Impersonal Pronoun Puns

one supremacy btw

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When I first started learning Spanish in school some 30 years ago, I recall being taught to use uno/a as impersonal pronouns e.g. si uno quiere estar seguro.

Am I correct in thinking that this is either extremely formal or very old fashioned? I guess the same as using 'one' as an English pronoun?

I personally have never used this construction nor have I heard it spoken or written down so just intrigued as to why I was taught it. Do native speakers ever use this?

I can't quite remember, but does OE have a version of modern's English's "its"?

Like if you were translate "The dog ate everything in its path." to "Se hund ǣt eall in [?] pæð."

If there is no genitive for the third person impersonal pronoun, how would you go about translating this? Thanks!

In English for example ‚one‘ feels a bit stifled, old-fashioned or even pretentious. We are conditioned (and find it preferable) to use ‚you‘. Do you now find yourself using ‚one‘ more when speaking, thinking, or talking in your native language, now that you‘ve learnt a bit of German?

In some languages, there is the concept of an impersonal pronoun. For lack of better terms, it's a pronoun used in a sentence to describe something undefined.

For example, English and Spanish have this, used when describing the weather or what is possible in a particular situation:

>It is sunny.

>One eats at a restaurant. (Not sure about this one)

>Hace calor.

>Se habla español.

Is there such a concept in Japanese? If so, is it used in roughly the same places as in English and Spanish?

(I'm not sure if sentences like 「晴れです。」count, in that I'm not sure if the pronoun drop is really an impersonal pronoun or if it's just a pronoun dropped due to understood context. Or maybe I'm looking way too deeply into this.)

In school they taught us that man is the impersonal pronoun in German. However, it seems ein can be used for the same (or similar?) purpose, much like one in English:

> Trumps Ahnungslosigkeit ist eine Sache, sein unberechenbares Temperament eine andere. Eine Eigenschaft allein würde ausreichen, ihn für das Amt zu disqualifizieren. Beide zusammen müssen einem Gänsehaut verursachen.

(From Die Zeit, emphasis mine.)

How common is this usage? Coud one use man in the quote above?

Title probably just sounds confusing. If I'm using one as an indefinite pronoun, but don't want to sound too formal or affected, can I refer to the person the pronoun represents with, e.g., he?

i.e.: ... if one has tried his best ...

It took a while to think of a decent example, but that one seems to cover what I'm going for.

This isn't really a question about gender-neutral language, would just like to know where you all stand on this.

My teenager will be starting T as soon as we've signed his paperwork and gotten some initial blood testing. He came out nearly 2 years ago - during the most chaotic early phases of covid shutdowns and work/school complications, but in some ways that afforded us (his family) the chance to absorb the information and learn how to shift pronouns etc.

He went with they/their for a year and a half, and just asked to go with he/him - and we've coped some of the hardest parts of his coming out: his dysphoria, extended family, school protections, contextualizing how this fits with his life up to this point, etc.

I'd say we're doing well - - and he said so today, as well (to the transgender surgeon we spoke with during a consultation for starting hormone therapy) - and I'm feeling good about all of us weathering the initial challenges.

Here's my question - with the shift from transitioning to nonbinary, to (trans)male, comes the realization that - holy shit - I have a mid-teenage son. Going their whole lives with the understanding (though never with significant expectations that they conform to any gender norms - beyond the occasional "would a dress be good for school photos?") that I had two daughters, I now recognize that I have a son and a daughter. There's a feeling of lost time - even though I've been his primary caregiver since birth, and we've always been really close. In the back of my head - I always had this notion that some of their gender concerns would naturally fall more within my wife's wheelhouse. I don't know the logistics of some menstrual products, timing, etc. I know more about how boys tend to interrelate compared to how girls tend to.

I said "here's my question" and didn't give it yet - - the question is: How does a father best, and most effectively and helpfully, adjust to becoming a father to a son that he effectively never knew he had? Are there specific books and resources for that circumstance? Possibly - I know this sounds detached and oddly impersonal, seeing as I know him so well - something even for fathers marrying into a blended family and learning some new approaches on the fly?

