Changing the Language the Easy Way...

[roseembolism]

In a recent debate on gender-neutral language and whether it's a good idea to try to change a language, someone noted that top-down language changes rarely work well.  He pointed out that the Chinese goverment has tried to insert a female third person pronoun into Chinese in order to get the "he" "she" distinction.  He noted it hasn't caught on so far.

I figure that's probably because they're going about it the wrong way, via government mandate.  A better way would be to use that new pronoun in an uproariously funny Coca-Cola advertising campaign. then have it picked up in a movie by a heartthrob or a comedian. Done properly, it will first duck into the language as a bit of trendy slang, and get used by kids as a self-referential coolness, and within a generation it will be in all the Chinese dictionaries. 

'Cause if you really want to change a culture's way of speaking, one should go to the experts.  IMHO.  IYNWIMAITYD.  LOL.

Comments

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

I'm still of the Honorverse school of thinking; each gender assumes its own gender when speaking in indefinites. I would say: "Any captain worth her salt wouldn't do that." A guy would say: "Any captain worth his salt wouldn't do that." Neither of us is being sexist (which should be a relief to the conscientious guys who tongue-twist to try not to offend their female counterparts!).

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

That said, I think your delivery method is *exactly* how to get the change noticed in the first place. :)

[fairegoddess.livejournal.com]

IAWTC. XD

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Hmm. interesting. and i suppose a genderless AI would use "it". "Any captain worth its salt wouldn't do that."

But what about humans with more than one gender? In the far future there's bound to be some group who thinks that hermaphroditism is the way to go.

[bobmungovan.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!

/Guinness commercial