The plural -s ending forming a noun out of an adjective is a fun little corner case in English morphology. "Politics" is explicitly patterned after Aristotle's τά πολῑτῐκᾱ́, "affairs of the state." "Mathematics" is from Latin mathematica, which is singular. "Physics" is attested as "physic" in older English, which conforms with its singular declension in Greek φυσική. I'm assuming this affix develops out of the truncation of a noun phrase, or the use of adjectives as substantives? Like, "Which candy do you like? I like red ones, I like the reds," type constructions. But it's fun that in the development of the -ics ending there's an English construction that's used in a way frequently parallel to the Greek derived -ology, or the older Germanic -craft. Seems especially suitable for big, complex fields like mathematics that have lots of subfields. Like, there's more than one mathematic! That makes a lot of sense to me. Though I guess American verbal agreement patterns still prefer a singular verb here, in contrast to the Commonwealth usage.

Note on this "math" versus "maths"; the number is consistent even with abbreviation.

(Brits make fun of Americans for saying "math", since the word obviously has an 's' on it; for years I've responded that in America we only have one mathematic.)

But this does make me ask the very silly question of whether British students ever take an econs class.

Gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the main character Utena is a girl (it says so in the title), but very conspicuously uses the masculine first person pronoun 僕 (boku) and dresses in (a variation of) the boys school uniform. Utena's gender, and gender in general, is a core theme of the work. And yet, I haven’t seen a single translation or analysis post where anyone considers using anything other than she/her for Utena when speaking of her in English. This made me wonder: how does one’s choice of pronouns in Japanese correspond to what one’s preferred pronouns would be in English?

There are 3 main differences between gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

Let’s look at each of these differences in turn and how these differences might lead to a seeming incongruity between one’s Japanese pronoun choice and one’s English pronoun choice (such as the 僕 (boku) vs she/her discrepancy with Utena).

Part 1: First-person vs third-person

While Japanese does technically have gendered third person pronouns （彼、彼女） they are used infrequently¹ and have much less cultural importance placed on them than English third person pronouns. Therefore, I would argue that the cultural equivalent of the gender-signifying third-person pronoun in English is the Japanese first-person pronoun. Much like English “pronouns in bio”, Japanese first-person pronoun choice is considered an expression of identity.

Japanese pronouns are used exclusively to refer to yourself, and therefore a speaker can change the pronoun they’re using for themself on a whim, sometimes mid-conversation, without it being much of an incident. Meanwhile in English, Marquis Bey argues that “Pronouns are like tiny vessels of verification that others are picking up what you are putting down” (2021). By having others use them and externally verify the internal truth of one’s gender, English pronouns, I believe, are seen as more truthful, less frivolous, than Japanese pronouns. They are seen as signifying an objective truth of the referent’s gender; if not objective then at least socially agreed-upon, while Japanese pronouns only signify how the subject feels at this particular moment — purely subjective.

Part 2: Context dependent pronoun use

Japanese speakers often don’t use just one pronoun. As you can see in the below chart, a young man using 俺 (ore) among friends might use 私 (watashi) or 自分 (jibun) when speaking to a teacher. This complicates the idea that these pronouns are gendered, because their gendering depends heavily on context. A man using 私 (watashi) to a teacher is gender-conforming, a man using 私 (watashi) while drinking with friends is gender-non-conforming. Again, this reinforces the relative instability of Japanese pronoun choice, and distances it from gender.

Part 3: Signifying more than gender

English pronouns signify little besides the gender of the antecedent. Because of this, pronouns in English have come to be a shorthand for expressing one’s own gender experience - they reflect an internal gendered truth. However, Japanese pronoun choice doesn’t reflect an “internal truth” of gender. It can signify multiple aspects of your self - gender, sexuality, personality.

For example, 僕 (boku) is used by gay men to communicate that they are bottoms, contrasted with the use of 俺 (ore) by tops. 僕 (boku) may also be used by softer, academic men and boys (in casual contexts - note that many men use 僕 (boku) in more formal contexts) as a personality signifier - maybe to communicate something as simplistic as “I’m not the kind of guy who’s into sports.” 俺 (ore) could be used by a butch lesbian who still strongly identifies as a woman, in order to signify sexuality and an assertive personality. 私 (watashi) may be used by people of all genders to convey professionalism. The list goes on.

