The pronoun game (and other related phenomena)

[maeveenroute]

Some of you may have guessed this from my "singular they" post a little while back; some of you I've actually discussed this with; and to some of you - hey, it's a pleasant surprise! ;c

Comments

[pamlin]

I'll use the basic "they" if either A) I don't know the person's S.O. and they are being nonspecific, or once in a while when B) Someone is in an ultraconservative environment and does not want their sexuality revealed -I'll follow their lead.

-psg

[froia_arme]

Occasionally I have to do this when I'm talking about the work of an author whose gender I don't know. (I've learned from experience that my intuitions are often wrong...) Using the last name is often my strategy in that case.

[queenofstripes]

Remind me to tell you my traumatic OM stories sometime. :)

[queenofstripes]

1) The most common reason Rik and I run into is "to refer to somebody whose gender identity is in constant flux or highly situational." I get that one applied to me a lot. :) Since the subcultures we most often move in tend to blur real-world and fantasy identity, it's not uncommon for friends of ours to have three or more very distinct identity modes with varying names and genders. I'll bet the "virtually feminine, physically masculine, socially variable" thing like I do (or its obvious variants) will only get more common

[badnewswade]

Heh, I had play the pronoun game to protect a straight person who was cheating on his wife once!

I was fixing his computer and realised it was a clunker, and wanted to tell him to give it to his girlfriend who was in the same racket as me (ie fixing pcs), and had to very carefully say "Your friend could do this job, they said they were into fixing PCs didn't they?" - Hours of fun!

(well, not really - I was kinda pissed off that this stoner sleazebag had implicated me in his social crime, but there ya go)

[madcaptenor]

Did you know the Wikipedia entry on "the pronoun game" links here?

I clicked on the link... then forgot I had... and then thought "why am I reading maeveenroute's livejournal?"