“It” is personally my favorite neutral pronoun, but it has so much cultural baggage attached to it that it doesn’t feel like a viable option. Why does a squirrel or a ficus or a robot get to be called “it” by default, but not a person? It isn’t fair.
Can you give an example of how “it” is confusing? Like “It met its friend for coffee,” sounds fine to me. “It put on a warm jacket since it was cold out,” uses multiple senses of the word, but it still reads fine to me.
“They” is mildly confusing in narratives because it can be hard to distinguish whether one or multiple characters are being described, but it’s not an insurmountable problem.
I think it might be most confusing when someone talks about someone who uses “it/its” pronouns: my initial assumption would be that they’re trying to dehumanise it unless I was already previously aware of it’s pronown preference.
That’s what I mean about the baggage, yeah. You can’t just make something not be a slur anymore. It’s uncomfortable for people trying to be respectful, and it’s easy for bigots to exploit.
that’s a good point, I think it depends on the person, but some people tend to just assume the squirrels gender in most instances rather than saying “it”.
In my experience (and I’m sure this varies by region) it’s about 50/50 whether someone will call most animals or anthropomorphized objects “he” or “it”. (Cats are a big exception in that they’re usually “she” even from people who know it’s a boy cat.) So for me “it” is just the most natural thing, with male-as-default being second and also problematic in its own way. Maybe someday I’ll like a neopronoun.
The haters are the root of the problem, but it’s not like I’m not using it/its because I’m afraid of being scolded or made fun of. It’s unfortunately tied to dehumanization in the sense that not being human is a bad thing, and that makes it fun for bigots to say and uncomfortable for good people to say. I lament the situation, but I also accept the way it is.
I’ve run into this a while ago but I’m not sure what to make of it. https://aria.dog/barks/on-being-a-thing/
Holy shit… You can have domains that end in .dog?
You can have domains that end in even more stuff if you switch to an alternative dns root like https://opennic.org/.
this is so interesting. thanks for sharing!
and .pizza, .gay
there are lots of fun ones
“It” is personally my favorite neutral pronoun, but it has so much cultural baggage attached to it that it doesn’t feel like a viable option. Why does a squirrel or a ficus or a robot get to be called “it” by default, but not a person? It isn’t fair.
it’s generally used to describe non-sentient things…
Also, using only it gets confusing when trying to determine what “it” refers to in a given sentence…
What’s not sentient about a squirrel?
Can you give an example of how “it” is confusing? Like “It met its friend for coffee,” sounds fine to me. “It put on a warm jacket since it was cold out,” uses multiple senses of the word, but it still reads fine to me.
“They” is mildly confusing in narratives because it can be hard to distinguish whether one or multiple characters are being described, but it’s not an insurmountable problem.
I think it might be most confusing when someone talks about someone who uses “it/its” pronouns: my initial assumption would be that they’re trying to dehumanise it unless I was already previously aware of it’s pronown preference.
That’s what I mean about the baggage, yeah. You can’t just make something not be a slur anymore. It’s uncomfortable for people trying to be respectful, and it’s easy for bigots to exploit.
that’s a good point, I think it depends on the person, but some people tend to just assume the squirrels gender in most instances rather than saying “it”.
In my experience (and I’m sure this varies by region) it’s about 50/50 whether someone will call most animals or anthropomorphized objects “he” or “it”. (Cats are a big exception in that they’re usually “she” even from people who know it’s a boy cat.) So for me “it” is just the most natural thing, with male-as-default being second and also problematic in its own way. Maybe someday I’ll like a neopronoun.
https://aria.dog/barks/on-being-a-thing/
😅
You should have answered with more empathy for its feelings. Jesus Christ told us to love our neighbours.
It’s your choice. Do what you want. Damn the haters to sheol.
The haters are the root of the problem, but it’s not like I’m not using it/its because I’m afraid of being scolded or made fun of. It’s unfortunately tied to dehumanization in the sense that not being human is a bad thing, and that makes it fun for bigots to say and uncomfortable for good people to say. I lament the situation, but I also accept the way it is.
Based based based based based
…Waow