Guest post by jesse: Talking about gender in language

Originally a comment on Guest witticism by Anthony K: The purity of Engliſh ſpellyng. (I know; can I do that? Can I make a comment on a guest post another guest post? What if there’s a guest post comment on that post? How many levels can we take this? I don’t know. I’m venturing out into the unknown here. I can’t predict.)

End of preamble.

I think whenever we talk about gender in language we have to remember that the term “grammatical gender” often has almost nothing to do with the gender-as-social-construction we usually mean.

Take French. “le crayon” — masculine, “la plume” – feminine There is no logical reason for this whatsoever. (What could the possible difference between pencils and pens be?) Trying to connect this to “traditionally male” or “traditionally female” roles/nouns and such makes no sense. There is simply no correlation with, well, anything, which is why for second-language learners French or Spanish or Italian requires straight-up memorization for which nouns are masculine or feminine. [Read more…]

Why didn’t YOU think of it?

I’m being very bad, very truant and frivolous and unserious, and I’ll probably be banished from all the things as a result, but I just found Dawkins’s latest Tweetinspiration too funny to resist.

Philosophers’ historic failure to anticipate Darwin is a severe indictment of philosophy. Happy Darwin Day!

Yup. Also of music, poetry, agriculture, painting, weaving, pottery, history, drama – oh the list is long. Long long longitty long. Think of all the people who failed to anticipate Darwin. It’s a severe indictment of being a person.

So I’ve been preaching sombre sermons on the problem on Twitter. Twitter is terrifically good for writing about complicated things in ten or fifteen words, so I go there whenever I have sombre sermons to preach.

 

Win!

After their meeting with the Student Union the Southbank University AHS peeps went for coffee and what did they see?

what had already been placed behind protective glass??? #EpicWin #SecularSelfie

Photo: So after our meeting with South Bank Students' Union, we had a quick coffee. Walking out, guess what had already been placed behind protective glass??? #EpicWin #SecularSelfie

Posted totally with permission

Are they all “westernized”?

Statement by PEN Delhi:

From members of the PEN All-India Centre in Mumbai and the PEN Delhi Centre:

PEN’s India Centres in Delhi and Mumbai are deeply concerned about the reported decision by Penguin India to withdraw Wendy Doniger’s scholarly book, The Hindus: An Alternative History. Choosing to settle the matter out of court, instead of challenging an adverse judgment, narrows India’s intellectual discourse and significantly undermines freedom of expression.

We do not know why Penguin took the decision and expect the publisher to be transparent about the circumstances in which it made the decision, which comes at a time when Indian publishers have faced waves of threats from litigants, vigilante groups, and politicians. Siddharth Deb’s “The Beautiful and The Damned” was published without its first chapter because of a lawsuit. Bloomsbury India withdrew from circulation Jitender Bhargava’s book, The Descent of Air India. Sahara Group is suing Tamal Bandyopadhyay, author of Sahara: The Untold Story. Foreign publishers have not distributed an English translation of The Red Saree, a book loosely based on Sonia Gandhi’s life.

PEN Delhi, which is under formation, and the PEN All-India Centre in Mumbai, are committed to free speech and expression. The removal of books from our bookshops, bookshelves, and libraries, whether through state-sanctioned censorship, private vigilante action, or publisher capitulation are all egregious violations of free speech that we shall oppose in all forms at all times.

 

Sorry, we won’t do it again, until next time

In (only slightly) better news – the Southbank University Student Union has apologized to the Atheist Society for trying to make it shut up. That’s nice, but it would be much better news if Student Unions just stopped trying to make atheists shut up in the first place.

Following a meeting this morning with their Atheist Society and the AHS, South Bank University’s Student Union has issued a full apology on its website, stating “We have apologised to the Atheist Society for the actions taken and the distress that it has caused… We remind students that the appropriate response to opinions they may find offensive is to engage in healthy debate respecting the rights of others to hold views or beliefs differing from their own.”

The AHS welcome this statement as a the start of a sensible approach to free speech for our members at South Bank. AHS President Rory Fenton said, “ Again and again our members are censored and then apologised to. Apologies are all very well but it would be better if these incidents never occurred. The appropriate response to being offended is to engage in debate, not censorship.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if all the Student Unions could finally get that straight?

Drowning in the waters of tradition

One thing that’s incredibly, tragically ironic about Penguin’s (forced) submission in the case of Doniger’s book is that it was Penguin that fought back when David Irving tried to force it to withdraw and pulp Deborah Lipstadt’s book. The title of the case is David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt. Penguin fought, Penguin spent a fortune, and Penguin won.

Vijay Prashad gives some background on Doniger’s work. [Read more…]

And a little child shall lead them

Nilanjana Bhowmick at the Time website explains why Dinanath Batra has bullied Penguin into recalling and destroying Doniger’s book.

First of all, she makes a factual claim that I hadn’t seen before.

Penguin Books India has agreed to recall and pulp all copies in India of The Hindus: An Alternative History by U.S. scholar Wendy Doniger, raising concerns over freedom of expression in the world’s largest democracy.

Only in India? I thought it was all copies, period.

The move by one of India’s major book publishers is a settlement with members of the Hindu group Shiksha Bachao Andolan, which has filed civil and criminal cases over the work.

In a conversation with TIME, Shiksha Bachao Andolan president Dinanath Batra explains why he thinks Doniger’s book hurts Hindu sentiments and is propagating lies about Hindu deities and national icons. [Read more…]

Otherwise it is another country

Salil Tripathi gives his view.

Last night I asked Doniger what she thought about her publisher’s decision. Deeply concerned, she told me: “Penguin has indeed given up the lawsuit, and will no longer publish the book. Of course, anyone with a computer can get the Kindle edition from Penguin, NY, and it’s probably cheaper, too. It is simply no longer possible to ban books in the age of the Internet. For that, and for all the people who have expressed outrage over this, I am deeply grateful.” [Read more…]

Guest witticism by Anthony K: The purity of Engliſh ſpellyng

Originally a comment on Humanity’s never-ending search for a synonym.

….to the point where they butcher their spelling of any word that has the letters “man,” or “men,”…

Goodneſs me! Wé ſhall not brook þeſe linguiſtic inſults! The purity of Engliſh ſpellyng ſhall not be ſullied!

SHUT DOWN THE TWITTERS, EVERYONE!

Mumble….godesdamned kyds þeſe dæġs with þeir ſpellyng…mumble…Chaucer…mumble