Interesting Links for 03-06-2014

[andrewducker]

• 23 Words That Have A Totally Different Meaning In Scotland
  (tags: Scotland language funny )
• Edinburgh trams ‘worth 400 year wait’
  (tags: Edinburgh trams )
• Smokers with gene defect have one in four chance of developing lung cancer
  Which I think means that those without it have a 10% chance. Anyone care to check my maths?
  (tags: cancer genetics

Comments

[quirkytizzy]

Wow, that's a really good article about Laverne and language. I know enough to refer to people as they prefer to be, but otherwise have a very deep "I don't get it" with trans issues.

But THAT article helps. Thank you.

[andrewducker]

Glad it helps!

I think it helps to remember that it's none of my business what genes, genitalia, or other body-characteristics a person has unless I am involved in very specific kinds of relationship with them.

But if someone wants to be referred to in a particular way, and that's not causing anything awful to happen (like fraud, or people taking their medical advice seriously), then it's simple politeness to do so.

[alitheapipkin]

Yes, really good article and I particularly appreciated the Gillian McKeith exception ;)

I find it really quite boggling how incredibly hateful and rude some people are over these issues.

[naath]

I think it is a nice article but the author may be astonished to know that many people are *very bad* at respecting change-of-name (or a lack of change-of-name that they expected to happen) even without the new name being differently gendered to the old one.

[alitheapipkin]

There is that. But much as it infuriates me when people ignore the fact that I kept my own name when I got married, and when one of my old school friends refuses to use my title, I don't think it is really undermining my identity the way that intentionally misgendering people does. But then being married and having a PhD are privileges and I suppose not all the examples you could come up with are.

Which is not to say that I thought you were arguing that they were equivalent, just musing about the issue in general.

[naath]

Oh indeed! The author of the linked piece says (paraphrased) "just as you would simply accept a name-change you should simply accept pronoun changes" which I don't think works as a comparison because people don't "simply accept" name changes!

(I often find people say "oh you shouldn't do PREJUDICED THING because you would never do OTHER PREJUDICED THING" and... just no. Because people do OPT! For all values of OPT I have seen cited)

[danieldwilliam]

Aye - my mum, (in her day a slightly important feminist benchmark (first woman in Europe to qualify as a consultant doctor whilst working part-time) and who herself didn’t change her name the second time she got married) continues to address mail to my wife as Mrs My Last Name, despite my wife very and deliberately not changing her name.

It’s baffling.

[soon_lee]

I sometimes get called Mr. [spouse's surname] but that's mostly from telemarketeers; we both retained our names when we got married & that's reflected in our phonebook listing.

[danieldwilliam]

Yeah - that happens to me too. I know as soon as someone refers to me as Mr Spouse that it's a telemarketing call and I can safely hang up.

[minnesattva]

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of my mom's, L, about a person roughly my age (20s-30s) who's just gotten married and not changed her name. L told me that this person was frustrated at people addressing her as Mrs. Husbandsname (or addressing them as a couple as Mr. & Mrs. Husbandsname, with no mention of her names anywhere!). L understood the frustration intellectually but she said in practice it was very difficult for her to not address a married woman as Mrs. Husbandsname; it went against everything she'd been taught about being polite and respectful

[danieldwilliam]

That's helpful and interesting.

Thank you.

[minnesattva]

I'm very glad to hear it! That's exactly what I was aiming for. But I know I often miss that aim when I end up writing long screeds to strangers in the middle of the night. :)

I really enjoyed writing this comment and all the thinking I had to do to get it written, so thanks for giving me the impetus to do that.

[andrewducker]

I can understand that.

Although it's now been in popular usage since the 1950s, you'd think that they'd have had time to adjust...

[minnesattva]

Well obviously I am only speaking about my own little weird corner of the world here, because that's all I can do. But in that case, I wouldn't expect them to adjust, actually. They still haven't adjusted to divorce ever being anything but a shame, or interracial marriages being okay, and those things have been happening for at least that long too. But they haven't been happening around them, or not enough for my parents' and grandparents' generations to think anything other than vague discomfort at such notions. Change happens so slowly in homogeneous communities.

[andrewducker]

I agree.

But at that point you're clearly into the "You're just being a dick" territory rather than arguing over what sex someone _really_ is, and ending up throwing definitions at each other.