I’ve tried searching for “person-independent neopronouns” and failed to find any results.
Care to explain how this is different than referring to one’s self in the third person? Because I’ll be honest, I have a hard time wrapping my head around this.
My respect isn’t conditional to my understanding, but I feel I could respect better if I understood more.
My interpretation here is the first person (I), second person (you), and third person (he/she/they) pronouns are disregarded and are all represented by the neopronoun “drag”.
I.e. use drag whenever you reference dragonfucker and you’re golden.
That makes sense, but what is the material difference? Isn’t it ultimately the same thing by a different name?
Material difference of specific pronouns? Someone feels better, and I’m out no extra effort, I guess…
It’s as much difference as personal preference in chocolate bar brands.
If you just one for one swap you run into weird grammar.
What do drag want to do?
Is that right or…?
same with swapping in ‘they’! i think most pronouns are singular, only ‘they’ is plural due to legacy junk, see:
- what does he want to do?
- what does drag want to do?
- what does the cat want to do?
- what do they want to do?
- what do the cats want to do?
perhaps we should move towards singular they, eg ‘what does they want to do?’
idk why people aren’t excited to use new words. we’re speaking a highly mutable and constantly evolving language. every year we get brand new words, others get new meanings, it’s all very exciting!
but then someone specifically says “i would feel more comfortable if you used this word” and THAT’S a bridge too far. it’s a kind of selfish that i just don’t understand.
Drag thinks it’s about shame. In the other thread, people were claiming that drag is bullying them into using drag’s pronouns, despite that never happening. Clearly, something is bullying them, and they attribute that to drag. Drag thinks this is what’s happening in their heads:
Respect drag’s pronouns? You’ll never be able to do that, you’re too stupid. You’re a pathetic transphobe who will never accept trans people because you’re a garbage person on the inside.
Their… Anxiety? Depression? Shame? A malformed conscience? - is attacking them because they don’t feel smart enough to get this situation. Then they lash out in an attempt to protect their ego by dismissing the source of their feeling of inferiority. It’s the same as a high schooler saying “math is stupid” because they had trouble understanding algebra. Except, this situation is higher stakes, because it threatens their ability to think of themself as a good person. So their attack against the source of shame is even more vicious.
I think drag might be right about some people being shamed by it, but I think the reasons are probably much more diverse, because there are all kinds of people.
I think in some cases it can be the fact that people often hate change, especially changing their behaviour. Learning new things is difficult for them. So they think - why does Dragon Rider want us to hurt our brains with the learning pains when using the usual pronouns works for everyone else I know? It goes against their life experience to think it might be really important to drag. They would need to be exposed to many more people like drag to start to see it as something necessary and normal.
And I think there are probably many more mechanisms in people’s minds that can make them reject drag’s chosen pronouns, I’m just not good at imagining all of the posibilities. People are very diverse.
It’s funny seeing people get so worked up over drag.
When you think about it, it’s likely we speak different to at least some extent to almost everyone we talk to. We have our own internal dialog. We talk to our significant other different than we talk to strangers. We talk to kids differently. We talk to pets differently. Even between friends, there’s one friend you joke about X with and another you call Y as a nickname. But somehow when someone asks to be called drag, the system breaks down.
After I first got exposed to the way drag’s pronouns work, I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or attention thing, but after seeing drag around for a while, other than the pronouns, the comments are really normal stuff. So as long as drag is being thoughtful, considerate and friendly, I see no reason not to accommodate drag’s request. I’m not sure if I’ve totally got it 100%, but I’m giving it my best!
Glad to hear it! I like seeing drag’s name pop up in different places, so I’ve got drag’s back! It makes me smile seeing drag persist, when I know it has to be taxing at times.
It’s so exhausting. Drag doesn’t know how the trans people in the 1900s put up with being treated like this everywhere all the time. At least drag can log off Lemmy.
So as long as drag is being thoughtful, considerate and friendly, I see no reason not to accommodate drag’s request.
You should respect everyone’s pronouns no matter how they act, doing otherwise shows that you don’t actually respect their pronouns and you are just doing so to be polite. Also, please don’t call anyone’s pronouns a “request”.
I don’t disagree with respect regardless of pronouns. That was much the point I had intended to make. I just wished to emphasize that drag deserves respect.
The word “request” was also meant literally, as drag politely asks everyone to use drag’s pronouns when they ask drag about it. Drag doesn’t come at anyone harshly or give any reason or even show the slightest impatience, just mild confusion why anyone takes issue with it.
I do not have much experience with people using anything besides he/she/they, but if you are, I will always let you fill me in on my mistakes. I’m coming with friendly intent, so no need to be harsh, just let me know!
I think part of the reason why people struggle with it is because using proper nouns repeatedly kinda wears people down, which is part of why pronouns exist. Idk just me.
But I will do my best to respect drag and refer to drag however drag wants :)
Between drag and the person talking in thorns, lemmy has been fun to read lately. Y’all ain’t hurting anyone, anyone has a problem with it they can just mute and move on.
Legit question that my comment made me think of, though - what are drag’s feelings on pronouns like “y’all” - see also “you guys” etc?
Edit: mulling it over, I think “y’all” only felt initially weird to me because I was equating it to “they”, but “they” has two uses - one to refer to a single person without gendering, and one to refer to a group of many people. “Y’all” in this case would be the equivalent of the second, not really the first.
Idk, language is hard, just fuckin get along.
Y’all and they refer to a group of people. Drag’s pronouns don’t change the group’s pronouns. Just like if someone in the group uses she/her, that doesn’t change the group’s pronouns. A group could be all women who all use she/her, and the group would still use they/them.
