Maxwell Baum
Gwen the Trans Balrog"Ladies and gentlemen."
- Tired
- Binary
- Exclusionary
"Gentles all!"
- Shakespearean
- Inclusive
- Hard to argue with
"Yo, fuckups!"
- Even more inclusive
- Attention-grabbing
- Far too accurate
timberwraith@YouShallNotPass Perfect! 😂
AtomicBioPunk (He/Him)@YouShallNotPass I'm a bit fond of Harley Quinn's from one of the trailers of the animated series. Not perfect, but the right spirit: "Ladies, Gentlemen, Theys and Gays!"
The Doctor@YouShallNotPass I've been saying "Gentlebeings" for the last couple of years.
Emelia/Emi@YouShallNotPass my favorite is still "Ladies, Gentlemen, and those that know better."
@becomethewaifu
That's from something isn't it? I know I've heard it before.
That's from something isn't it? I know I've heard it before.
Goretta Critter of the Night@YouShallNotPass a personal long time inclusive favorite “What’s shakin’ nerds?” I will also sub in bacon there on occasion
@Goretta_Synn
Didn't Liz Lemon say that? It's a good one I always forget.
Didn't Liz Lemon say that? It's a good one I always forget.
@YouShallNotPass she definitely called people nerds,l know that 😅
D. G. Marshall@davidtheeviloverlord
"DOOM TOOTS AS HE PLEASES!" 🤣
"DOOM TOOTS AS HE PLEASES!" 🤣
IAG@YouShallNotPass "Wassup fuckers, hey!"
@iagondiscord
In a situation where that's called for I might be tempted to go with "fuckos" instead, but the principle is the same.
In a situation where that's called for I might be tempted to go with "fuckos" instead, but the principle is the same.
C0ppertop@C0ppert0p
"Attention sentient water balloons!"
"Attention sentient water balloons!"
Isho'ye
@wuffish
Oooh, I like this one!
Oooh, I like this one!
Rebecca Wallace@YouShallNotPass Love it. Also, “y’all.”
@wallacewords
I was born and raised y'all, but I acknowledge that some folks have a harder time with it.
I was born and raised y'all, but I acknowledge that some folks have a harder time with it.
@YouShallNotPass Agreed. My dad is from Tennessee and is a language geek like me, and we are forever lamenting that English doesn’t have a widely accepted plural “you.” Except y’all, which is rather elegant in its simplicity. 😊
@wallacewords
I'm going to be a giant language geek and say that English needs a singular "you." 😉 "Thou" was a squandered gift.
I'm going to be a giant language geek and say that English needs a singular "you." 😉 "Thou" was a squandered gift.
@YouShallNotPass Ooh, I want to know what you mean. I knew I should’ve taken more than one linguistics class. 😊
@wallacewords
Prepare for useless-trivia-dumping!
"You" in English has a somewhat complicated history. In Old English, there were actually three forms of the second person pronouns: a singular, a plural, and a dual form. The dual form died out by about the 12th Century, leaving Middle English with just a singular and a plural. But the word that went on to become "you" was actually the plural form in the dative case. The plural nominative was "ye," which you may recognize as occurring in older modern English.
"Ye" was contrasted with "thou" in early modern English, "thou" being the singular. You'll see that mostly in Shakespeare and the Bible. "Thee" is the accusative form of "thou," and there's some fancy footwork with verbs of a certain sort which leads to, "Thou shalt not..." etc.
1/
@wallacewords
This is all complicated by the fact that not only does English do a plural and singular "you" but we also used to do a formal and informal one. "Thou" was informal. "Ye" was more formal. But those aren't hard and fast rules.
This is further complicated by certain people's refusal to use the formal "you" with anyone for religious reasons. Thus, Quakers used "thee" for everything. Some other sects did likewise, though some used "thou/thee" more grammatically.
All of this is further further complicated by the fact that the "th" sound in English used to be represented by "þ" the thorn. However, in some handwritten scripts the thorn looked very much like a "y," so with the advent of the printing press a lot of printers used "y" to represent "þ." So "thee" could be printed as "yee."
2/
@wallacewords
To make matters completely ridiculous, the article "the" was also originally written with a thorn, printed incorrectly, and thus, "ye olde shoppe" competed with "ye art fine gentlemen" until at a certain point English said, "Fuck it!" and changed "ye" to "you," probably because it looked like "thou."
Then "thou" died out almost everywhere except the pulpit, likely because English stopped caring about the difference between formal and informal and we just used "you" to be safe. Plus English stopped caring much about a lot of noun cases. Basically English gave up on grammar.
But you can still see the vestiges of "you" being plural when you conjugate verbs. "I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you are, they are." "You" uses the plural form of verbs.
