[ SECRET POST #3790 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3790 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 45 secrets from Secret Submission Post #543.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

04. http://i.imgur.com/4TrTxeJ.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

They/them is not especially confusing in the hands of a competent writer, and although I understand some of the dissatisfaction, it is is just by far the best and most acceptable option available in English for gender-neutral pronouns.

And doing something like using gendered pronouns in a NB headcanon story seems like it just misses the point entirely.

[(Anonymous)]

No.

[(Anonymous)]

Going to elaborate? Or... just no?

[(Anonymous)]

I feel the same. I edit as a profession and I have come across so many situations where people use they/them for a single person and it ends up being REALLY confusing. I too wish there was more focus on inventing a new gender neutral singular because using a plural that is still widely used will generate confusion. It's not going to happen though. I guess it will just be another thing in English that will cause confusion.

[(Anonymous)]

Why isn't there a push to make "it" less dehumanizing? Easily the least confusing one of the bunch.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT

I don't think there's any possible way to make "it" less dehumanizing. Just not a viable solution, because it's fundamentally and inextricably dehumanizing.

[(Anonymous)]

In Hindi, 3rd person pronouns don't have either gender or 'personness' distinctions, just singular/plural and like...near/far proximity. So you have basically

Ye - he/she/it/this
Ve - he/she/it/that
Yehe - them/these
Vehe - them/those

It drove me fucking *crazy*, all the time, as a native english speaker, not to be able to differentiate between persons and things. I think expanding 'it' would actually be a much higher psychological bar for most people than accepting a new set of pronouns. (Especially if we go with ey/em, which have a logical conjugation pattern that everyone already knows, unlike ze/xir/whatever.)

[(Anonymous)]

IA with all of this

[(Anonymous)]

I get the frustration, but it sounds like this is just as much an issue of sloppy writing as it is pronouns. Traditional pronouns can be confusing as hell in a poorly written scene, too. A good writer will find a way to indicate who is speaking at any given time without making the conversation into a hot mess.

Personally, I think most writers under-use character names. I know they're scared of too much repetition and that's why you have all sorts of writing monstrosities like "The blue-eyed boy said" and "the brunette laughed", "the short girl whispered", etc. But there's no way that this stuff is LESS clumsy than just using their damn names.

[skeletal_history]

It's funny how so many fic writers under-use character names in narration but over-use names in dialogue.

[feotakahari]

There is a fic in the Friendship is Magic fandom called "Lavender Unicorn Syndrome," in which a plague turns everyone into lavender unicorns. It regularly uses the phrase "said the lavender unicorn." It's still easy to tell which character is speaking, because the author puts effort into writing comprehensibly.

[(Anonymous)]

It sounds like the Groot's fic https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080878

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds wonderful and hilarious. Would you have a link for it?

[feotakahari]

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/109547/lavender-unicorn-syndrome

[diet_poison]

I guess I'm in the minority here but I really don't think they/them is that confusing?

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're missing the point of the secret, which isn't to say that they/them is inherently confusing, just that there are instances (such as a large group of people in one scene) where it can get confusing because if the writer isn't careful, it's hard to tell the difference between someone using they/them to refer to a nonbinary character or using they/them to refer to 2+ people in the group.

[(Anonymous)]

But OP does think this problem is significant enough that people shouldn't use they/them pronouns at all, so even if it's not inherently confusing, it's a major issue to OP.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

I do wish there was an agreed upon nonbinary pronoun. 'They' has always been confusing to me, regardless of the context, and it makes me think that the nb person sounds like a hivemind or a fusion or something...

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I just can't mentally parse "they" as singular because I had it drilled into my head for years in my English classes that "they" was a plural pronoun.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm fine with singular 'they' in deliberately underspecified contexts - "Who called?" "I don't know, their number was blocked" but I really struggle with it for specific single people. I end up with this mental image of a sea of those no-avatar silhouettes.

Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that maybe more the writing than the pronoun. This happens sometimes when there's more than one he or she in the fic. Honestly, some writers seem to think something dire will happen if they use the characters' names more than a few times. "You" can be used in both the singular and plural sense and I don't think it's that confusing, though it is much more commonly used in the singular sense.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with a bunch of people already commenting, I've never been confused by 'they' pronouns in fic unless the writing is bad. And this is the same with any other pronouns, like if two women are talking and then it says 'she turned and picked up a glass' in an odd way so I don't know which woman is doing it. In fact, I would encourage more writers to use they pronouns for characters so that they get better at writing it clearly, and readers get used to seeing it.

[digitalghosts]

OP, did you learn 'they' is only plural as a child or maybe are dyslexic or both? Curious as for me it was both singular and plural when learning languages but my brain short-circuits at any other pronouns due to dyslexia (not only pronouns, just anything I didn't memorise). No tips on how to read those better as still at same stage which is ironic as one pronouns set in wide use is Esperanto and it originated in area where we are from.

Edit: Actually, realised how it's commonly solved in Glasgow (could be other areas but didn't hear it outside of Scotland) - when it is a group it could be 'theys' or 'their' while when singular it could be 'they' and 'their's'. In dialogue we also use 'you' and 'yous' but that's a different topic. Still - languages are confusing.