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Sep. 13th, 2004
Chewing the mental cud
Sep. 13th, 2004 11:14 amMorning comparisons of existance, especially on a Monday, really aren't expected to garner any interest.
Then again, given my general viewing public (that’s you lot) just making a single post that says 'Spleen' is just as likely to generate a vast debate, which is why you're all the great people you are.
Right, that’s enough pandering to your egos for now, back to where I was, after a remarkable ramble recovery in the 3rd quarter, there’s all to play for folks.
These notes follow for my own benefit as much as anyone else, after all it's my journal and as ever I reserve the right to put just about anything here really, so there.
The nature of the existance and perceptions of the two sexes started quite humbly, after I referred to a dolphin in Atlantis as 'him' and tagged the obligatory PC 'or her' onto the end of it, after all especially with beasties like dolphins it's somewhat hard to check. This is perhaps a problem with English as regards to levels of familiarity in conversation and reminds me of a question a French boy asked me when I was a wee lad,
"When you talk about animals do you call them him or her sometimes?" and I'd responded yes, when they're pets and such.
It's that level of familiarity I was trying to catch when I referred to the dolphin as 'him', almost like moving from 'vous' to 'tu' in French but for a creature of non known gender. It's not actually possible to express that kind of sentiment in English, "it's a dog" and "he's a dog" work fine, there is a level of familiarity changed there, almost friendliness but if you don't have an idea what gender the beastie in question is you're up a certain creek without a certain implement.
Now in French too, this doesn't exactly work (as far as I can work out - do correct me if I'm wrong) everything is already predefined in gender terms, from tables to chairs to dogs and cats - the latter two is where this is all is leading eventually, well probably we'll see how it goes.
Right, French. Now in French you can refer to beasties as 'him' or 'her' already, but there is no non gender reference, or more specifically there is no 'take a step back and disassociate from them' level of reference for a third party. I could of course be wrong, the intricacies of vous,nous and tu etc have long since been lost to my brain.
But what about cats and dogs?
<pause>
A meeting has kind of killed my momentum for this thread, brain has all slowed down, but suffice it to say life is in a bit of a different light now.
Then again, given my general viewing public (that’s you lot) just making a single post that says 'Spleen' is just as likely to generate a vast debate, which is why you're all the great people you are.
Right, that’s enough pandering to your egos for now, back to where I was, after a remarkable ramble recovery in the 3rd quarter, there’s all to play for folks.
These notes follow for my own benefit as much as anyone else, after all it's my journal and as ever I reserve the right to put just about anything here really, so there.
The nature of the existance and perceptions of the two sexes started quite humbly, after I referred to a dolphin in Atlantis as 'him' and tagged the obligatory PC 'or her' onto the end of it, after all especially with beasties like dolphins it's somewhat hard to check. This is perhaps a problem with English as regards to levels of familiarity in conversation and reminds me of a question a French boy asked me when I was a wee lad,
"When you talk about animals do you call them him or her sometimes?" and I'd responded yes, when they're pets and such.
It's that level of familiarity I was trying to catch when I referred to the dolphin as 'him', almost like moving from 'vous' to 'tu' in French but for a creature of non known gender. It's not actually possible to express that kind of sentiment in English, "it's a dog" and "he's a dog" work fine, there is a level of familiarity changed there, almost friendliness but if you don't have an idea what gender the beastie in question is you're up a certain creek without a certain implement.
Now in French too, this doesn't exactly work (as far as I can work out - do correct me if I'm wrong) everything is already predefined in gender terms, from tables to chairs to dogs and cats - the latter two is where this is all is leading eventually, well probably we'll see how it goes.
Right, French. Now in French you can refer to beasties as 'him' or 'her' already, but there is no non gender reference, or more specifically there is no 'take a step back and disassociate from them' level of reference for a third party. I could of course be wrong, the intricacies of vous,nous and tu etc have long since been lost to my brain.
But what about cats and dogs?
<pause>
A meeting has kind of killed my momentum for this thread, brain has all slowed down, but suffice it to say life is in a bit of a different light now.
