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Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

Why? I disagree that refusing a request is "ridicule", but even if it was, wouldn't the reason for it be that xe made a ridiculous demand to use a custom dictionary when referring to zer?

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just call people what they want to be called. everything in language is a made-up thing. as long as we understand one another who cares what the words or gestures or whatever actually are? refusing in this case is the author exercising their power to remind someone else that they get no respect, Rodney Dangerfield-style. this is a waste of time and the lecturer is not de-escalating.

Yes indeed. And the lecturer should ask those with special pronoun preferences to address him as the Bible addresses the Lord - deferential and in plural. Because everything in language is made up

> as long as we understand one another who cares what the words or gestures or whatever actually are?

This is actually an argument that people shouldn't be requesting custom, non-standard pronouns.

I already call people what they want to be called: their names. Or, if they want to be called Snake, like a kid in my old neighborhood, that's fine too.

Language is an agreed-upon made-up thing. I'm willing to learn and use a new set of largely agreed-upon pronouns. From among these, I'll call people whatever they want. I'm also willing to use gender neutral pronouns and if he/him/his isn't good enough, I'm willing to use whatever becomes standard.

I'm not willing to learn, remember, and use uniquely-identifying pronouns. Such a request is unreasonable (and rare in my personal experience). Instead, I'll just forgo pronouns entirely: "Snake's book is on Snake's desk" is fine by me.

Which of these Stuart Reges is talking about, I don't know, so I'm willing to reserve judgment. I don't agree with calling him a bully because to me, 'bully' is a pattern of behavior, but the only evidence offered is this single statement and Reges doesn't really give us the context; and also because 'bully' is a label that's often used to discount the opinions of those with whom we disagree and doesn't really open the floor up for much discussion on the topic.

> I'll just forgo pronouns entirely: "Snake's book is on Snake's desk" is fine by me.

This actually illustrates quite well why the whole pronoun fluff is terminally broken.

We call people 'he or she' in many, many cases in which we don't know their names, so obviously we wouldn't know a pronoun either.

You don't have to _remember_ whether someone is male or female because you look at them and it's obvious in 99% of cases. If a pronoun has to be _remembered_ then it becomes something else entirely and you may as well just use the full name as you state.

Exactly. This political correctness has gotten to the point of ridiculousness. Just drop it altogether if it is that much of an issue. It looks like this lecturer was unwilling to realize that and as white male was targeted.

My pronoun is "His Majesty ;)" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/10/07/...

I agree that using particular pronouns is low cost, but let's not pretend it's free. Language is a made-up protocol. A protocol is useful only to the degree that others use the same protocol. The topic is political precisely because it affects others.

The problem is not that you should do it, but that changing social and legal rules say that you must do it or else.

Compelling speech is a very dangerous road, no matter how harmless it starts or how good the intentions.

I think that writing in public about what has likely happened an insignificant amount of times is what amounts to the ridicule.

Declining a request for non-dictionary pronouns is neither here nor there. Calling someone out on the web for making such a request is another matter.

It seems a very silly hill to die on. I personally save my “look at these fools” blogging for people who make their own novel cryptosystems.

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