Something to consider when world building, culturally specific idioms and metaphors will happen even if all characters are speaking the same language.
ivecaughtawritingbug reblogged
nest-deactivated20181209
Anonymous asked:
My gf is an actual amab cis girl. They wrote male on her birth certificate by mistake
holy shit tell your girlfriend congrats on the fun gender
nest
In an odd inversion, my cis grandfather was marked as female on his DEATH certificate.
thiswebsitenamesareweird
afad
My Dad and all his sibs were born at home and their births were not registered. (This was 1923 to 1933). My Dad and his brother got their births registered in time for the Korean War because they wanted to enlist in the Air Force to avoid being drafted into the Army. His sisters got their births registered when they were in their 40′s because Grandma was getting older, and they would need birth certificates to collect Social Security one day. At the time, all you needed was a believable old woman to sign an affidavit that you were her child, with all the details. The one with the most problems was my Aunt Othella, my Grandma’s oldest child. Someone had registered her (not my grandparents) but had gotten the details wrong. They had the right date in 1923, the right location, and the right parents, but she was registered as Othello, male, and still-born. That took forever to get straightened out.
Grandma didn’t bother to register the children’s births because she didn’t see the need with newborns. When her parents were having kids, in the 1890′s, babies didn’t even get a name as newborns because, as Grandma said, “Ain’t no point in wasting a name on a baby that isn’t going to stay.” They were just called Baby until the next one came along. Of her 16 sibs, 4 did not “stay” long enough to get names, and 3 more died before age 5.
That philosophy is not all that unique, actually. In cultures where there is a high infant mortality rate, children often don’t get named until their first or second birthday, or even later. Obviously, there’s the practical reason that they might die, but there’s also the emotional side - not naming it is often believed to provide an extra hurdle to getting attached.
Not every belief system states “we do this because kids die a lot.” There’s one culture group I’m thinking of that believes in reincarnation. When you’re first born, your soul hasn’t yet forgotten it’s previous life. They don’t want to call you by the wrong name, but they don’t know who you were either, so they just don’t call you by any name.