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[–] 69 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I could be an it. A good little toy.

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    [–] 55 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    This is why everything is a little shit to me. I'm just getting all of them in one combined s/h/it word.

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  • [–] 39 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Turkish has no gender specific pronouns so this is every Turkish speaker I guess

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Not even for people? I dont know why that sounds so strange but it does.

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    There is only one third person singular pronoun ("O") used for people (regardless of gender) and objects alike.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago

    Huh once again, hungarian is very similar to turkish. We have "ő" for that. No aninimity or gender distinction. Tho we do have this, that and a third one which i guess translates to yonder? But yeah in some constructions you can specify aninimity with them.

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  • [–] 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

    I have an nb friend who's Finnish. They prefer "It" as a pronoun. I had to explain that as a white native english speaker, we have shat the bed waaayyy too hard to use that one in our language.

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  • [–] 25 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    I mean, in casual spoken finnish, "it" dominates. The third person singular for people "hän" is already gender neutral, but I guess we prefer not to make assumptions about anyone's personhood :D. Or maybe it (se) just rolls off the tongue more conveniently.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Also funnily enough many people use "hän" when talking about pets and other animals whilst still using "se" when talking about people. "Hän" feels a bit stiff and formal when talking about people.

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    [–] 20 points 8 months ago
    [–] 19 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    In Chinese, verbally the world for he, she, and it are all the same pronunciation. It is only differentiated in writing.

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    [–] 14 points 8 months ago*

    I never get mad at "it" because it gives me flashbacks to Shale from Dragon Age Origins and I absolutely love her. she's amazing.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    "It puts the lotion on it's skin..."

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Oh holy fuck I'm rolling!

    How have I not seen this image of Radcliffe before? He looks absolutely deranged!

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    The back story is that he was elbowed in the face on the way to the car, and probably had stage makeup on.

    https://chatterbusy.removed/2013/07/daniel-radcliffe-appears-exhausted-with.html?m=1

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    [–] 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I've run into this a while ago but I'm not sure what to make of it. https://aria.dog/barks/on-being-a-thing/

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Holy shit... You can have domains that end in .dog?

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    "It" is personally my favorite neutral pronoun, but it has so much cultural baggage attached to it that it doesn't feel like a viable option. Why does a squirrel or a ficus or a robot get to be called "it" by default, but not a person? It isn't fair.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    it's generally used to describe non-sentient things...

    Also, using only it gets confusing when trying to determine what "it" refers to in a given sentence...

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    What's not sentient about a squirrel?

    Can you give an example of how "it" is confusing? Like "It met its friend for coffee," sounds fine to me. "It put on a warm jacket since it was cold out," uses multiple senses of the word, but it still reads fine to me.

    "They" is mildly confusing in narratives because it can be hard to distinguish whether one or multiple characters are being described, but it's not an insurmountable problem.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I think it might be most confusing when someone talks about someone who uses "it/its" pronouns: my initial assumption would be that they're trying to dehumanise it unless I was already previously aware of it's pronown preference.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    That's what I mean about the baggage, yeah. You can't just make something not be a slur anymore. It's uncomfortable for people trying to be respectful, and it's easy for bigots to exploit.

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    [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Korean, having to know the person's age, social status, relationship and all just to call someone.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I use 'it' to describe ME :3

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    [–] 6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I have friends who use it. It feels kind of weird and wrong for me as if I'm objectiving them but if that's what they want it's what they get.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah I'd be quite uncomfortable with calling anyone "it". I'll gladly use they/them, I'd be down to learn some neopronouns, but calling someone "it" is something I'd rather avoid. Even if someone likes "it" pronouns, I'd still feel incredibly weird doing so in public. Calling people an "it" is often done here to mock androgynous people. It feels dehumanizing. If I were to do so in public, it would mean they people around me (who don't know the other person's preference) would probably assume I'm doing so to mock them.

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