I hope I haven't done a lousy job of describing this. I know most of you here are totally aware of how much weight the description "it's complicated" can carry. I want to be the best dad I can be. I thought maybe there could be specific resources for this that you know about.

I found two examples in an online dictionary that I can't figure out why they're written in such a way:

"Se le va a hacer tarde". I think this means he or she will be late but why not just "va a hacer tarde"?

"Tomó el dinero y se lo metió en el bolsillo". I think this means he took it and put it in his pocket. Is this a case of changing 'le' to 'se' because of it being followed by 'lo'? Why is 'se' bring used here?

I also saw this comment on another thread and didn't understand the 'le' portion or why there's an 'a' before 'los letras' : Obviamente le entiendo a las letras pero no le habría dado ese sentido.

As a beginner learner, I'm finding these pronouns to be very tricky in terms of placement and when they're needed.

Hello! I have a quick question because I can't seem to get my head around this. Someone tried to explain this to me however I do not really understand since English is not my first language (class is in English and they speak very fast).

I was listening to a song by Lele Pons called "se te nota" and I was curious what the "double" pronouns mean and how to use them. I was told se te nota means you notice, however, I don't understand why it is not "te nota" or "notas". Any help is appreciated!

This is a little confusing:

como te sientes - how do you feel?
como se siente - how does he feel?
como se dice - how do you say?

Is "como te dices" a used phrase? If so, shouldn't that be "how do you say" and "como se dice" be "how does he say"?

1. The first one has to do with using lo in a "general" (for lack of a better word) way. I understand how it's used in more standard contexts when it replaces el or la for example, but I'm learning that it's often used in platitudes and whatnot as well. For instance, the phrase "dinero lo cambia todo." What purpose does lo serve in this sentence? Is it just for emphasis or is it necessary in order to sound right? And what are some other contexts where lo is used in such a way?

2. I'm also looking to strengthen my understanding of how to shorten phrases that use indirect object pronouns. To my understanding, you can shorten a phrase like "le compré la flor a mi hija" to "se la compré". I guess my question here ultimately would be how can I improve my understanding of when to use se in order to shorten a sentence? It seems to me that there are other situations it's used in similar fashions, but I don't quite understand when and where to use it at this point.

Thanks!

I've only ever seen God referred to with "Him" pronouns. Is there any Biblical reason that God is a he? My first thought is that ancient Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek didn't have a neutral pronoun for refer to a being (like how we use Man to refer to mankind). My second thought is that because Jesus was a man, God was treated as such by extension.

Either way, i've never encountered anything that says God is a man (not to mention in human form to begin with), & i feel like it's just another subliminal way to encourage a patriarchal, male dominant society. As someone who believes that women belong at the pulpit as much as men do, i'm taking to the idea of using they/them when referring to God.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I don't have any progressive Christian friends so i don't really have a way to bounce this idea around with anyone

I'm writing a little book of one sentence stories. I want to be inclusive and include nonbinary and transgender perspectives, but I still feel (emphasis on the word feel there) like "they" is plural at best, and impersonal at worst. (I know that they is not necessarily plural, and not necessarily impersonal, but I, the person writing the words on the page, feel like they are.)

Now there are ways to write a person without denoting gender: "The bartender handed me a drink" is technically a nongendered, nonbinary statement... I think. But it's not explicitly nonbinary, and I feel like nonbinary individuals deserve to be explicitly included in what I'm writing.

I dunno, maybe it's because I'm 36 and I learned a 20th century english that isn't up to the job of describing a 21st century world, but "they" and "them" just feel cold to me in a way that the words "he" and "she" don't.

I'd like a way to refer to nonbinary and transgender individuals that doesn't feel cold, clinical, and impersonal.

Fair dues here: I'm 36, I learned an english that was tailor made for the 20th century, but seems to struggle a little bit in the 21st. It could very well be that "they" and "them" aren't cold, aren't clinical, aren't impersonal, and it's just my experience and education that make them feel that way, this could very well be a me problem (most things are.) I dunno. Do people younger than myself not consider "they" and "them" as impersonal? Because if this is just a me thing then I can definitely swallow my discomfort, that's not a problem, I just fear that my discomfort is indicative that others might be made uncomfortable as well.

