As Rip mentioned in the Episode, that he thinks germans wouldn‘t do such stupid shit,…. I would love to say you‘re right. But no,… just a few examples.
First of all there was and still is a push to start „gendering“. For example; teacher. In german the male teacher is a „Lehrer“, a female teacher is a „Lehrerin“. So if someone is talking about teachers in general, for females to feel included, you should say „Lehrer*innen“. Which is a complete massacre of the language, not only in my opinion. Because,… you should say it „Lehrer“ a short pause „innen“. Which you have to do, because,…. „Lehrerinnen“ as a word already exists. It‘s the plural of „Lehrerin“. To stick with the example of teacher in german,… as not many people went with the push they now started to go for gender-neutral words. So,… instead of „Lehrer“ or „Lehrerin“ the woke started using „Lehrende“. I guess there‘s not a good englisch translation. Teaching person comes close. Biggest „are you fucking retarded“ moment was the first time, I read the term „birth giving person“ instead of the german word „Schwangere“. Pregnant in german is „schwanger“. A „Schwangere“ is the german noun for a pregnant women. And,… as only females can get pregnant, „Schwangere“ alone says it all. You don‘t have to add women to it.
I could go on and on with other examples.
Fortunately, I have the feeling that this bullshit loses traction. The general public doesn‘t like that bullshit. On the other hand,… my niece is in University right now, and they are forced to gender in their homework. If she doesn‘t do it, they won‘t accept it as accomplished.
I listened to that episode also. You are correct about the German examples. I am currently refreshing my french and learned that this is a thing now there, as well.
Well I guess this is all some kind of curve that currently goes upwards and we will stabilize or decrease at some point. Language constantly changes, that is nothing new.
The whole purpose of the exercise is to make people aware that the image of the male person is not the only possibility (I am talking about the person here, not the male gender in the language). So they think that there is a strong connect between language gender and a person's gender. This might be the case or not, I am not aware of any studies.
But what I do know is that some of these supposedly good ideas are utter bullshit and serve no purpose at all.
Take the thing in Europe where they mandated that a whole bunch of warnings about cancer, infertility etc. are printed on cigarette boxes. This thing is going on for certainly more than a decade now. And I am 100% sure that nobody ever did a study if it serves its intended purpose. You cannot tell me that in the early 2000s there were still people who smoked that were unaware of the health risks.
I deeply despise such "feel-good" measures that in reality help nobody.
Same btw. with these statements about consulting a medical professional before you start a sport. Or if this or that activity is safe for you. As if any normal MD would know anything useful about it.
Language Changes in the Media with Trevor Rachko | Starting Strength Radio #267
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