Considering that Atwood recently claimed to have interviewed George Orwell by way of a medium - I'd say they're not a great person to look to for thought leadership. Unless they were joking, hard to read internet comments and all that.
First of all, I’m pretty sure Atwood is an actual human individual author, and not one of these author committees with a collective pen name. Or are you on board with the erasure of women that is the subject of this piece?
Secondly, come on. It’s not “hard to read” that she probably doesn’t literally believe in talking to dead people. It’s an obvious literary device.
Thirdly, what kind of loser would be looking for “thought leadership”?
"First of all, I’m pretty sure Atwood is an actual human individual author, and not one of these author committees with a collective pen name. Or are you on board with the erasure of women that is the subject of this piece?" What on earth are you on about??
Second - Yep, I admit that's a possibility.
Third - Well, the article you linked lauds Atwood as a leader in the debate about the use of gendered terms - going as far as to call her a 'handmaiden' akin to the ones in some of her works. So, the 'loser' would be the article author? I wouldn't call them a loser though.
EDIT: I figured out your mental jump on the first point. You think that my use of 'they/them' is an "erasure of women". Not at all, I just wasn't referring to a sexed or gendered aspect of Atwood, to invoke their sex or gender would mean I was making a point based on those features, which I'm not.
And if, as you admit, you are entirely unsure of her intended meaning, the decent thing to so it to interpret her charitably, instead of jumping to the most damning possible interpretation.
Not a hypocrite. Didn’t “think” it. By bending over backwards to avoid normal English for the purpose of neutering a woman, you were literally erasing women.
Didn't bend over backwards - was quite easy to use neutral terminology when the sex or gender of a person is irrelevant to the point being made.
'Normal English' doesn't exist as a stable point that can be reliably referenced. Even the OED is constantly updated. Language is a constantly changing thing. This is an example of that. Plenty of languages use gender neutral pronouns all the time - they laugh at this kind of debate.
"you were literally erasing women" shit. Call the police. I assume that means I've murdered someone? Didn't realise I had magical powers like that.
People can use language how they please. Call people 'her' or 'she' if you think it's relevant. If you want to be inclusive and not be sexist then maybe go for a neutral term. Context matters remember - a public body should likely opt for the latter. A friend who knows how someone identifies could freely go for the former.
My trendy in-group of Twitter friends understands perfectly well what I mean. Get with the times.
> you still knew my meaning when I used 'they'.
Did I? I thought your meaning was to erase women. But you claim it wasn’t, somehow. See how using words to mean whatever you want them to this week does not contribute to clear communication?
> invoke their sex or gender would mean I was making a point based on those features
No, it wouldn’t. It would mean you were writing comprehensible English. You’re not “invoking” anything by using “she” to refer to a woman in the third person. That’s what the pronoun is for. Your use of “they” is weird and jarring.
I'm invoking their gender, needlessly. A mark of 'good' English is a lack of unnecessary detail - or so I've heard.
I don't remark on Atwood's age, or skin colour when referring to them. Why invoke their sex or gender?
YOU find it weird and jarring. But don't worry even if you don't get used to it plenty of other people are fine with it. Generationally speaking, this appears to be a gradual shift that can't be stopped.
Nobody can predict what will confuse or annoy their audience.
True that people will try not to go out of their way to confuse or annoy their audience.
If gender neutral pronouns confuse or annoy people I really don't think that's the author's fault. That's far more on the ignorance of the reader.
Do people who don't understand gender neutral pronouns get similarly confused and annoyed when they see a word they haven't seen before? That's a frustrating existence if true.
> Nobody can predict what will confuse or annoy their audience.
Perfectly? No. Good writers manage to do it most of the time, nonetheless. "Do whatever's most-normal" is a good rule to follow, absent anything else. If that rule had been followed, we wouldn't have this whole unfortunate thread.
> Do people who don't understand gender neutral pronouns get similarly confused and annoyed when they see a word they haven't seen before? That's a frustrating existence if true.
This is about breaking expectations, not failure to understand gender-neutral pronouns. You applied them in an unusual context.
Ah, but lots of languages invented grammatical genders on their own, or use a special gender-signifying pronouns even if the rest of the language lack genders. I should know, my native language lack grammatical genders entirely. Yet we use novel words that specify the sex and gender of people anyway.
So the gradual shift can't be stopped, yes, it will move around and around. For that is the beauty of linguistical evolution.
It is astonishing that, after all that has happened, these people still feel like the victims in this situation. Its hard to understand anymore what they are really even fighting.
In general: pundits, writers, and other high-profile people who are uncomfortable with trans people.
The little rhetorical trick they use, which I understand you are baiting here, is to say that they are simply so many different isolated individuals who are "concerned" or "asking questions," and the "other side" is some monolithic gender-queer gestapo of sorts that stifles and harasses these poor individuals for no reason.
Putting aside the bad faith at display here (which has very much a political and financial paper trail if you care to look), I just think you can simply look at the literal body count of either side and come to some straightforward moral conclusions.