Also, on the subject of feelings, I feel like I ought to say this: I apologize if I've stepped on anyone's toes with this question. I'm totally down with transgender and nonbinary individuals, I respect you and I don't just think you're valid, I know you're valid. Please don't take my personal discomfort with word choice as an indication that I have discomfort with you; nothing could be farther from the truth.

So yeah, tips and tricks? Suggestions? Invectives? All are welcome!

Here is a document I plan to distribute to my second-semester Spanish students when my college reopens later this month. It is tailored to the college's curriculum, which is based on Gente, but I expect that other students will find it helpful as well.

The document will regain its correct pagination if you download it into Word. I didn't want to upload a PDF because the document contains some hyperlinks.

My crazy goal was to summarize concisely all of the following topics:

• Affirmative commands
• 2 other ways to say what people should do
• Reflexive verbs
• Se impersonal
• Ir a + infinitivo
• Estar + gerundio (present progressive)
• Verbs like gustar
• Ser and estar
• Irregular verbs in the present tense
• Where to put reflexive and object pronouns

Edit: I just fixed a mistake on the second page. Unlike ser and ir, estar did not merge multiple verbs.

The new worldlang Lugamun now has 400 words listed in its dictionary. Also, much progress has been made in developing and describing its grammar. Some gaps still remain, but most of the core elements are now clear and at least quickly documented.

Please follow the link for the whole current draft of the grammar – here is a summary of its most important aspects:

• c is pronounced like English 'ch'; x like 'sh'; g is always hard as in 'get'; s is always voiceless as in 'sit'; r is preferably spoken as in Spanish caro, but the English 'r' as in 'red' is also acceptable. The vowels are pronounced as in Spanish or Italian; ai, au, oi are diphthongs. The letters q, v and z are not used in normal Lugamun words.
• Stress falls on the last vowel (which may be a diphthong) before the last consonant. If there is no such vowel, the first vowel is stressed.
• Word order is subject – verb – object (SVO), as in English.
• Nouns precede adjectives: burun yuni – a young bird.
• Quantifiers express how much or how many of some entity are meant. They include numbers as well as ingi – many, much, a lot, very; mala – few, little; xie – some; no – no; ol – all (the), the whole of; yo (plural marker).
• Selectors indicate to which individuals a noun phrases refers to: si – this, these; ta – that, those; ke – what (used in questions); eni – any, whichever; aru – (a) certain, some; kada – every, each, either; otra – other, another; sama – (the) same.
• Quantifiers and selectors are placed before the noun to which they refer: ingi awan – many clouds; yo kat – (the) cats; si do ruma – these two houses; sama manto – the same cloak. They may also be used stand-alone.
• When the subject or object of a clause is negated, the verb is negated as well: Mi no li miru no jen. – I didn't see anyone.
• The personal pronouns are: mi – I, me; ti – you (singular); ya – he, she, him, her (used for animals, people, and other intelligent beings); it – it (used for things and plants); nas – we, us; tum – you (plural); le – they, them; on – one, you (impersonal, generic).
• Placing these pronouns at the end of noun phrase makes them possessive: mama mi – my mother; ruma le – their house.
• Verb phrases are generally introduced by the p

GRAMMATICALIZATION

Grammaticalization is a process where words that formerly had lexical, non-grammatical meanings come to be used as words (or clitics or affixes) with grammatical meanings. All that grammar’s gotta come from somewhere after all.

One classic example is the English future modal will. Will started out his life…or…its life as a full verb meaning ‘to want.’ Saying ‘I will eat cookies’ meant you Wanted to eat cookies, and you could conjugate the verb fully (to will: I will, thou wilt, etc.). Then, it started to lose the sense of ‘want’ and gain a meaning of ‘future tense.’ It stopped being used as the main verb of a clause and lost most of its conjugated forms. Now, instead of being a content word, it’s just a grammatical word used to mark tense.