I believe this is what’s happening with Utena - she is signifying her rebellion against traditional feminine gender roles with her use of 僕 (boku), but as part of this rebellion, she necessarily must still be a girl. Rather than saying “girls don’t use boku, so I’m not a girl”, her pronoun choice is saying “your conception of femininity is bullshit, girls can use boku too”.

Through translation, gendered assumptions need to be made, sometimes about real people. Remember that he/they, she/her, they/them are purely English linguistic constructs, and don’t correspond directly to one’s gender, just as they don’t correspond directly to the Japanese pronouns one might use. Imagine a scenario where you are translating a news story about a Japanese genderqueer person. The most ethical way to determine what pronouns they would prefer would be to get in contact with them and ask them, right? But what if they don’t speak English? Are you going to have to teach them English, and the nuances of English pronoun choice, before you can translate the piece? That would be ridiculous! It’s simply not a viable option². So you must make a gendered assumption based on all the factors - their Japanese pronoun use (context dependent!), their clothing, the way they present their body, their speech patterns, etc.

If translation is about rewriting the text as if it were originally in the target language, you must also rewrite the gender of those people and characters in the translation. The question you must ask yourself is: How does their gender presentation, which has been tailored to a Japanese-language understanding of gender, correspond to an equivalent English-language understanding of gender? This is an incredibly fraught decision, but nonetheless a necessary one. It’s an unsatisfying dilemma, and one that poignantly exposes the fickle, unstable, culture-dependent nature of gender.

Notes and References

¹ Usually in Japanese, speakers use the person’s name directly to address someone in second or third person

² And has colonialist undertones as a solution if you ask me - “You need to pick English pronouns! You ought to understand your gender through our language!”

Bey, Marquis— 2021 Re: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender

Rose divider taken from this post

As is well known*, the rule** for turning proper names that end in an "s" into possessives is that you add 's, unless the name is Jesus or Moses, in which case you just add an apostrophe. So "Jesus' tears" but "Harris's tears".

But I just hit an interesting edge case. What about people who are named "Moses" or "Jesus", but aren't the Moses or the Jesus? What's the rule there?

* By me and like three other people

** followed by me and like three other people

Spelling and pronunciation aren't the same thing! I would absolutely pronounce Jesus' with three syllables.

IIRC the rule I learned in grade school was -s' for plurals (parents', kings', houses'), but -s's for singulars (Jesus's, James's, Athens's--although that -s on the end of Athens originated as a plural markers so idk that might be an especially ambiguous case). Which I think mostly reflects pronunciation? I don't think the plural -s and the possessive -s affixes stack in spoken English.

But for singular nouns ending in -s, especially proper nouns, I don't think one or the other looks especially correct or incorrect to me. Jesus' and Moses' don't make me bat an eye, but neither do Jesus's or Moses's. Though for both those names, we can blame the Greeks for fucking things up for us--they're the ones responsible for the final -s, without which they would just be Jesu and Moshe.

Sure, I think everyone agrees on common nouns. Plural nouns ending in -s just take the apostrophe; singular nouns that end in s take a -'s ending. (I think no one endorses "the dress' color".)

The debate is over singular proper nouns that end in s. Rules I have seen proposed:

(also me, I also endorse s' over s's in singular common nouns that end in s)

Wow that's a new one to me.

Also a terrible one, but a new one.

As is well known*, the rule** for turning proper names that end in an "s" into possessives is that you add 's, unless the name is Jesus or Moses, in which case you just add an apostrophe. So "Jesus' tears" but "Harris's tears".

But I just hit an interesting edge case. What about people who are named "Moses" or "Jesus", but aren't the Moses or the Jesus? What's the rule there?

* By me and like three other people

** followed by me and like three other people

Spelling and pronunciation aren't the same thing! I would absolutely pronounce Jesus' with three syllables.

