What I Learned About Pronouns

[Guest Girl Emily]

Hi all,

While in the hospital recently, I was talking with a nurse about pronoun use when dealing with transgender patients. He explained to me about how some nurses that he has worked with in the past had trouble using the correct pronoun when discussing a transgender patient. The reason for the mistaken pronoun use was because their native language didn't have gender differentiation with pronouns. He believed Philippino and Farsi native speakers had the most trouble with them.

So before you get offended think of other reasons why they used the pronoun.

Huggs,

[Guest Donna Jean]

Emily....

That's very true......

And on the other hand, some languages have pronouns for inanimate objects...

German, for instance...

A ladder or a window can be male or female....

Very confusing...

You're right...give people a break...most will try!

HUGGS!

Donna Jean

[Guest insanitylives]

A ladder or a window can be male or female....

Very confusing...

Actually, English is an oditity that we DON'T put a gender to inanimate objects

[Carolyn Marie]

Actually, English is an oditity that we DON'T put a gender to inanimate objects

Yes, that's so true. It brings back memories of my father, who was a German immigrant. He always called our car a she, and did the same

with other things.

Good post, Emily. It helps to point such things out. Americans, I think, are more ethnocentric than many other cultures, but to our credit are also

open to new things more easily than most others.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Ryles_D]

I'm not sure I understand. Do they just choose a pronoun and stick to that for most people/struggle regardless, or do they manage to call cispeople by the right pronouns and just decide not to with us and use language as an excuse? When they just use whatever pronoun comes to mind with anyone- sure, that's fine. But then they would be misgendering everyone left and right, which is fairly noticeable.

Actually, English is an oddity that we DON'T put a gender to inanimate objects

I think we're more an oddity that we don't have a gender for inanimate objects but do have gendered pronouns. The asian languages I know of don't use gendered nouns, either, but they also don't use gendered pronouns. I'm sure there are others like us- but most languages I've looked at pick a side. They either have gendered nouns and pronouns or non-gendered nouns and pronouns. Norwegian is going a weird way- I think nynorsk still has grammatical gender, but it uses one pronoun for inanimate objects rather than 'she' and 'he', but bokmal is still more common. I think French is a bit different as well- I think they use 'il' for 'he' and 'it', and also use 'the' (le/la/etc) for 'it' or 'they' with nouns.

[Guest Girl Emily]

Ryles D,

The story that the nurse who brought this to my attention involved a psychiatric nurse explaining to the oncoming nurse, who I know about a visit by a man and a woman to a transwoman patient. She happened to be from the Philippines and she had trouble going back and forth between he and she while relaying the information. And the oncoming nurse couldn't follow who did what with all the pronouns and intermittent errors as she had difficulty with the whole concept of gendered pronouns.

I speak Spanish fairly well but I know that I often make mistakes with using the correct definite article el and la and direct object pronouns lo and la with nouns that don't fit the pattern.

Hope this helps.

Huggs,