Swedish Hens

[warpus]

Warpus, you must keep in mind that others have not done, seen or thought the same things as you have.

Well, I know that, I'm just explaining my point of view.

 

[Verbose]

Verbose is, to my knowledge, the only Swede who's weighed in so far. He said it sounds weird, but only because it's not something he's used to, but that the word itself is elegant and makes sense conceptually.

That's der bunny!

The thing is, language is constantly evolving.

Historically not that long ago the appropriate use of a pronoun for any undefined person in general would have been the female "hon".

For some reason it would seem during the 19th c. it fell out of favour, and alternatively "han" was used, not least because almost by default any inividual appearing and talked of in a public way would almost be of the male persuasion (that, or loose, "public" women).
(19th c. public culture sort of went all butch and masculine — it's a feature of social history how females were consistently excluded in the 19th c. it ways they hadn't quite been in the the 17th and 18th.)

"Han" otoh in THIS day and, age if used as the general defailt prenoun for just anubody, these days is seen as perpetuating the old pattern of women chained to the home and the kitchen range, and public life the more or less exlusive domain of bepenised individuals.

THAT led to the inelegant adoption of "han/hon" when not wanting to, or able, to specify gender, while wanting to keep open it could be either.

And the along comes "hen" as frankly a more elegant solution to the problem than "han/hon", or "en", or "man".

 

[Tycho Brahe]

They should say "höns" instead.

 

[Lohrenswald]

They should say "höns" instead.

Because that's what swedes are haHEheHAhihehaHEha

 

[Borachio]

Swedes aren't poultry. They're a kind of root vegetable.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Swedes are many things. Often what you're least expecting

 

[Borachio]

Well, I'm least expecting them to be nice hot cups of tea.

And?

 

[Lohrenswald]

Often doesn't mean always. Not a nice cup of tea. Maybe a bad one

 

[Angst]

It didn't. The word was already being bandied about. What the academy did was recognise it has entered the language already. They're supposed to reflect the actual use and development of the language after all.

Swedish already uses two different forms of the neuter "it" ("den" and "det", on of the trickier aspects for learners of the language — they almost always get it wrong)

And then this hen-thing grew out of some people using "en" ("one", and is "one can say") as a gender neutral term. (It's also possible to be very generically unspecific by using "man", which means "man", as in a bloke, literally, but is used as a collective term correpsonfing to the singular "one" — but for stylistic reasons "man" is usually avoided since it too damn unspecific.)

What someone then ended up doing was create an analogue to the gender-specific "han" and "hon" (he/she), as "hen", rather than the unspecified "en" (or "man"), since using "den" or "det" for people feels disturbingly objectifying and dehumanizing. "Hen" then is kind of a specific-gender-unspecific term.

"Hen" then did took off a couple of years back, by being picked up by some major newspaper, giving it wider currency.

Can't say I use it myself.

And for this, I'd love to copy Sweden. We have the same "den" and "det" problem in Denmark ("den" is both genders grammatically, "det" is genderless grammatically, Danish (save a few of our weird dialects) only have these two grammatical genders) and hen sounds natural in Danish as a sound between han and hun.

 

[Arwon]

See, to me a SJW is someone entirely different from just someone who is fighting for someone's rights. To me a SJW is someone who is so hopelessly out of touch with reality that they go way overboard with their message and end up doing far more harm than actual good.

I was under the impression that most other people understand the term to mean the same thing - a negative term for people like that. The "Warrior" part of the term is what, in my mind, makes a mockery of they are trying to do. It paints them as "over the top" warriors - someone who sits in their basement all day and complaints about every single thing they come across as some sort of a social injustice.

That's my understanding of what the word means. So far I've only ever seen it used this way.

It's just an update of "do-gooder" or "political correctness" sneered by brokens on the Internet instead of grumpy middle aged men. Same basic sort of category error by the same sort of angry reactionaries. That is, the category error of inventing a monolithic conspiratorial opponent out of everything they dislike in the belief that "we see ourselves as a single movement, therefore people we oppose must be a single movement too".

 

[NovaKart]

The only time I ever came across something like that was some post making fun of someone on tumblr who thinks that they are a dragon. It was something like: "Hi, I'm a dragonkin, my pronouns are Zob, Zink, Zilf, and Blerch."

So I sort of assume that only weirdos on that site use pronouns like that. I have seriously never come across anyone else using such things - I can say that 100% of the people I talk to on a regular basis would be lost if I started saying "Ze".

But now I can't figure out if this new Swedish word is a legitimate one or a "weirdo" one used by weirdos and nobody else.

