Margaret Atwood has become one of her own handmaidens, rising up against tyranny
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https://twitter.com/MargaretAtwood/status/145024959216814080...
Secondly, come on. It’s not “hard to read” that she probably doesn’t literally believe in talking to dead people. It’s an obvious literary device.
Thirdly, what kind of loser would be looking for “thought leadership”?
Second - Yep, I admit that's a possibility.
Third - Well, the article you linked lauds Atwood as a leader in the debate about the use of gendered terms - going as far as to call her a 'handmaiden' akin to the ones in some of her works. So, the 'loser' would be the article author? I wouldn't call them a loser though.
EDIT: I figured out your mental jump on the first point. You think that my use of 'they/them' is an "erasure of women". Not at all, I just wasn't referring to a sexed or gendered aspect of Atwood, to invoke their sex or gender would mean I was making a point based on those features, which I'm not.
→ “they”
And if, as you admit, you are entirely unsure of her intended meaning, the decent thing to so it to interpret her charitably, instead of jumping to the most damning possible interpretation.
'Normal English' doesn't exist as a stable point that can be reliably referenced. Even the OED is constantly updated. Language is a constantly changing thing. This is an example of that. Plenty of languages use gender neutral pronouns all the time - they laugh at this kind of debate.
"you were literally erasing women" shit. Call the police. I assume that means I've murdered someone? Didn't realise I had magical powers like that.
People can use language how they please. Call people 'her' or 'she' if you think it's relevant. If you want to be inclusive and not be sexist then maybe go for a neutral term. Context matters remember - a public body should likely opt for the latter. A friend who knows how someone identifies could freely go for the former.
What you've done here is make what you're saying incomprehensible to others. Whereas you still knew my meaning when I used 'they'.
For some reason you thought this would bolster your argument.
You've used language how you please but have lost all its meaning. It's no longer language at that point. You still got my meaning though.
> you still knew my meaning when I used 'they'.
Did I? I thought your meaning was to erase women. But you claim it wasn’t, somehow. See how using words to mean whatever you want them to this week does not contribute to clear communication?
No, it wouldn’t. It would mean you were writing comprehensible English. You’re not “invoking” anything by using “she” to refer to a woman in the third person. That’s what the pronoun is for. Your use of “they” is weird and jarring.
I don't remark on Atwood's age, or skin colour when referring to them. Why invoke their sex or gender?
YOU find it weird and jarring. But don't worry even if you don't get used to it plenty of other people are fine with it. Generationally speaking, this appears to be a gradual shift that can't be stopped.
Good English is largely about making choices least likely to confuse or annoy one's audience.
True that people will try not to go out of their way to confuse or annoy their audience.
If gender neutral pronouns confuse or annoy people I really don't think that's the author's fault. That's far more on the ignorance of the reader.
Do people who don't understand gender neutral pronouns get similarly confused and annoyed when they see a word they haven't seen before? That's a frustrating existence if true.
Perfectly? No. Good writers manage to do it most of the time, nonetheless. "Do whatever's most-normal" is a good rule to follow, absent anything else. If that rule had been followed, we wouldn't have this whole unfortunate thread.
> Do people who don't understand gender neutral pronouns get similarly confused and annoyed when they see a word they haven't seen before? That's a frustrating existence if true.
This is about breaking expectations, not failure to understand gender-neutral pronouns. You applied them in an unusual context.
So the gradual shift can't be stopped, yes, it will move around and around. For that is the beauty of linguistical evolution.
She's crying about people being mean to her on the internet.
Where's the tyranny, exactly?
The little rhetorical trick they use, which I understand you are baiting here, is to say that they are simply so many different isolated individuals who are "concerned" or "asking questions," and the "other side" is some monolithic gender-queer gestapo of sorts that stifles and harasses these poor individuals for no reason.
Putting aside the bad faith at display here (which has very much a political and financial paper trail if you care to look), I just think you can simply look at the literal body count of either side and come to some straightforward moral conclusions.
Yeah, the financial paper trail is probably the most compelling. The most reactionary media figures tend to be directly financed by wealthy interests who are happy to sow division by inflaming superficial threats to people's identities. The most popular explanation for this type of behavior is simply that people are bigoted and otherwise bad. I think the more meaningful and rational explanation is that the wealthy owners of society are employing a divide-and-conquer strategy. In this case, superficial differences are emphasized in order to reduce the ability of the people to develop class-consciousness and organize based on their common interests.