I agree with your opinion. I just couldn't tell what the antecedent to 'they' was.
Yeah, the financial paper trail is probably the most compelling. The most reactionary media figures tend to be directly financed by wealthy interests who are happy to sow division by inflaming superficial threats to people's identities. The most popular explanation for this type of behavior is simply that people are bigoted and otherwise bad. I think the more meaningful and rational explanation is that the wealthy owners of society are employing a divide-and-conquer strategy. In this case, superficial differences are emphasized in order to reduce the ability of the people to develop class-consciousness and organize based on their common interests.
It really is shocking how hard it is for people to be able to separate gender and sex. One would think writers, who ostensibly need to understand nuance, could figure this out.
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[ 10.7 ms ] story [ 175 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/MargaretAtwood/status/145024959216814080...
Secondly, come on. It’s not “hard to read” that she probably doesn’t literally believe in talking to dead people. It’s an obvious literary device.
Thirdly, what kind of loser would be looking for “thought leadership”?
Second - Yep, I admit that's a possibility.
Third - Well, the article you linked lauds Atwood as a leader in the debate about the use of gendered terms - going as far as to call her a 'handmaiden' akin to the ones in some of her works. So, the 'loser' would be the article author? I wouldn't call them a loser though.
EDIT: I figured out your mental jump on the first point. You think that my use of 'they/them' is an "erasure of women". Not at all, I just wasn't referring to a sexed or gendered aspect of Atwood, to invoke their sex or gender would mean I was making a point based on those features, which I'm not.
→ “they”
And if, as you admit, you are entirely unsure of her intended meaning, the decent thing to so it to interpret her charitably, instead of jumping to the most damning possible interpretation.
'Normal English' doesn't exist as a stable point that can be reliably referenced. Even the OED is constantly updated. Language is a constantly changing thing. This is an example of that. Plenty of languages use gender neutral pronouns all the time - they laugh at this kind of debate.
"you were literally erasing women" shit. Call the police. I assume that means I've murdered someone? Didn't realise I had magical powers like that.
People can use language how they please. Call people 'her' or 'she' if you think it's relevant. If you want to be inclusive and not be sexist then maybe go for a neutral term. Context matters remember - a public body should likely opt for the latter. A friend who knows how someone identifies could freely go for the former.
What you've done here is make what you're saying incomprehensible to others. Whereas you still knew my meaning when I used 'they'.
For some reason you thought this would bolster your argument.
You've used language how you please but have lost all its meaning. It's no longer language at that point. You still got my meaning though.
> you still knew my meaning when I used 'they'.
Did I? I thought your meaning was to erase women. But you claim it wasn’t, somehow. See how using words to mean whatever you want them to this week does not contribute to clear communication?
No, it wouldn’t. It would mean you were writing comprehensible English. You’re not “invoking” anything by using “she” to refer to a woman in the third person. That’s what the pronoun is for. Your use of “they” is weird and jarring.
I don't remark on Atwood's age, or skin colour when referring to them. Why invoke their sex or gender?
YOU find it weird and jarring. But don't worry even if you don't get used to it plenty of other people are fine with it. Generationally speaking, this appears to be a gradual shift that can't be stopped.
Good English is largely about making choices least likely to confuse or annoy one's audience.
True that people will try not to go out of their way to confuse or annoy their audience.
If gender neutral pronouns confuse or annoy people I really don't think that's the author's fault. That's far more on the ignorance of the reader.
Do people who don't understand gender neutral pronouns get similarly confused and annoyed when they see a word they haven't seen before? That's a frustrating existence if true.
Perfectly? No. Good writers manage to do it most of the time, nonetheless. "Do whatever's most-normal" is a good rule to follow, absent anything else. If that rule had been followed, we wouldn't have this whole unfortunate thread.
> Do people who don't understand gender neutral pronouns get similarly confused and annoyed when they see a word they haven't seen before? That's a frustrating existence if true.
This is about breaking expectations, not failure to understand gender-neutral pronouns. You applied them in an unusual context.
So the gradual shift can't be stopped, yes, it will move around and around. For that is the beauty of linguistical evolution.
She's crying about people being mean to her on the internet.
Where's the tyranny, exactly?
The little rhetorical trick they use, which I understand you are baiting here, is to say that they are simply so many different isolated individuals who are "concerned" or "asking questions," and the "other side" is some monolithic gender-queer gestapo of sorts that stifles and harasses these poor individuals for no reason.
Putting aside the bad faith at display here (which has very much a political and financial paper trail if you care to look), I just think you can simply look at the literal body count of either side and come to some straightforward moral conclusions.
Yeah, the financial paper trail is probably the most compelling. The most reactionary media figures tend to be directly financed by wealthy interests who are happy to sow division by inflaming superficial threats to people's identities. The most popular explanation for this type of behavior is simply that people are bigoted and otherwise bad. I think the more meaningful and rational explanation is that the wealthy owners of society are employing a divide-and-conquer strategy. In this case, superficial differences are emphasized in order to reduce the ability of the people to develop class-consciousness and organize based on their common interests.