IIRC the rule I learned in grade school was -s' for plurals (parents', kings', houses'), but -s's for singulars (Jesus's, James's, Athens's--although that -s on the end of Athens originated as a plural markers so idk that might be an especially ambiguous case). Which I think mostly reflects pronunciation? I don't think the plural -s and the possessive -s affixes stack in spoken English.

But for singular nouns ending in -s, especially proper nouns, I don't think one or the other looks especially correct or incorrect to me. Jesus' and Moses' don't make me bat an eye, but neither do Jesus's or Moses's. Though for both those names, we can blame the Greeks for fucking things up for us--they're the ones responsible for the final -s, without which they would just be Jesu and Moshe.

Sure, I think everyone agrees on common nouns. Plural nouns ending in -s just take the apostrophe; singular nouns that end in s take a -'s ending. (I think no one endorses "the dress' color".)

The debate is over singular proper nouns that end in s. Rules I have seen proposed:

As is well known*, the rule** for turning proper names that end in an "s" into possessives is that you add 's, unless the name is Jesus or Moses, in which case you just add an apostrophe. So "Jesus' tears" but "Harris's tears".

But I just hit an interesting edge case. What about people who are named "Moses" or "Jesus", but aren't the Moses or the Jesus? What's the rule there?

* By me and like three other people

** followed by me and like three other people

Spelling and pronunciation aren't the same thing! I would absolutely pronounce Jesus' with three syllables.

As is well known*, the rule** for turning proper names that end in an "s" into possessives is that you add 's, unless the name is Jesus or Moses, in which case you just add an apostrophe. So "Jesus' tears" but "Harris's tears".

But I just hit an interesting edge case. What about people who are named "Moses" or "Jesus", but aren't the Moses or the Jesus? What's the rule there?

* By me and like three other people

** followed by me and like three other people

I got in big trouble with a substitute teacher for writing Lewis's instead of Lewis' on a spelling/grammar test in like, 3rd grade.

(Not because I wrote the "wrong" answer, but because I argued that it wasn't wrong.)

I'm still bitter about it. It's a POINT OF VARIATION damnit, neither one is "objectively correct".

Yeah, my wise mind says that there are a bunch of valid orthographic choices here, and "Lewis's" seems like the best choice but there are a lot of options that are all reasonably valid.

My autistic petty bitch mind says that I learned this rule, in high school, and everyone else is doing it wrong!!!.

The higher synthesis, of course, comes from my shitposting mind.

"Why do all gender-bent characters have names ending in -a, that's such a fanfic trope" buddy, the "girl names end in -a" trope is so old that JRR Tolkien invented a Hobbitish dialect of Westron in which "-a" is a masculine name affix, then turned around and "localised" those names to end in "-o" in the published text (e.g., Bilba > Bilbo, Maura > Frodo, etc.) so they wouldn't sound feminine to Anglophone readers.

Also isn’t that trope just derived from the fact that a lot of the Romance languages are gendered and that has influenced European linguistics and naming conventions to sound like that?

In part, yes, though the majority of personal names in most English-speaking cultures are not descended from Latin; this is one of those situations where you need to be cautious about leaping from "this influenced the situation" to "this is The Cause of the situation".

I was curious so I looked this up.

Apparently in Old English, -a was a typically masculine suffix. (Which may be how Hobbitish Westron wound up that way?) But I think that's unusual in Proto-Indo-European, which had -a as a typically feminine suffix. Which would explain why it's common and not just from Latin names.

It does raise the question of how it became a masculine ending in Old English, though.

Inshallah tomorrow I will reply to the rest of your email = I think I might, but if I don't, that's god's will and you can't blame me.

Yeah, that sounds right to what I had thought.

Some version of "I'd like it to happen, but hell if I know if it will."

my (very white, very middle european, very protestant christian, very sixty-year old) father just dropped an inshallah in casual conversation. without precedent or without any acknowledgement. "inshallah they will send us a new internet router" he said. didn't even stutter. what did he mean by this.

One of my friends out here is an Arabic major who spent like ten years with various foreign service organizations in Arabic-speaking countries.

