this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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It just seems incredibly odd for there to be so many lines in a book about gender insisting that there is no way to refer to someone (in the English language, at least) without implying gender. She even mentions the possibility of using „it“ at one point!

I’m liking the book otherwise, but every time the narrators ponder about pronouns without even considering „they“ I have to ask myself if there is any point in ignoring it or if she genuinely just forgot. I don’t think it’s possible for her to have not known about it considering how well-read she was and how long it’s been in use.

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[–] psycotica0@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

To be fair, I have the same problem when my wife is telling a story about her and her friends doing something. It's all "the she told her that she wasn't going to do that anymore" and I have to stop her and be like "wait wait, who told who that who wasn't going to do what anymore!?" 😅

I agree that "they" being plural sometimes too adds another dimension of figuring out what the girls were doing as a group rather than a girl was doing, but it's honestly already a shitshow. And (while I love my wife) made worse by a person who... maybe doesn't have their audience's interests in mind while telling a story. Because a well told story is structured to maintain a consistent use of pronouns and reintroduces by name when required. So, like, if we're talking about Carmen's story, she gets to be "she", and then you tell me how "she said to Joan, that Tabby had blah blah blah". That's a little bit the orator's fault.

New plan, we have first and second person pronouns (I and you), I think we need 5 new pronouns that correspond to "third person", "fourth person", "fifth person", etc.

And those can be gender non-specific, because the same problem happens when a guy is telling a story involving multiple guys. Then it can come up in the grammar that "Johnny was talking to Peter, and A told B that Richard was mad at A because C didn't go to B's BBQ."

Problem solved 😛