I think we both have very similar political/social opinions because I often agree with you on things and I would categorize myself as liberal but not very liberal. To me, creating a gender neutral pronoun whatever it is, seems like the use of womyn by some ultra feminists before they realized it was completely absurd and the whole idea was mostly abandoned.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Because that's what swedes are haHEheHAhihehaHEha

That's what "hens" means.

And for this, I'd love to copy Sweden. We have the same "den" and "det" problem in Denmark ("den" is both genders grammatically, "det" is genderless grammatically, Danish (save a few of our weird dialects) only have these two grammatical genders) and hen sounds natural in Danish as a sound between han and hun.

Some years ago, (back in the 80s I think) there was a suggestion in Denmark, that we should adopt the gender neutral "huan". The swedish equivalent would be "hoan". Han=he, Hun= she, Han+hun = huan.

"Høn" was also suggested. (without -s). But neither caught on.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Nvm
please delete

 

[Borachio]

That's what "hens" means.

Is "poultry" some kind of anti-Swedish slur, then?

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Is "poultry" some kind of anti-Swedish slur, then?

No.

It was just a joke. No reason to get upset.

 

[Angst]

I think huan didn't stick because the pronounciation is weird and it honestly looks like an East Asian word. Hen is much more Danish-y and I could see it stick if people began using it.

Høn is probably distracting because of høns. (I know hun and hund is similar, but we've had that ingrained already)

 

[Traitorfish]

See, to me a SJW is someone entirely different from just someone who is fighting for someone's rights. To me a SJW is someone who is so hopelessly out of touch with reality that they go way overboard with their message and end up doing far more harm than actual good.

It's just an update of "do-gooder" or "political correctness" sneered by brokens on the Internet instead of grumpy middle aged men. Same basic sort of category error by the same sort of angry reactionaries. That is, the category error of inventing a monolithic conspiratorial opponent out of everything they dislike in the belief that "we see ourselves as a single movement, therefore people we oppose must be a single movement too".

I think it's both. There's an identifiable "social justice" subculture on Tumblr, Twitter, et al. that spends most of its time engaged in ritualized denunciations and aimless shrieking, and they're generally described as "SJWs". At the same time, as Arwon says, it's used as a lazy generalisation to describe anyone to the left of Nixon.

The trick is the ambiguity, that a concept can be introduced as the work of "SJWs", immediately discrediting it through an association which may be entirely basis. If some retrograde announces that X is a SJW cause, they're saying that it's broadly progressive, but what people hear is that it's the pet project of people who think "dragon" is a gender, so they distance themselves from X without really investigating it, because it's assumed to be bonkers. It muddies the waters, turns a debate on the merits of a proposal into a question of whether or not we want to be associated with a particular, unpopular stereotype.

 

[Borachio]

No.

It was just a joke. No reason to get upset.

I'm not upset. (Not that I necessarily think you think I am.)

I was just curious if that was a rather quaint "joke" against Swedish people for some reason.

 

[Angst]

I think it's both. There's an identifiable "social justice" subculture on Tumblr, Twitter, et al. that spends most of its time engaged in ritualized denunciations and aimless shrieking, and they're generally described as "SJWs". At the same time, as Arwon says, it's used as a lazy generalisation to describe anyone to the left of Nixon.

The trick is the ambiguity, that a concept can be introduced as the work of "SJWs", immediately discrediting it through an association which may be entirely basis. If some retrograde announces that X is a SJW cause, they're saying that it's broadly progressive, but what people hear is that it's the pet project of people who think "dragon" is a gender, so they distance themselves from X without really investigating it, because it's assumed to be bonkers. It muddies the waters, turns a debate on the merits of a proposal into a question of whether or not we want to be associated with a particular, unpopular stereotype.

"Why don't we get universal health care here in the US?"
"WHAT? But that's SOCIALISM!!"

...

"I don't support our soldiers in the Middle East."
"WHAT? You don't want ISLAMIST SHARIA to be taken care of!?"

...

"I think black Americans are often unfairly targeted by our justice system..."
"WHAT!? You don't like police!?"

...

"There are gender issues in most media... Video games are part of that..."
"WHAT? But look at all these areas SARKEESIAN is wrong!"

...

"I really don't approve of the Israeli attempts of colonizin Palestine..."
"WHAT!? Are you an ANTISEMITE?"

...

"Hi, I'm part of a church group collecting money for the poor. Spare a penny?"
"NO I WILL NOT. CREATIONIST GAY-HATING MEDIEVAL MAN!"

...

"I hate the incremental surveillance."
"YOU WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN!?"

...

etc etc.
sorry they aren't all super good examples, i just felt like doing a bunch. to me the "thats socialist!!!" murican argument is the most grating of the bunch.

 

[classical_hero]

Swedes aren't poultry. They're a kind of root vegetable.

How fowl of you.