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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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It's thus not a shock that random people slip up and say "we don't use pronouns" instead of "we don't use preferred pronouns"

Is it really a slip-up? If that is a slip up then so is "please use our pronouns" or "what are your pronouns?". The reason that is never corrected to "preferred pronoun" is because everybody knows that "pronoun" can refer to the progressive idea.

Qualifying "pronoun" with "preferred" would be a tactical error by gender-believers. The way they say it now is a rhetorical technique to obscure the fact that the mainstream idea and progressive idea are different. Rather than framing the discussion as "should we change how pronouns work?" it is "please use my pronouns." It's not much different than the "basic human decency" rhetorical technique.

"please use our pronouns" or "what are your pronouns?"

Well those are different because of the possessives. What are 'your' pronouns unambiguously refers to preferred pronouns, because it couldn't be anything else, whereas 'we don't use pronouns' or equivalent is just a nonsense.

That's a good point I hadn't considered. I was focused on the word "preferred" that the original poster had brought up.

Is it really a slip-up?

Yes, because the literal reading is wrong and it doesn't reinforce the normative point you're making.

"There's no such thing as preferred pronouns" or "the pronouns for men are "he/he" or "you don't have 'your' pronouns; you have the pronouns of your sex' are not problematic on a surface reading and also highlight that there is a change being pushed here and therefore aren't slip ups, even though they does what you want (highlight that it is indeed a change being asked for here)

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