So really, we have a perfectly adequate plural "you:" "you." We lack a good singular "you" since we lost "thou," unless you speak one of the dialects that preserve it.
3/3
Violet@YouShallNotPass
Did English give up on grammar, or did it just push it underground where it twisted and turned and became a convoluted demon used to frighten schoolchildren?
@violet @YouShallNotPass (now picturing a giant gerund lumbering down the street like a golem)
@violet @wallacewords
English is wild and free, running naked across the hills and dales of language, stealing everyone else's shit and laughing. If children are frightened, it's only because they've been taught by prescriptivists.
English is wild and free, running naked across the hills and dales of language, stealing everyone else's shit and laughing. If children are frightened, it's only because they've been taught by prescriptivists.
Ariel Kroon@YouShallNotPass @wallacewords K I love all of this, thank you for putting it out into the world. Language is so effing neat, especially in the historical and contemporary multivarious pronouns out there. How we think and are and do and have been throughout a lot of history is often encoded in these little kernels that survive to this day in our speech, and I think that's super cool and a fun thread to pull on.
@arielkroon @wallacewords
I love language, warts and all. I may only be able to speak English, but I try to learn interesting things about other languages whenever I can. Glad you enjoyed my little excursion into the past.
I love language, warts and all. I may only be able to speak English, but I try to learn interesting things about other languages whenever I can. Glad you enjoyed my little excursion into the past.
@YouShallNotPass @arielkroon One of my favorite things about studying Hungarian was a quote (New York Times?) about how it always has the accent on the first syllable: “It sounds like someone falling down the stairs.” 😆 (I’m laughing with love. I adore Hungarian.)
Lirazel68@YouShallNotPass @wallacewords Back when I learned about the formal and informal "you/thou", we were told that the translators of the KJV Bible chose the informal form for addressing God because they wanted to get away from the idea of a remote deity that you had to approach through the saints or his mother or whatnot. But all this did was turn "Thou" into the Big Scary Correct Way to talk to God, and "you" got used for everyone else. Except for the Quakers, "thou" and "you" swapped places.
@Lirazel68 @YouShallNotPass Fascinating!
@YouShallNotPass Yep, I definitely should have taken more linguistics courses. Thanks for a fascinating read!
@wallacewords
If it makes you feel better, I didn't learn any of that in a linguistics class. I'm glad I could share the joy with you!
If it makes you feel better, I didn't learn any of that in a linguistics class. I'm glad I could share the joy with you!
Kris Mitka 
@YouShallNotPass “They-dees and Gentle-thems”
@mitka
If I'm ever addressing a crowd of exclusively nonbinary people I'll have to remember this one 😉
If I'm ever addressing a crowd of exclusively nonbinary people I'll have to remember this one 😉
Shimrra Shai@YouShallNotPass Last one = Lmao
AspiringLuddite
Ben Todd@AspiringLuddite
It's a shame that never caught on in the States because it's a great one.
It's a shame that never caught on in the States because it's a great one.
NitramiuZ@YouShallNotPass I saw this kind of post somewhere else but it ended with:
"What's up fortnite gamers!"
- Insulting
- Confusing
- Grabs peoples' attention
"What's up fortnite gamers!"
- Insulting
- Confusing
- Grabs peoples' attention
@nitramiuz
I think I saw the same thing somewhere else too.
I think I saw the same thing somewhere else too.
Arspex@YouShallNotPass I like "Honored fools"
@Oneiropticon
Ah, the classics.
Ah, the classics.
PirateJoie
ari melody 💫@YouShallNotPass stammering "h-hi.." before the social anxiety takes over and you throw up on the floor >>>>>>>>
@ari
I've been there too 🙃
I've been there too 🙃
Astro@YouShallNotPass
I propose an alternative
"theydies and gentlethems"
- ???
Cassandra 🏳️⚧️@astro @YouShallNotPass I like "Youses" as a word. I picked it up from a friend from the mid lands in England. Pronounced like uses with a bit more emphasis on the u
@Cassandra @YouShallNotPass smart - it kind of reminds me of Stallman's proposal for genderless pronouns: https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
@astro
It has the advantage of being inclusive of nonbinary people, certainly.
It has the advantage of being inclusive of nonbinary people, certainly.
@YouShallNotPass are there any obvious downsides?
@astro
I think some binary people might feel excluded, but I'm not sure that's a reason not to use it.
I think some binary people might feel excluded, but I'm not sure that's a reason not to use it.
@YouShallNotPass fair, ty for the input ^^
@astro
Honestly if it were only cis folks who were bothered by it, I'd be in favor of it because it's about time they had to deal with something that doesn't feel made just for them.
Honestly if it were only cis folks who were bothered by it, I'd be in favor of it because it's about time they had to deal with something that doesn't feel made just for them.