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| JuliusHackebeil said: And I would say how you refer to your cat as “they”, even though he / she is a singular pet and has a sex, is wrong. |
They're not the ones who are wrong.
Every word only has meaning, because of how they get used.
There is no stone tablet dictating how any word is supposed to get used. The reason why every language exists and every word exists, is because enough people are using those words to mean those things.
If a substantial number of English speakers tomorrow decide to start using the word "flulu" to mean "men", then that is what that word means.
The fact that people have used "they" to refer to a singular, means that is what that word means.
The word "sun" only means the big object in the sky, because a large number of people are using that word to refer to it that way.
This is a basic part of how language works.
| JuliusHackebeil said: To your amusing suggestions about performing anatomical exams before using pronouns for any person: No. You know that we are a sexually dimorphic species. Men look different from women not because of how they feel inside (gender), but because of their biology (sex). I am basing my pronoun use on how people look (sex). Very rarely it is the case that how people feel inside makes their outward appearance closer to the other sex. But again, if a man puts on a wig and wants to be called “she”, perhaps. |
Except we're not that sexually dimorphic.
It's more like this:
There are lots of people in the middle who are pretty androgenous.
There are lots of women who have very masculine features and men who have very feminine features.
Last edited by the-pi-guy - on 02 September 2024
