comrade is a gender neutral term
no he , she , it in tibetan language 👍
names should be gender neutral ...
I love Pinker, but he's far too devoted to remaining "progressive." Infinite pronouns are unworkable as a communal linguistic understanding, syntax and vocabulary do not function as a purely subjective phenomenon. I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with a third, gender-neutral pronoun--although it would have to be cultural and not compelled by the government for me to accept--however, infinite pronouns is unworkable.
And yes, the cultural, rather than authoritarian imposed, pronouns would take a while to come into effect.
Also the problem of 'asking people for their pronouns' comes into play if they aren't obviously visually determinable as male or female, or prefer something else, this isn't natural in any language i'm aware of.
"He, him and his" are the gender neutral pronouns in the English language.
Cathaoir LXIX no
we keep talking about change and y'all keep talking about staying the same. Well thank humanity change is inevitable. Your faux intellectual resistance just shows your true, er, colors.
The title of this audio is rather misleading. I was expecting to hear more specifically about "gender pronouns," and not so much about how we refer to certain ethnic groups. I have heard Steven Pinker himself use "she" to refer to an unspecified reader or student, etc. However, as a teacher myself, I'm getting pretty sick and tired of writing "he/she" on the blackboard for my students (none of whom are native-speakers of English). In short, I hope soon to work up the guts just to write "he," as was common practice until sometime in the 1990's. That's when I was a student--and it was perfectly understandable that "he" meant a person of either gender. My female colleagues can get away with only using "she," so I want to put this awkward "he/she" business to rest as soon as possible.
Looks like he's bowling with a brain.
Pronoun warriors are so boring
Yes, it´s much better not to know anything. Ignorance is the new cool.
There are only 2 gender pronouns, end of discussion. You are either one or the other. Sorry if that fact offends you, but being offended doesn't make you right and me wrong.
Stop the names, and just use the word, "DUDE!"
Yeah, well . . . That's just like, your opinion, man
We have a gender neutral pronoun: it
Why is this guy given a platform for so many things?
This guy loves to drone on and on about "mechanisms", "labels" and "rules". He's like someone who obsesses with the score of a music piece rather than enjoying it performed. Maybe it's people like him with a pompous snobbery about it all who have led to the success of people like Trump? Does he ever let his hair down and have fun, or does he just sport that expression and bore everyone "normal" around him 24/7 with his obsession of analysing everything to death? :)
Taboos are funny. Because of taboos, he talks about many words but does not say the actual words.
This brings to light that, "There are only two genders.", is entirely semantic. Biologically, more than two sex variations factually exist, but semantically, in English, only two exist. The binary is based on religious and Platonic origin of 'ideal man' and 'ideal woman', so since we have a population that largely believes in various traditionalist religious concepts, rejecting numerous scientific fields, they can't dare abandon their traditionalist semantic binary to accommodate the current science of biology, and social norms, more accurately. Biology, genetics, neurology, and anthropology all show the "binary" to actually be a continuum, but we still have people that believe the earth is 6000 years old, and a king fairy exists outside of space-time that poofed only "males" and "females" into existence, and everything non heteronormative is an "aberration" or "defect", implying "abnormality" means "bad". They have a 2nd grade understanding of sex and gender, and can only comprehend complexity at that level, so if its more than two options, its too complicated, and goes against their feelings of what ought to be, so they whine, bitch, and moan about "SJWs". How the fuck do you expect them to change their language to fit the current science of sex and gender, when they don't accept the science for pretty much everything else? ...unless, of course, it agrees with their preconceived ideologies. They'll argue until they're blue in the face that science supports the binary, but they won't be able to cite a single scientific publication within the last 3-4 decades that supports the binary, and not a continuum. This is literally what is vs what people want. The funny thing is that those perpetuating that "only two genders" exist are telling us what they want, based on feelings, not based on what factually is.
More than two exist? Example? Or do you consider hermaphrodites being an own gender (but actually just both present at the same time)
@@xDomglmao Well, show me, biologically, where only two exist. Do only XX and XY exist? Do only a penis and a vagina exist? Do only a "male" and "female" brains exist? ...and these are only part of primary and secondary sex characteristics, all of which exist on a spectrum with more than two variations. Now, remember, substantiate what factually exists, not what you want to, or think should, exist, based on your feelings about atypical phenomena. Like I said, "there are only two genders" is entirely semantic, not based on biology. Biology includes the entire spectrum of phenomena, which includes the abnormal phenomena. "Abnormal" doesn't mean bad or negative. Your feelings about whether said abnormalities should exist is irrelevant to biological reality. "Hermaphrodites" are a variation of intersex individuals, which is an umbrella term for numerous variations. Not just both sides existing in one person, but also people that are neither "male" or "female". Don't confuse the invention of words by humans, and our desire to categorize phenomena, based on our prejudices, with biological reality. Genetics, biology, neurology, and even anthropology all show more than two variations. This is purely addressing the biology, while "Gender", the social aspects of sex differentiation, just add more variations and fluidity to the behaviors. If you are still using "hermaphrodite", you've put zero effort into updating your knowledge on sex and gender through the scientific research literature.