And she was explaining to me how "inshallah" was this useful word that more of us should adopt, and I was like "yeah, doesn't everyone have that in their vocabulary?" And she was a little surprised.

(Now I rarely say it but it's absolutely not foreign to me.)

A thing I think about a lot is

I once dated a Romanian girl, who'd moved to the US recently-at-the-time. And her English was absolutely fluent, but also sometimes really cute.

And instead of saying "thank God" she would always say "thanks God", which I assumed was some weird calque from the way they said it in Romania. Until after several months of dating I asked her about it, and it turns out she'd been misinterpreting the phrase the entire time, as "[smiles perkily] hey, thanks, God!"

(My favorite, though, is that she had learned a bunch of math words in Romanian, and sometimes pronounced them with a Romanian accent. And in particular the long-a sound tended to come out as somewhere between the sounds in "cat" and "father". So when she talked about "matrices" it sounded like she was discussing bedding.)

my (very white, very middle european, very protestant christian, very sixty-year old) father just dropped an inshallah in casual conversation. without precedent or without any acknowledgement. "inshallah they will send us a new internet router" he said. didn't even stutter. what did he mean by this.

One of my friends out here is an Arabic major who spent like ten years with various foreign service organizations in Arabic-speaking countries.

And she was explaining to me how "inshallah" was this useful word that more of us should adopt, and I was like "yeah, doesn't everyone have that in their vocabulary?" And she was a little surprised.

(Now I rarely say it but it's absolutely not foreign to me.)

i do feel like if u caught me sleepy or wordsbad enough i might say some shit like "i don't have pronouns" to mean what i might otherwise express as "any pronouns" or "whatever's funniest" so that's always a fun layer in situations like the current clowning on trump

This is why the Elmo/Grover "you have blue hair and pronouns" joke works, right?

Elmo actually doesn't have pronouns, at least in Elmo's own idiolect. Elmo always refers to Elmo as Elmo and never uses pronouns to talk about Elmo.

Elmo is the only person or character I know of who actually abjures pronouns. (And I don't believe Elmo would be upset by non-Elmos referring to Elmo as "him", so even then Elmo has pronouns, and just doesn't use them.

And since everyone has pronouns, "I don't have pronouns" has to mean something other than that you don't have pronouns.

I do know some "do not refer to me with [third person] pronouns" people, which I personally find annoying, but is also something one could mean.

And in fact one time I was in a context where there was confusion about this. We were going around a circle saying names and pronouns, "Alice, she/her", "Bob, he/him", "Charlie, they/them", and we got to "David, no thanks", which was followed by Elaine cheering and saying "Elaine, no thanks". Elaine meant that Elaine did not want anyone to use any [third person] pronouns to use for Elaine and had misunderstood David, who meant that he didn't care what pronouns people used for him and wanted to protest requiring pronouns in introductions.

(I don't think I have met anyone, including Elaine, who did not want to be addressed as "you".)

So I've been sitting on this post for a while because I worry it might be super controversial, but I think Elaine's preferences here are unreasonable and no one should feel obligated to respect them.

I both am and am not surprised that you've encountered someone with that preference; I know I said "no one" has that, but there's a lot of people in the world and you can find someone who feels or believes any damn thing.

But asking people to abandon, just, an entire set of grammatical constructions when discussing you seems like a much larger and more unnatural request than asking for "he" instead of "she" or whatever.

In various academic contexts, I keep running across variations of the claim that there's no such thing as good or bad writing, just writing that conforms better or worse to arbitrary social standards.

And I understand where this idea came from! AAVE is a perfectly fine dialect of English and there's nothing "wrong" about writing in that dialect rather than Standard American English. And it makes a lot of sense to me to support, like, middle schoolers writing in their native spoken dialect.

But that somehow metastasized within the pedagogy-of-writing community into the idea that there's no such thing as bad writing. And like, I assure you. There is.

Can you point me to any good writings in AAVE?

