"It's so much trouble remembering modern pronou-" : latin

[+] fxomt@lemm.ee 35 points 5 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Lemmy Moderator experience, when you get a thrill every time you see a name that isn't your's on your comms

[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I've only ever seen xi and xer written as memes. How are they actually pronounced?

[+] fxomt@lemm.ee 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Thank you.

And yes, I've never got it. Singular they dates back to Middle English. So I've never understood the feeling of the need to reinvent the wheel.

Of course if someone wanted to go by xi I'd do my best to honour that.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 5 months ago

Yes, but...

First, this is coming from a place of irritation with ambiguity, not from being supportive of neopronouns. Not that I'm opposed to neopronouns, per se, but my motivation in defending something like xi/xer is more banal: I hate how ambiguous English can be about some things, and in particular, pronouns.

I am not from the South, but I adopted y'all as soon as I learned about it merely because "you" being both singular and plural drives me nuts. "Y'all" is clearly plural "you," and if everyone used "y'all" then we could normalize "you" to always being singular.

Same with "they," only there isn't a common convenient dialect fix for the plural/singular issue. I happily embrace "xi/xer/xem" and whatever else necessary to provide a distinction between singular and plural. For me, the gender aspect is entirely secondary, but I'm happy to adapt to whatever.

I do object to open ended shit like "people should be allowed to define how they're referred to." OP's joke would be funny except that Latin had distinct rules - people weren't just making up whatever shit and flexing by socially pressuring others around them to conform to their own invented pidgin vocabulary.

Let's define a set of pronouns that covers the LGBTQ+ set; we'll end up with, what, 8 or 10 pronoun groups. I don't think that's the most absurd thing. You want absurd, look through a telephone registry in Paris, and see names like Jean-Franc Christophe-Luarde de Luc. That's clearly naming gone off the rails. If someone wants to make up their own fantasy pronouns, fine, but I will not feel ashamed for not using "dragonfucker" as a pronoun for that one dipshit.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca -5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

no idea why they exist since they serve the same purpose

I see someone missed school.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I've heard them said as either zi zer, or zhi zher. Why they chose an x for an initial letter fire a word proposed for English, I'll never understand.

I've even heard someone say them as an s, which is absolutely not what was intended for the obvious reason.

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Xerox says hello.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

So do xylophone, professor Xavier, and Xanth

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Twitteri and twitterer

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Yes

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Little Johnny is daydreaming in Latin class when the teacher calls on him to conjugate the verb they're discussing. Caught off guard, he whispers to his neighbor "Shoot, what verb are we conjugating?"

"Hell if I know"

Johnny stands up, "Helifino, helifinas, helifinat, helifinamus, helifinatis, helifinant"

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thats kinda cheating no? I can do én, engem, rólam, nekem, tőlem, magam, etc in hungarian. English is a bit strange with pronouns actually compared to other languages from my experience.

[–] viking -4 points 5 months ago

Yeah but Latin pronouns are one and the same for every person of a certain gender, you don't need to associate a different set with different people. Way more complex to retain.

Moved to !latin@piefed.social