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abracanabraIn "The Old Woman By The Sea" (soon to be renamed), "na" is the gender-neutral term, based on "nagara" (used for "citizen"--and going to be removed). Too many people critiquing found it confusing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
[Poll #1515709]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
[Poll #1515709]
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 04:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 04:50 am (UTC)That is hard.
It's easy to do for a first-person POV character (did that once by accident), but for everybody in the story--yikes.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 04:53 am (UTC)I say give it a shot. Worst case, you just stretch your abilities. Best case, you get a story that has a certain something that distinguishes it that others may have a hard time putting their fingers on. (Like writing one without using the letter "e".)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:00 am (UTC)I understand the argument of using one of the above to promote the idea of gender neutrality, and that's valid... but to the contemporary reader (even in scifi communities), it is alienating and that should be similarly pondered.
All in my opinion, of course.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:08 am (UTC)Would it be possible to just eliminate gender pronouns in their case?
Or, I suppose, perhaps just fall back to the old trick of using the plurals... which if the presented gender is multiplicative, might make logical sense anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 06:07 pm (UTC)Also, a critiquer got confused and thought "na" was their name and not the pronoun and had a lot of problems with the "no-pronoun" approach. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:26 am (UTC)I believe I've seen se / ser as non-gendered pronoun used somewhere, but this might be an alien-species thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:54 am (UTC)it's probably a personal thing, but nonstandard pronouns are something that will stop me from reading a book or story. it's confusing, it kills the language flow, and it makes me think that the author's trying to make a political point instead of telling a story.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 05:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 06:02 am (UTC)the pronoun issue is what gets me for some reason. made-up nouns and even verbs or adjectives are par for the course in sci-fi, but pronouns disrupt the flow too much.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 06:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 01:58 pm (UTC)Finnish has traditionally used "hän" as a pronoun which happens to be genderless (the posessive can be constructed as "hänen" ("hir") or hänellä on..." ("s/he has" or lit. "on hir is"). More modern, urban Finns often use "se" (lit. "it") to refer to people, which I find disturbing on a number of levels.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 06:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-25 05:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-24 08:18 pm (UTC)Also see:
http://aetherlumina.com/gnp/references.html
It includes some examples of what other authors have done.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-25 12:37 am (UTC)