[Ads-l] Really?

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jun 3 21:17:56 UTC 2015


On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 4:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Because "Keren" could be a unisex name.


True. Facebook's algorithm did its best with what it had.

Personally, in the spirit of what's-her-face's nonsensical claim in that
commercial for something-or-other that she's "bringing boody back," why
don't we bring the Neuter back as a true specification of grammatical
gender that is not known to be either Masculine or Feminine? Therefore:

"47 friends posted on Keren's timeline for _its_ birthday."

Needless to say, we 47 friends who care about her birthday are fully aware
that "Keren" is a pronunciation-respelling of "Karen" foisted upon the poor
woman at birth by her parents and that Feminine is her "natural gender" -
is this term still used? - a fact of no interest either to those who don't
know her or to Facebook. Hence, as far as strangers and Facebook are
concerned, the grammatical gender of "Keren" is naturally Neuter.

Of course, the sentence may now be misinterpreted to mean that we 47
friends are acknowledging the *timeline's* birthday, instead of Keren's.

Perhaps the problem is soluble only by forcing Facebook's participants to
choose between "Male" and "Female" or other such Draconian measure.

Youneverknow.

BTW, why "unisex" and not "unigender"?

-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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