I don't generally have any on tap (I'm not an AAVE speaker!) but research for that other post pointed me toward "Should Writers Use They Own English". And while I don't think I agree with the central claim, it's definitely (1) good writing (2) that's not in SAE.

i do feel like if u caught me sleepy or wordsbad enough i might say some shit like "i don't have pronouns" to mean what i might otherwise express as "any pronouns" or "whatever's funniest" so that's always a fun layer in situations like the current clowning on trump

This is why the Elmo/Grover "you have blue hair and pronouns" joke works, right?

Elmo actually doesn't have pronouns, at least in Elmo's own idiolect. Elmo always refers to Elmo as Elmo and never uses pronouns to talk about Elmo.

Elmo is the only person or character I know of who actually abjures pronouns. (And I don't believe Elmo would be upset by non-Elmos referring to Elmo as "him", so even then Elmo has pronouns, and just doesn't use them.

And since everyone has pronouns, "I don't have pronouns" has to mean something other than that you don't have pronouns.

In various academic contexts, I keep running across variations of the claim that there's no such thing as good or bad writing, just writing that conforms better or worse to arbitrary social standards.

And I understand where this idea came from! AAVE is a perfectly fine dialect of English and there's nothing "wrong" about writing in that dialect rather than Standard American English. And it makes a lot of sense to me to support, like, middle schoolers writing in their native spoken dialect.

But that somehow metastasized within the pedagogy-of-writing community into the idea that there's no such thing as bad writing. And like, I assure you. There is.

If you allow middle schoolers to write assignments in a minority dialect, you are permanently locking them out of power and opportunity. If students cannot write in Standard American English, they need to *practice it*

I think there are a number of different goals you could have with a writing assignment, and allowing the use of non-standard dialects is helpful for some of them and not for others.

But even when you are teaching people to write in Standard American English, it can be helpful to acknowledge that you are teaching them a new dialect; their native dialect isn't "wrong", but it's useful to be able to code-switch. My understanding is that's much more effective pedagogy than "correcting" the "bad grammar" of AAVE.

Like @zipper-neck and anyone else, to expand a little more on the bi/pan thing, the story as best I can tell it is this:

Ever since pansexual got it's own flag, people have been coming along, looking at the label options and thinking "well, if pansexuality means being attracted to people regardless of gender, then surely bisexual must mean something different than that!" But the fact of the matter is that this is exactly how many bisexual people would describe their sexuality, and they've been using the term "bisexual" to describe that since long before "pansexual" was popularized and got its own branding.

Some of these people have then gone on to try to insist that the word "pansexual" is the only way to describe that sort of sexuality, and in the process of this spread many myths about what "bisexual" "really means", sometimes in a pretty biphobic fashion (and ofc arguably the whole idea pf telling bisexual people what bisexual is allowed to mean is biphobic to begin with).

To complicate matters, when I say they're "myths", a lot of these purported definitions of bisexuality are how some bisexual people would describe their sexualities. The myth is the idea that any one of these is the definition of bisexuality.

This has led some to conclude that the whole reason for pansexuality existing as a label is because people believed these myths and thus felt they had to come up with a new term for a subset of what "bisexual" already described. That's, imo, the origin of the idea that pansexual is a biphobic label.

The whole bi/pan* thing has always seemed like an example of the common mistake where people believe words must have an objectively correct platonic meaning and then try to figure out what it is.

"Bisexual has 'bi' in it so two must be involved somewhere". Because words always have meanings logically following from their etymologies, like "awful" or "egregious".

"Pansexual means all and bisexual is different so it must mean something different", because synonyms don't exist.

And then there's the related fallacy, which is "I use this word this way, to make a specific distinction; and that means everyone else uses it this way and is making the same distinction. Except all the people who don't, who are wrong." Unfortunately common among people who work in a field that uses common words as technical vocabulary, but also unfortunately common among everyone else.

* I originally typed "pi/ban thing", which somehow feels appropriate for a post complaining about people taking the language too seriously. But also is maybe an indication I should sleep.

Yeah and like part of the issue is that there are various distinctions you could draw. That's one; two versus all is one; I think I've seen "attracted to men and women in the same way" versus "attracted to men and women, but in different ways" mooted as a distinction too.

But no one is using any of those consistently so none of them is what bi versus pan "really means".