Grammaticalization can go even further. Many affixes ultimately come from independent words. The Romance languages’ future tense markers come from reduced forms of the verb ‘to have.’ Forms like ’cantare habeo’ ‘I-have to-sing’ became reduced to give one-word future tense forms like Italian canterò, where the second word became so eroded it ended up just as a suffix. This sort of erosion over time is common as things become more and more grammaticalized.

The opposite process, degrammaticalization, is also possible, although rare. Modern Irish innovated a first-person plural pronoun muid, which came from a reanalysis of the corresponding verb ending, which is -mid in the present tense. Since Irish is VSO, a verb plus a pronoun sounded similar to a verb plus a personal ending, and the ending ended up breaking off and becoming an independent pronoun!

Here’s an example from u/Cassalalia’s conlang Skysong. Cass shared sound files of their conlang so you can hear what it sounds like! Click on the links for each example to hear a sound file for it.

In Skysong (āɛ̄wēyo /˨˨̠‌˧˧̠‌˩˦˦‌˥˩/), a purely tonal language of flying creatures, objects of verbs may be incorporated to form a compound verb that has one lower valency:

ehāre āwa iʔ owaro

˦‌˦˨˨‌˨˦‌    ˨˨̠‌˩˨‌   ˥‌· ˩‌˩˨‌˨˩‌ 
carry rock A 1S 
I'm carrying rock.

āwaehāre owaro

˨˨̠‌˩˨‌  -˦‌˦˨˨‌˨˦‌    ˩‌˩˨‌˨˩‌ 
rock-carry 1S 
I'm rock-carrying, i.e. I'm performing hard, boring labor.

The impersonal voice was formed through the gramma

(Because I am as dumb as a stick, I posted this on the wrong subreddit <3, so if you have seen this before that post was mine and I took it down)

Hello! So, a bit of an explanation for why I'm posting this. I'm an AFAB agender person, and I've been questioning my gender ever since I was fourteen. But since no one takes me seriously enough to stop referring to me as a girl (somehow they think I'm cis because I use she/they pronouns), they still use my current name: Sofia.

Sofia is a very common Brazilian name for girls. When I started questioning my gender, I've always been bothered by this name, but I was very afraid that my dumbass self would forget I changed my name and not respond to the new one. That was until I lived in a military institution for a few months.

In the military, our names are changed to our "war names". And, because Sofia is a very common name and there was already another Sofia in my squad, my war name was one of my extremely gender-neutral surnames. People have told me that, if they didn't know me in person, they wouldn't be able to tell my gender for sure.

And, unlike what I thought, it didn't take too much to get used to being referred by it. Being gender-neutral, for once in my life, felt nice, and it was easy for me to get used to that.

As of recently, I left that institution and went back to my parents' house. And the people around me have never known me by my war name, so they refer to me as Sofia again. I didn't think that my name bothered me that much, but I missed the gender-neutrality of my war name.

Despite that, I don't want them to refer to me by my war name. It feels impersonal and more work-like, and I have known these people for years now. So I want to change my name to a more gender-neutral one, which is going to be hard, because things here in Brazil are super gendered.

Do you all have any suggestions?

From what I’ve seen they all seem to mean is

(I don’t mean the “and” definition of si)

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Hey! In my spare time I'm working on a highly agglutinative minlang that, with less than 1k roots and only basic grammar (four declensions, four tenses, and basically only three parts of speech: nouns+adjectives, verbs and particles) would cover most of everyday conversations – and hopefully much more, even though an astrophysics textbook seems out of reach:). It's a lot of fun trying to not only make up creative shortcuts that would make an artificial language, well, useful, but also trying to balance the weirdness and keep it simple to learn. I've asked a couple of months ago about the (typical in the PIE languages) three persons verb inflection, looking for ways to simplify it and break it down and you've given me quite a lot of ideas, so here I am with yet another open question – what do you do with reflexive verbs (and, somehow, impersonal verbs that seem to me to be loosely connected)?