Is Pinker gay?
Does it matter?
Colored folks works fine
MrJohnny56789 It is odd that it isn't acceptable anymore whilst being so similar to Prople of Colour... The terms are basically identical
+Unk People of color, colored people. Hmmm.... House cat, cat house. Hmmm....
puppetsock House cat, Cat of the house. An experienced man, man of experience. Classy lady, woman of class.
puppetsock your cat house example doesn't make any sense. It should be house cat, cat of the house, which mean the same thing. Other bad examples: "colored people, people colored" or "people of color, color of people"
COLORED FOLK STOLE MY VCR !!!!!!
B.S.
Verbal gentrification
Try this noun....sycophant...that seems to fit Pinker. He just says what he says seeking approval of people with power and influence.
Pinker is an idealist who has absolutely no understanding of political transformation. Language changes in relation to more objective political-economic changes in the country. Tracking the usage and frequency of specific words tells you very little about the culture.
[citation needed]
Actually, the usage and frequency of words will tell you far more about a culture and its transformation than almost any other metrics we currently measure. Far more than the statistics we get from focused studies of areas like wages, crime, religiosity, or general happiness. Language almost never changes on objective criteria and is always linked to the subjective social, economic, and political climate of the culture. You have literally stated the exact opposite of what is demonstrably true. Do you work for Trump?
I doubt we disagree, though I don’t see why you define the social, economic, and political as "subjective.” Political and economic crisis in 1930s germany lets say, can be subjected to an important linguistic treatment as various words are transformed and deleted by fiat, but we wouldn’t say those linguistic changes are the cause of the political crisis would we?
The stimuli that cause drastic linguistic change are almost always due to subjective response, not the objective truth of what is going on. Thank you for choosing the easiest event to prove my point. Hitler didn't change linguistics in Germany. He didn't set out to alter the conversation directly, instead gave a louder voice to the conversations people were already having. He used what he understood about the linguistics of his culture to engender support for destructive ideas that would not have even been considered without the economic crisis. In Germany few terms increased in usage, but not by very much (anti-Semitism was quite strong in post WW1 Germany), the meanings of words didn't really change, and the passion of the people was used as a tool via coercion not political correctness. Throughout Europe and America, language did change a great deal, but that was mostly due to the subjective views of what was going on within Germany and later from being part of war. War itself changes linguistics the most, but that tends not to change in the way the leaders would want it, but rather organically as those who fight in that war are confronted with enemies, meeting new allies, experiencing life events together and communicating them with one another. The source of language changes might ultimately come back to the actions of leaders, but it is exceedingly rare that it is a direct result but rather an accelerated evolution of language due to the circumstances of subsequent events. I did not define those items as subjective in and of themselves, but rather in reference to how language evolves and changes. Language rarely evolves for the purpose of objective description and even more rarely through concerted effort of government (unless violence accompanies it). Even then the linguistics don't change much, just the topics publically talked about. Language really only evolves through subjective observation, interaction with other cultures, and shared experience.
I take it you have never heard of an appeal to authority fallacy.
Pronouns aren't that fucking hard to adapt to. Just put them on your phone, next to the persons name in the contacts list
Well, as it relates to the label of "African American", I've found (having worked with and continuing to work with many friends and associates from Africa) that this label is somewhat offensive to those coming directly from Africa (and maybe even those who are second generation from Africa). For example, I've had some of these colleagues suggest to me, as a Black American, that I should not call myself African American because this label is more rightly ascribed to them, as they are directly from Africa itself. Further, they indicate the label was perfectly fine in the distant past because, through slavery, we really were "African American." Just another way to consider how racial labels are continuing to change...
Well, as it relates to the label of "African American", I've found (having worked with and continuing to work with many friends and associates from Africa) that this label is somewhat offensive to those coming directly from Africa (and maybe even those who are second generation from Africa). For example, I've had some of these colleagues suggest to me, as a Black American, that I should not call myself African American because this label is more rightly ascribed to them, as they are directly from Africa itself. Further, they indicate the label was perfectly fine in the distant past because, through slavery, we really were "African American." Just another way to consider how racial labels are continuing to change...