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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   6718 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 9, 2025

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Although you raise a point I've found interesting: the arbitrariness of how some individual national demonyms encode gender (Irishman, Frenchman) and others don't (Nigerian, American). I presume it's entirely downstream of euphony, but it's still funny to think about. Also funny to think that it might be easier to come out as non-binary if you're American than if you're Irish ("Bambie Thug" is an Irishwoman, not an Irishthey; whereas Sam Brinton is just an "American").

Well, truth be told, I was thinking of my native germany, where job offers as well as official new language guidelines require phrasing of the type “workers …. and workerinnen” for everything.

Ah, interesting. Funnily enough, one of the few words in the Irish language I think the average Irish person could be expected to recognise and understand is "beangarda", meaning a female police officer (as opposed to garda, which is a male police officer).

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