The grammar of my minlang is supposed to be terribly regular (but then – boring and repetitive). But then the point is to also leave a lot of space for being creative, poetic, having one's own style of speaking etc. What I did not take into account was reflexivity and I supposed that it would be, most of the time, self-explanatory. "He cleans and then he goes to sleep" would basically imply he washes himself and he puts himself to sleep, while the same phrase with an accusative noun (there are four basic cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative) would mean, e.g., "He cleans the house(acc) and puts the kids(acc) to sleep(inf)".

But then, introducing the reflexive pronoun (-self, Latin/French se etc.) has a lot of pros and only some cons. It would make the language cleaner, more logical, but also more repetitive. It would make some verbs more productive and introduce fancy ambiguities where they're welcome, but it'd also mean there was a fixed list of reflexive verbs (where either a reflexive pronoun or some object is obligatory) to memorize. In my own language there's a fancy construction – you can add the reflexive pronoun to almost any non-reflexive verb which can be sort of translated into English as "One does XY", the French on or the German das Man – and it seems to me to be quite a nice feature. That's the impersonal part of reflexivity that I like a lot.

Creating yet another suffix/prefix for reflexivity in verb conjugation is out of the question because I really want to keep things simple. So my question is – do your conlangs have any inter

As the title says, I'm having a bit of difficulty. And before you suggest it, I've already tried r/TransTryouts; it felt like they were talking about a hypothetical person who happened to share the name I'm considering, not about me, so there's no information to be had there. Anyway, I'll try to write out my thoughts here, and maybe someone can suggest an answer or some next steps, or maybe it'll become clear to me as I'm writing.

• I've had he/him used on me my whole life. I associate it with a slightly bitter taste, which you'd think means I don't like it. But I'm not convinced it's that simple -- I like some bitter foods and drinks, like tonic water. Am I meant to push through the feeling, slowing down a bit as I go, and reach some sort of enjoyment on the other side? It's certainly not the unpalatable makes-you-sick bitterness of uncoated sudafed or San Pedro cactus juice.
• I can remember a few times someone's used they/them on me, and that it sometimes felt nice. But there were other reasons for it to feel nice at the time, so it's hard to be sure whether I was having gender euphoria or a non-gendered reaction to the situation. I also don't know to what extent I'm selectively remembering the pleasant experiences and forgetting the neutral ones. Thinking about it intellectually, they/them feels a bit more formal and impersonal than I'd like to go for, but as the saying goes, "prediction is hard, especially about the future"
• No one has ever used she/her on me in a way that felt real. Contemplating asking them to feels scary, with part of that fear being specifically an uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability. But I've liked some fem clothes, and maybe I'd enjoy the pronouns to match, if I could think about it without interference. I've accidentally slipped into she/her when talking about my past self while intoxicated on psychedelics, and that felt natural.
• When I'm in the right mood, it/its feels pleasantly salty and gremlin-ish. It reminds me of eating oysters off the half shell, and of a particular meme about goblin androgyny. But I'm rarely in that mood. And also, even nice people (if they're not very well-informed) will sometimes fight you if you ask for the pronouns they'd use for inanimate objects, and having to constantly fight people sounds like no fun.
• No neopronouns I've seen particularly spark joy in me.
• Asking for anything other than he/him or "any pronouns" feels like I'm demanding things I d

Do your worst!

Hi all,

I started coming out as MTF around 6 months ago and I can happily say that I am now out to everyone in my life... other than my professional life, that is.

I work a white collar office job at a pretty big company. I'm not even sure who to reach out to first - should I start by talking to HR about updating my name and gender markers? Or should I reach out to my manager? Should I message everyone on my team, or just key leadership?

When I do reach out, should I be to-the-point and simply inform people of my new name and pronouns, or is that too impersonal?

I want to keep it simple, but I feel that I have to say something as doing nothing but updating my email signature could lead to confusion, especially as we're almost all working remotely at the moment.

