251
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

I am not a native English speaker and I have sometimes referred to people as male and female (as that is what I have been taught) but I have received some backlash in some cases, especially for the word "female", is there some negative thought in the word which I am unaware of?

I don't know if this is the best place to ask, if it's not appropriate I have no problem to delete it ^^

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I think that's because the descriptors come after the noun in reporting. Similar to how documentation is done for other professions, like healthcare. If it's out of the context of reporting, or other situations listed in the site below, it sounds grammatically strange or rude.

https://myenglishgrammar.com/lessons/adjectives-function-as-nouns/

Source: I'm in healthcare.

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~By-NC-SA~ ~4.0~

[-] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

“the suspect is a six foot, white male"

think that's because the descriptors come after the noun in reporting

No they don’t. The word “male” is the noun here.

Why did people upvote that?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Because it's still acting as a descriptor rather than an identifier, despite playing the syntactic role of a noun instead of an adjective. It's more about semantics in this case than syntax.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

No it is playing the syntactic role of a noun. An object is a noun.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I know it's playing the syntactic role of a noun, that's what I said. But it's playing the semantic role of a descriptor. The "thing" being described here is a suspect, one that is white and also male, as opposed to a male who is white and also suspected.

Syntactically, the word male was a noun. But semantically, it's still just describing the suspect, rather than identifying the thing to be described.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago
[-] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Both are nouns. Suspect is the subject, male is the object. You could replace it with, for example "the suspect is a cat", and I think we can all agree "cat" is a noun. "six foot" and "white" are the adjectives in that sentence.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Both are nouns there. Suspect is the subject.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

So you don’t think this argument would hold up if they said “Police are searching for a six foot white male”?

this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
251 points (88.9% liked)

Asklemmy

42608 readers
833 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS