h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

rats. GuideML isn't very good.

If anyone knows how to do a 'long' (the straight line accent) or a 'short' (the down then up accent) in GuideML, now would be a good time to say...

No idea about the GuideML thing, but I much prefer the rewrite. The tone thing I mentioned originally isn't there anymore.

Thanks

Hi, Lucinda!

Some comments on the pronunciation issue:

I think that you should scrap the link to that particular pronunciation guide: since the pronunciation examples it gives are American, the readers will have to work out what way they think an English author thinks Americans pronounce a particular word. Since that particular guide considers that 'caught', 'paw', 'for', 'horrid' and 'hoarse' all have the same vowel sound, it doesn't look like a very good guide when subtle vowel differences are what you are trying to illustrate! It would be far better to use the International Phonetic Alphabet and take your examples from the Oxford or another British English dictionary, and footnote Americans to the American pronunciation examples.


I think you are being far too dismissive of the pronunciation problems. The pronouns in the objective case, 'him', 'her' 'them' and 'hir' are very commonly unstressed in a sentence, and unstressed vowels are much harder to tell apart. While the difference between the stressed versions may be clear in many accents, I don't believe the same would be true for the unstressed versions.

For example:
'Did you tell anyone?' - 'I told HIR'.
'Did you tell anyone?' - 'I told HER'.
In the stressed version, there's a clear difference.

'Nobody TOLD her it was all a joke'.
'Nobody TOLD hir it was all a joke'.
In the unstressed version, it's not just my accent that makes those hard to tell apart.

You say 'Obviously, where there are similarities to existing words, there is the potential for misunderstandings. Fortunately, most of the existing words are not pronouns, which dramatically reduces the problem.' I don't understand this: you give four forms 'Sie' 'hir' 'hirs' 'hirself' : three of these are similar to the matching feminine forms - in what way has this problem been reduced?

More general comments to follow!

Azara

I think it would be worth noting the different uses of the word 'Gender' at the beginning of the entry. 'Gender' started out as a purely grammatical term (with four genders in English, masculine, feminine, common and neuter). In many languages, grammatical gender may be quite unrelated to the actual sex or sexlessness of something. The idea of gender as a person's sexual self-image is a much more recent invention. GTBacchus said "Swahili doesn't have gendered pronouns at all - 'yeye' means 'he' or 'she', but not 'it'." This is not gendered in the more modern usage, but in the older grammatical usage, this looks like two genders, neuter and common.

On a separate point, I'd better give my idea of the difference between the top-down and bottom-up patterns by which neologisms spread:
In both cases, someone invents a new word, usage or phrase. In the bottom-up pattern, people who hear or see this neologism like the sound of it or find it useful, and it gradually spreads. As the usage becomes more familiar, more and more users won't even notice the first time that they use the neologism for themselves.
In the top-down version, many people make a conscious decision to use this neologism. A person typically uses it for the first time because they feel they *ought* to, not because it's the first usage that springs to mind naturally. This can give them a hesitant and self-conscious (or worse still, smug and self-righteous) air that can make the usage seem awkward. I think that this kind of neologism has a harder time becoming part of the language than one which spreads naturally: think of how long people fought over 'chairperson' or 'chair'.

Is that a deliberate mistranslation of 'De Gustibus...'?

Azara

OK, please pardon me: I'm new to the Peer Review process, and I want very much to contribute maximally! After all, I was copy editor of my high school paper, and old habits die hard. But if I make any 'newbie' errors in my PRev, please don't hesitate to lovingly point them out.

Starting from the top:

> It is written in the christian bible that the first
> human names every animal in turn,

Unless H2G2 has other standards of which I have yet to find mention, names of religions and the derived forms of those names should be capitalized: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Rastafarian.

> A few years ago, 'dot-com' entered the language,
> as computer stocks stored.

Should that be 'soared' instead of 'stored?'

> In this case, 'she' is the pronoun, while 'Fred's mother'
> is the noun it refers to, or 'referrent'.

That's so weird... I've never heard the word 'referrent' before. In school I was taught the term 'antecedent.' But that could be a USA/UK difference, so I won't call it wrong!

> there's some evidence that it's been independantly
> re-invented several times.

Proper spelling: 'independently.'

Wait, before I go any further, I've had a thought... is there another editorial process that does this copy-editing stuff, which is undoubtedly boring the snot out of all of you?

If not, I'll resume; otherwise, I'll leave it to the experts!

-- Jay

John Cleese: Miss?

Michael Palin: Excuse me!

John Cleese: I'm sorry; I have a cold.



To highlight what Azara said about unstressed vowels, it's quite impossible to distinguish the different "zark'm"s in "Zark'm if he can't take a joke" and "zark'm if they can't take a joke" Presumably, a similar ambiguity would arise if 'she' and 'sie' got all offended about some harmless sexist humour.

To highlight why Lucinda might be perfectly justified in dismissing the pronounciation issue, nobody seems to be very bothered by the him/them ambiguity.

If anyone *is* bothered by it, zark'r.

Americans turn *all* their unstressed vowels into schwas, and they still manage to disenfranchise voters just as well as third-world countries, where the most distinctly pronounced tongues are spoken.



I find A266951 - Special Character Codes in GuideML to be quite useful, although it's not exhaustive. In fact, I've just checked, and the characters you're looking for aren't there. Other HTML entity tags, that aren't listed there, still work though. You can find them pretty easily with a Google search. The preferred format is: &entityname;

I hope that's helpful. I've just been on Google looking for stuff, but I realized I'm not totally clear what you're looking for. Do you want the long and short signs alone, or vowels with long and short signs over them? (Not that I found either, but I only gave it about two mintues.) Someone should really make HTML entities for the International Phonetic Alphabet, y'know?

Jay, hi.

You weren't boring *me*, but that's probably because I'm a copy-editor type myself. In fact, I'm a Sub-Editor here at the Guide. Entries that are recommended from Peer Review are sent to someone like me, who does all that grungy spelling, grammar, mechanics, usage, and formatting stuff. We Subs don't mind, of course, when things are spelled correctly to start out with, () but most people prefer to use the Peer Review system for comments about content, like 'take this bit out', 'expand this bit', 'the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, not 1972,' 'you're obviously a complete #@!*& who should have been drowned years ago,' and the like.

In other words, don't feel that you *have* to point out typos, but if you like doing it, knock yourself out - makes my job a little bit easier. Besides, some writers *like* having their typos pointed out.

Subbing is a volunteer system - you're certainly welcome to sign up, if you think you'd enjoy it! Go to my page and click on my Sub Badge to learn more.

Feel free also to jump into the fray regarding the content. Does the Entry meet the Writing Guidelines for a good Guide Entry, in your opinion?



I've seen 'referent' (one 'r') used for 'antecedent', and it's not incorrect. Generally, if A refers to B, then A is a 'reference', and B is a 'referent'. 'Antecedent' is a more specific (more/less commonly understood?) term for nouns to which pronouns refer. It also has other meanings, like in logic and mathematics.

Hi Lucinda,

"blue tit of unknown gender: 'I saw it with its mate by a small bush. It looked cold, so I gave it a rub." - fnar fnar. Who says Political Correctness has no sense of humour?

"the speaker has actually finished hir sentence, they may wish they didn't" - was this switch from 'hir' to 'their' deliberate, and if so, why? Otherwise it just looks like it demonstrates how uncomfortable it is for people to use GNPs.

"Gender Neutral Pronoun FAQ" - link still required.

You should mention that other languages have far worse problems - e.g. French has only le and la, so even things like tables are randomly assigned a gender. English already has 'it' as a GNP, and if people consider that 'impersonal' - well, how is sie/hir any better?

Your example of the use of GNPs to disguise a character's gender in a novel - to me, reading 'sie' would just scream out that I need to consider both options for that character's gender (surely the point of GNPs in the first place), thus giving away whatever plot detail the author is trying to hide by concealing the character's gender. It won't work unless/until GNPs are common useage.

Geoff is right about the specific example of 'hir'. If you can't tell whether someone is saying 'her' or 'hir', it'll just cause confusion.

btw - my understanding of 'top-down' and 'bottom-up'; top-down means that a new word is 'decreed' by 'powers that be', whereas bottom-up means that people start using it and it becomes official. GNPs are definitely 'top-down', with various people setting themselves up as (conflicting) authorities on how we 'ought' to speak. This is what is meant by 'artificial' words in this context.

My personal opinion is that GNPs are ugly and cumbersome and will be deservedly forgotten within our lifetime. The article, however, is good and comprehensive and I fully support its inclusion in the Guide.

Gif

Oops, didn't notice there was a second page before posting

Gif

Hi Lucinda,

I enjoyed reading this (it was yesterday, and I haven't taken the time to read the re-write yet) and it is certainly factual and informative. I agree that there was a distinct leaning against those who do not embrace these new forms, and indeed a militant support for their adoption. It seems from Geoff's last comment that you have made changes to rectify this imbalance, so I shall have to see what that looks like now.

I certainly think this is useful EG material - I for one had never heard of these forms before h2g2, where I have seen them used occasionally in threads.

I would say that they are still an uncommon phenomenon, especially in day-to-day speech and most interpersonal writing. Clearly there are issues to be addressed in business writing and other areas where it is important to avoid implicit or explicit inequality between genders.

One danger lies in the use of the word 'sexist'. Like 'racist', it is an emotive word that can be applied to situations or reactions that are basically innocent, and/or reasonable in the context. I'm on shaky ground here, and don't have an example to hand (although we can all understand why 'chairperson' grates with so many.

Going of on an interesting tangent, this would cause absolute chaos in a latin language such as French!

Anyway, all the best with this, I know it is a subject close to yir heart!

seeya
spiff

Greetings all!

When I first started at university, one of the lecturers used "she" rather than "he" to refer to hypothetical people.

"So how might someone who believes theory x respond? Well, she might argue that...." and so on.

In my own writing, I tend to alternate between male and female, and sometimes use both to clarify the exposition of an argument: I can make the proponent of one view male, and the other female. And as long as I'm careful about who I assign which view to, it seems to work. I think this is increasingly common in academic writing.

Now, this doesn't solve the overall problem of hiding gender through neutral pronouns, but it does at least remove some of the inherent sexism in always using "he" and the clumsyness of "they".

Best wishes

Otto

in chronological order

Good idea re: pronounciation guide. It was just the first I found.
Good point re: stress/unstress. I'll work that in.

> "Fortunately, most of the existing words are not pronouns, which dramatically reduces the problem."

Yeah, I've not said that so well, have I? I was trying to say that the similarities of 'hir' with, say, 'here', aren't relevant. I'll try and explain myself better.

re: gender. Yeah, I hadn't even considered that there might be an issue with the old meaning of gender. When/If I get round to following GTB's advise re: other languages, I think that'd be a good place for it.

top-down vs bottom-up. I think that's a false dichotomy, and not particularly helpful terms to use, either.
People use new words for a variety of reasons. Because they like them. Because they find them useful. Because they feel they ought to. To make themselves look clever. Because using it makes some kind of statement. Similarly people stop using old words for a variety of reasons. The decision is always going to be conscious until the word is so widespread it is no longer a neologism.

I use 'hir' because the first time I saw it I liked the look of it, and could see how it could be useful. It was in some BDSM text, of all things - the first occurance in the text, I wondered if it was some specialist term - by the third occurance, I'd figured out the meaning from context, by the tenth it felt quite natural. But I also am a strong believer in the power of words and the truth of 1984's newspeak, so I also use it for that reason. Did I adopt it for 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' reasons?

> "Is that a deliberate mistranslation...?"

It seemed a relevant quote to put in, and I could remember neither the exact Latin, nor the exact English. If you can help...

--

Julius - thanks for the spellcheck - that's great

referrent vs antecedent. Seeing what GTB said, I'll do both.

