• The Center Square: Federal employees reportedly told to remove pronouns from email signatures.
  • @SpikesOtherDog@ani.social
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    515 months ago

    Think it is important for people to remove all pronouns from documents. Without, people will be more free to interpret what these messages mean to. This type of malicious compliance will only go so far, sadly.

    • TurboWafflz
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      415 months ago

      Comment used it, these, and this. Please remove offensive pronouns, children may be present and children must not learn the english language

      • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)
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        195 months ago

        children must not learn the english language

        Reminds me of…

        The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as “This dog is free from lice” or “This field is free from weeds.” It could not be used in its old sense of “politically free” or “intellectually free” since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.

        • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          5 months ago

          I’ve said it before, I remember reading this novel as a teen and finding the parts about language to be boring and far-fetched.

          Looking back, it was probably one of the most important things that Orwell discussed. That shit is incredibly powerful, and it fundamentally shapes how we think and view the world without us even realizing it.

      • @idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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        65 months ago

        Hugely pedantic here, but only “it” is a pronoun there (specifically an anticipatory subject, a kind of expletive pronoun), the others are adjectives.

  • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    505 months ago

    This is just begging for malicious compliance.

    You want to eliminate an entire part of speech? Then good luck trying to understand what the fuck my email is trying to say.

    • In the article it specifies you to remove pronouns from your email signature. Definitely less fertile ground for malicious compliance, but it’s still doable.

      • Tiefling IRL
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        5 months ago

        End every email body with “For your response, I am referred to using (feminine/masculine/any/whatever) pronouns”

        • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Replace it with “[Insert Pronouns Here]”. Make sure to have your desk already cleaned out though.

    • @humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Does the reader want to eliminate an entire part of speech? Then good luck trying to understand what the fuck the writer’s email is trying to say.

      Could be fun. I bet ChatGPT could automate it.

      • @btaf45@lemmy.world
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        15 months ago

        Does the reader want to eliminate an entire part of speech?

        Which one are they going to outlaw next? Verbs? Or Adjectives?

      • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        Exactly… Maybe have a boilerplate disclaimer at the top of each email that does include pronouns, just explaining that the following email has had all pronouns removed so as to comply with the new rule.

        • @JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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          35 months ago

          “The following email has had all pronouns removed in compliance with blah blah blah. Readability has unfortunately, but obviously, been significantly reduced. Apologies will be made available at a later date.”

  • @socialmedia@lemmy.world
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    285 months ago

    So is it alright to just assume trump is female? The email signature no longer states her preferred pronouns, so I think this is what she wants?

  • @superminerJG@lemmy.world
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    175 months ago
    • I → (the) speaker/writer
    • you → (the) listener/reader, pl. (the) audience
    • they → that person, pl. those people

    The writer believes that such an idea is quite stupid. In fact, the writer believes that the audience will find this language extremely obtuse. These methods will only cause more pain to the federal employees in question.

    • ⛓️‍💥
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      35 months ago

      I think we need a tool that automatically rewrites text to remove all pronouns, but I’m not even sure that is possible.

    • TheRealKuni
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      5 months ago

      my new bio: (masculine neutral/masculine possessive)

      Isn’t it nominative/objective?

      I don’t see “he/his” or “they/their,” I see “he/him” and “they/them.”

      • @ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        35 months ago

        I put all of them in, ie he/him/his… just to remove ambiguity.

        And pronouns remain in my sig. Ain’t going anywhere.

      • FundMECFS
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        25 months ago

        Probably! Been a long time since I’ve been to school.

    • @superminerJG@lemmy.world
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      35 months ago

      but they banned mentioning gender, change it to (identifying with the societal archetype of the sex producing the small reproductive cell)

      • @JustARaccoon@lemmy.world
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        115 months ago

        Well it’s not a private entity hiring them, it’s the actual govt. Usually the defense is that those are private companies and they can do what they want but that doesn’t apply here

          • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            45 months ago

            Most of that isn’t political speech. You absolutely still have the right to political speech as a government employee. Even the military was forced to let soldiers have political speech. The dividing line is where it looks like the speech is from the government instead of from you. Personal pronouns are hardly going to be from the government.

            In your assertion the government could simply remove the rights of civil servants by issuing a policy. And that’s just not how rights work.

    • Queen HawlSera
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      45 months ago

      When “What Trump wants goes” is all the Supreme Meme Court cares about

    • @Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Wouldn’t the world be better off if no one knew each others gender? If you’re a cis man and find yourself attracted to another man? Congrats you’re gay now.

  • @nul42@lemmy.ca
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    65 months ago

    nul42 would stop using pronouns completely and just use genderless nouns or proper names instead.