Re: PING! Michael

On 2024-11-24, Dave Smith <adavid.smith@sympatico.ca> wrote:

On 2024-11-24 11:28 a.m., Cindy Hamilton wrote:

On 2024-11-24, Dave Smith <adavid.smith@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>

English is changing, my friend.  It always has.
>
It's such a small thing to talk to people the way they prefer,
although it's perhaps unreasonable for them to get bent out of
shape if someone gets it wrong.

>
It is such a small thing for us to change our language for them but they
are entitled to freak out if someone uses the language they have been
speaking for decades?

 
Nobody's entitled to freak out.  That's simply discourteous.

>
Yet, freakouts happen. I hear and read too many rants from people
whining about having been misgendered. Some of them are unfortunate to
have naturally androgynous appearances, but there are many to go out of
their way to appear somewhere in between. Fine for them, but they lose
their right to be offended by people becoming confused.

Do those rants harm you?  It reflects badly on the ranter, of course.
But "sticks and stones".

They are welcome to suggest that they prefer to
be known as but there they don't get to pick their own labels and freak
out if someone defaults to their native language. In English, they and
them are plural.  The pronoun for something neutral is "it".

 
The English you grew up with is no longer the standard.

>
Not in the circles in which I travel.

The circles in which you travel are somewhat limited.

There are new words entering the
lexicon, and there is no doubt that in some demographics there is a lack
of knowledge or lack of concern for proper grammar and vocabulary.
Ebonics is a slang that some seem to want to become acceptable as
language. Not everyone is buying into into the pronoun nonsense.

Not everyone thinks the pronoun preference is nonsense.

 

We need to rework the Golden Rule.  One author has renamed it
the Silver Rule and suggests this as the golden rule:
>
The Silver Rule: Treat others as you’d like to be treated.
The Golden Rule: Treat others as they’d like to be treated.
>
Which rule is morally superior?
>

>
>
We don't need to rework the Golden Rule. It has been around for a long
time.  Do you really think it would be better to treat others how they
would like to be treated?

 
Yes.  Would you like to be treated the way I like to be treated?  I
like a nice glass of cow's milk with my breakfast.
 

What if I wanted you to strip naked and kiss
my feet when you approach me?  That's what I want, so in order for you
to be morally superior you have to do what I want.

 
Strawman argument duly noted.
 

>
That is not at all strawmam. It deals directly with your suggestion of a
rule about treating people the way they want to be treated.  In the
remote chance that you were to encounter royalty would you expect to bow
or curtsy?

No.  I'm an American.  We don't bow or curtsey.

I am fully prepared to accept that I would likely miss the
opportunity to meet a king or queen if I am not willing to do that. I
would be stuck between expecting to be treated with a degree of dignity
and respect by them and their insistence on people grovelling at their
feet.

--
Cindy Hamilton