I always refer to my students as "they" then writing to my boss. I have so many students and no idea of names to faces, so when they write to me, I honestly have no idea if their Norwegian name is traditionally male or female. I'd have to guess, or google... and I don't have the fucking time for that. My boss will write back saying, "yes I've spoken to him" or "I'll contact her" and I'll look at the Norwegian name and think...yup... would have guessed wrong. EVERY TIME! It's not something I want to take a guess on, because if I cock up, it makes me look stupid, or deliberately a careless teacher. (And to be fair, some of the students writing to me I have never taught or met, so there is no way I will know what they look like, let alone their gender.)
It would make things so much easier for me if everyone just used they. I always would get wound up with formal letters. "Smith" has written to me, and now I am supposed to guess if they are male, or if female, married or a pseudo-virgin. If I cock up, they're bound to be pissed off! Thank god there's less of a labelling pressure nowadays, at least in emails.
Mind you, when people write to me and call me "Mrs" or ring me and ask for "Mrs" or worst of all announce me at conferences as "Mrs" it really gets on my tits. Can't I just be Smith? My gender is irrelevant to the subject of my presentation or my profound lack of interest in PPI, and my marital status (or lack of it) even more so.
I was big on "they" in China, because i had absolutely no idea what was a male or female name. In spoken Chinese it's even easier because he, she and it are all pronounced exactly the same (only the written characters are different, due to them being created for the specific purpose of translating western literature in the early 20th century).
I am very pleased that we no longer need to use honorifics in correspondence. I also have had these difficult moments where i knew the family name but not the gender of the person, back in the old days when we were supposed to write Dear Mr/Mrs So-and-so. Nowadays i am so glad that it's perfectly acceptable to start an email just with Hi Bob, or even leave out the name altogether and just go with Hi.
Being put in situations where i am forced to select an honorific for myself really gets my hackles up. (These days that's usually only a problem with airlines due to the ancient computer systems they use.)
I loved how the spoken version of Mandarin (and presumably Cantonese?.... but I don't really know, I only took Mandarin) he/him/his and she/her/hers sounded the same, but LOOKED different. That... was awesome.
I talked to a native Guangdong friend about this before, and they told me that in Cantonese there is just one gender neutral pronoun. I wonder if it's because Cantonese didn't go through the same process of "modernization" that written Chinese did after May 4th Movement?
It's not something I want to take a guess on, because if I cock up, it makes me look stupid, or deliberately a careless teacher. (And to be fair, some of the students writing to me I have never taught or met, so there is no way I will know what they look like, let alone their gender.)
It would make things so much easier for me if everyone just used they. I always would get wound up with formal letters. "Smith" has written to me, and now I am supposed to guess if they are male, or if female, married or a pseudo-virgin. If I cock up, they're bound to be pissed off! Thank god there's less of a labelling pressure nowadays, at least in emails.
Mind you, when people write to me and call me "Mrs" or ring me and ask for "Mrs" or worst of all announce me at conferences as "Mrs" it really gets on my tits. Can't I just be Smith? My gender is irrelevant to the subject of my presentation or my profound lack of interest in PPI, and my marital status (or lack of it) even more so.
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I am very pleased that we no longer need to use honorifics in correspondence. I also have had these difficult moments where i knew the family name but not the gender of the person, back in the old days when we were supposed to write Dear Mr/Mrs So-and-so. Nowadays i am so glad that it's perfectly acceptable to start an email just with Hi Bob, or even leave out the name altogether and just go with Hi.
Being put in situations where i am forced to select an honorific for myself really gets my hackles up. (These days that's usually only a problem with airlines due to the ancient computer systems they use.)
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