And... if anyone has any advice for getting a professional headshot done, I'm all ears. The only decent photo of me as a woman was very obviously taken in a bar, and I somehow don't think that'll fly on Linkedin, lol.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

I'm 31, so not a kid. I have a complex relationship with my parents, especially my dad. We're really close but opposites in politics and most social issues and I had a complicated childhood. I also have BPD, which gives me a lot of validation issues among other things. I identify as nonbinary leaning transmasc, and have dreaded telling my dad for a couple years, to the point where my therapist and I decided I just should because it was causing my so much anxiety.

In his own way, dad was accepting. He's not going change my pronouns or that, and morally and religiously he is not in favor, but he said he does love and accept me and it was worlds better than I thought it would be. He was kind about it.

The thing is since I told him I feel weird and disconnected. At first I felt a happy high but it wore off and now I just feel exposed and yucky tbh. Coinciding with this is the fact that I recent officially switched to they/them pronouns, and was really happy, but last night hearing my husband use my pronoun when talking to my friend made me feel weird. I don't like she/her (I'm afab so that's what I'm used to hearing) and I'm not ready to take the step to he/him, but hearing they used for me made me feel really detached and like it was impersonal. Almost like I should go back to she/her, like it is safer. But I'm also super not used to hearing it.

I almost feel like dad being nice makes me feel more guilty knowing it's not his favorite, and kind of my brain trying to go back a bit, I don't know. Almost like maybe if he had been awful it would have been easier to be myself. Like I said I have a lot of mental stuff and I do see a therapist. At this point I'm almost certain I'm not cis, because I've felt this way long enough and consistently enough, but moments like this makes me doubt and worry. And feel fake, somehow. (I've been told before that cis people don't think this much about gender, and I cling to that lol, for some reason I would be pretty bummed to realize I'm cis, even though sometimes I wish I just felt like my agab cause it would be easier).

Sometimes if I've been thinking of myself as a boy (I have trouble thinking of myself as a man....that's a whole other thing but I think I have some denial because, horrible as it sounds, I've never been super fond of men in general. I grew up in a very patriarchal mindset and it was rough. I know that's awful to feel that way and I am trying to work on it, I mean no offense to anyone

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

I'm not sure how to best put this all into words, so if you have issues understanding something please let me know.

I, 21NB, came out publicly as nonbinary last October. I've known that I am nonbinary for going on seven years now and tried and failed to come out to my mom and family when I was younger. Eventually I got tired of living in the closet and announced I used they/them pronouns on coming out day last year.

It was rocky at first with my parents (56M and 57F), which was to be expected. They would only occasionally use they/them, but only alone and would still refer to me as their daughter. It's hard correcting them but I do try, but sometimes it doesn't do anything. They'll correct themselves and then misgender me a sentence later. At first when I came out I would also give them links to resources, and once even showed them a Facebook group for parents of transgender kids, but they never looked into anything I gave them so I eventually stopped.

Honestly it wore down on me to the extent I moved out earlier this year because of it. I'd rather live alone and be broke than have to listen to them misgender me every day. I didn't tell them that's why I moved out.

Recently I was at their house for dinner and my mom came and sat next to me and asked if I would be OK with her using neo-pronouns for me instead of they/them. This took me by surprise because I never expected her to do her own research into things like pronouns (though I don't think she's done any further research in any other area). I told her that I don't personally use neo pronouns, but after she asked a few more times I said "whatever. Fine."

My sister (35f) recently texted me to ask if I was using new pronouns now. I explained the situation, saying that I didn't feel comfortable using neo pronouns but I didn't want to cause an argument or anything. She sent a long text where she said (paraphrased. I can show the text if necessary) "since mom is having issues with they/them because of how impersonal it is, maybe you should come to a compromise. You could find some other pronouns she could use, or maybe she could use your name instead of pronouns. Also show her some research that shows how harmful misgendering is."  All I said was "I'll think about it."

I am not comfortable compromising with her about this. I am only comfortable with her using they/them pronouns and I don't want her to use my name instead. I havent told my parents this either but I've always hated my name and I

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

Heard they've been doing some shady business.

BamBOO!

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Christopher Walken

Nothing, he was gladiator.