When you politely remind people
Now LP is complaining that some people are not impressed by her “reminder” that she has special luxury pronouns.
(Calling it a “reminder” is itself conceited and self-important, because it assumes the entire world was informed of her pronouns. [I see I’ve already “misgendered” her three times, only now it’s four – it wasn’t on purpose, it’s just automatic, which is one major reason I don’t do luxury pronouns: it’s way too much effort.] Not everyone was informed, not everyone is on the Laurie Penny News list.)
Media? Are tweets “the British media”? I think of “the media” as being professional, i.e. produced by people whose job it is. Twitter is just anybody who wants to say things saying things.
Because calling a person the name the person is called is a normal social thing to do, plus it’s right there on her tweets so if people are tweeting about her tweets there’s her name, right in front of them. It’s simple. Remembering not to call her “her” is not simple that way. As I said: it’s an effort.
It gives them something to talk about though. (Who? Them who? The people of pronoun.) Maybe that’s all there is to it – something to talk about, and a way to extort extra attention without having to be interesting.
Sorry Laurie, but in Australia, you’d be called Semi-Trailer!!!
I sort of feel that I have not accomplished enough in my life to be thought of as plural. There is really just the one of me.
On the other hand, Naif, I am Legion. There are no pronouns big enough to encompass me. So I’m fine if people call me “her” “she” or whatever the hell they call me when I’m not around. I got misgendered by mail the other day; my husband and I have been discussing when I should schedule my breakdown.
There is the Royal We. I’m not sure that denotes any particular “accomplishment” beyond having been born into a hereditary monarchy, which requires (and confers) no talent of any kind whatsoever on the part of the person thus sired. But for the rest of us, maybe it’s more a physical, material thing. Some years ago, I weighed about 30% more than I do now. Would that have qualified me for a “they,” or would I have had to have been actually twice as heavy as I am currently?
An acquaintance was telling me once about a friend of his, who wanted people to call him “they”:
“Singlet. But they’ve dated Multiples. And polycules of singlets. ANd poilycules including multiples. Hearing about their lovelife is very confusing, since everyone is some form of ‘they’.”
(Where “multiples” = people who think, or claim to think, that there are multiple headmates inside their brain / body.)
Laurie seems to disapprove of people scoffing at her for demanding custom grammar rules… I wonder if she has seen the treatment gender critical people get? She’d be aghast!
…I’m bullshitting. Of course she’s seen it, she thoroughly approves of it and has almost certainly joined in with it.
I’d feel obligated to refer to her as Dragonfruit Starchild if that’s what she changed her name to; dafuq does it have to do with pronouns?
Now that we’ve established my right to dictate how you refer to me; I think it’s time to move beyond pronouns.
I am now informing you all that my adjectives are: brilliant, witty, intelligent and handsome. Anyone who refers to me in future as “that gormless idiot” is going to get a severe tutting at.
Preferred adjectives! Too much, lol. :D
I think it unfortunate that ‘it’ has connotations of something less than human.
‘It’ would be the best pronoun to indicate one person when we are not sure of the sex of that person.