--

GTB - wahoo! Someone who agrees with me! In all seriousness, there's a thread attached to the entry "By Invitation" where we can all discuss the pronounciation issue together. I'm not going to significantly change the entry unless some kind of consensus is reached there. Ok?

vowels with long signs over them would be ideal.

> "some writers *like* having their typos pointed out."

I do!

--

Giford - I actually thought the blue tit joke was pretty abysmal, but I was desperate at the time...

> "was this switch from 'hir' to 'they' deliberate, and if so, why?"

Heh. I picked up 'hir' about a year before I picked up 'sie', so for that year I was merrilly using 'they/hir/hirs/hirself' as my GNP set. My subconscious hasn't caught up with my comparatively recent conscious change from 'they' to 'sie', especially in what is a first draft. I'd have caught it when I revised that section. I'm also slightly torn because the last time I used GNPs in a guide entry, they were mercilessly stripped out by an anti-GNP sub-ed.

This is a really bad entry from a subbing perspective - whichever sub-ed I get, I expect they'll have an opinion on the subject, and won't be able to resist hacking my entry to pieces and putting it back together in a more pleasing order. [to sub-ed] DON'T YOU DARE! I'LL DANCE ON YOUR GRAVE

Ahem.

Other languages. yes, I agreed when GTB suggested it, and I still agree. It's tricky to add stuff to the entry and try and convince people I'm not a linguistic fascist at the same time...

> "English already has 'it' as a GNP, and if people consider that 'impersonal' - well, how is sie/hir any better?"

Because sie/hir are new words, so they are imbued with new meanings. 'it' is an old word, so it is imbued with old meanings. Specifically, it is used to refer to non-conscious, non-sentient, non-humans. There is a long and glorious history of people referring to their enemies as 'it' in order to stuff them into cattle trucks.

People don't like travelling by cattle truck, so they tend to object to being described as 'it'. Call it over-sensitive.

> "to me, reading 'sie' would just scream out that I need to consider both options for that character's gender"

And, in a crime novel, that might be exactly what the author intended. However, this section isn't about 'sie' - it's about problems with gendered pronouns. That problem might be solved by 'sie', or it might be solved by avoiding all pronouns, or it might be solved by using 'you' and 'I', or it might be solved by inventing a completely new pronoun set.

Maybe I need to make this clear. Yeah, probably.

> "Geoff is right about the specific example of 'hir'"

No he isn't. If you can't tell whether someone is saying 'her' or 'hir' you need to get your ears checked out. As I said, let's discuss this in the relevant thread on the entry.

re: top-down, bottom-up. Well that's what I would understand by those terms, even if Azara begs to differ. An example of top-down would be the imposition of universal 'he or she' on some organisations by means of leaflets from on high. An example of bottom-up would be a bunch of people discussing 'hir' with each other, and each coming to their own conclusion.

-Martin

Otto - *nod* I think alternating hypothetical males and females can work quite well - though myself I tend to introduce them by name first: so 'Alice' and 'Bob', typically. Otherwise, there is the danger that someone might (for eg) assume that the typical person who believes X is female - which would be the legacy way of interpreting that. Not a problem in maths - can be a problem elsewhere.

I'll add your comments in.

> "Because they find them useful ... Because using it makes some kind of statement."

I should point out that the conflict between 'them' and 'it' to describe a pronoun set isn't because 'them' is an awkward word to use, nor because my subconscious is playing tricks on me, but because I screwed up...

I'd love to review this entry, but currently its hidden pending moderation.

Eh????

I had a broken link, and the squacks pounced - fixed now.

I really, really wish they wouldn't do that...

Women; Men. Scientific fact as far as I'm aware.

- People from France are different from people from America.
- People from India are different from people from Switzerland.
- You are different from me.
- Women are different from men.

Surely this richness in our wonderful world is a good thing and to be celebrated.

Is literary androgyny a good thing?

Gender-free pronouns are not literary androgyny. To get the latter you need to use *exclusively* gender-free pronouns, and you need to use exclusively words that are free of gender associations. It's possible, but very difficult.

If you'd like to see a guide entry about literary androgyny - please go write it. This ain't it.