I don’t think so, but if it were, then Jordan Peterson has just announced that he is trans.
Either that, or he is a liar.
It is most weird how some people get worked up over a simple, non-judgmental descriptor. There is no opprobrium attached to being cis — in fact, it’s a social advantage. So what has got these people irate?
Maybe it’s the implicit acknowledgment that if cis people exist, then trans people do, too.
“Call me cis to my face and see what happens.”
Challenge accepted.
they’re so scared of gEnDeR IdEoLoGy
i also volunteer to call jbp cis to his face, i’d love to see what he tries
Cis is an invention of God, nincompoops! He created people who feel they are the gender they were assigned at birth, and also the people who don’t. He created Klinefelter’s, and Turner’s and mosaicism, and so on. Why are they so upset about God’s creations?
Ada@3- Why are these intellectual heavyweights always so eager to solve problems with their fists? They’re so emotionally sensitive – hysterical, even!
If you call JP cis to his face he will strip naked and oil up. Don’t do it!
People like Peterson think “cis” is a slur because they use “trans” as a slur. (Full disclosure: I saw this pointed out on Twitter, I don’t take credit for this insight.)
@MattG #5
that’s not very “marketplace of ideas” of them
I wonder, did the racists ever object to being called ‘white’?
“Maybe it’s the implicit acknowledgment that if cis people exist, then trans people do, too.”
Bingo!
“Lock her up.” = Republicans ecstatic.
“Lock him up.” = Republicans outraged.
— see pronouns do matter.
What happens Jordan? Be explicit.
Jordan gets arrested probably. Because Jordan Peterson can’t actually articulate a reason why cis is bad beyond his feelings about it. It’s all just insistence that it’s bad.
Utter denial that there’s a thing with more complex expression in humans, and fear of the term that roughly means “typical expression”. So there’s a term set against the typical and you don’t like the analog for typical?
I get curious about Ophelia Bension from time to time, she’s in utter denial mode. Of course she doesn’t see a need for a prefix, it’s not about her needs. Others didn’t see the need for attention to sexism and misogyny in the atheist and skeptic communities.
No reflection on the needs of others. Just assertions that cis is dishonest manipulation without any reason.
I’ll still fight sexism and misogyny. And I’m massively disappointed that she confuses individual bad behavior for group threat from trans women. Bigotry is bigotry.
What is these guys problem with the word cis? Don’t they know what it means? Are they feeling threatened by strange foreign words? What about hetero? I bet that’s also a really bad thing.
The will definitely be insulted when you I them homo, but I would be lying if I called them sapiens.
Cisalpine Gaul was part of the conspiracy 2000 years ago.
I’m sure they would prefer to be called “normal.”
Like hillbillies would prefer to be called “sons of the soil,” but it ain’t gonna happen.
Now “normies” has the form of a slur, but no real relative social power. Where’s the power in cis as a slur?
Whining.
Why am I completely unsurprised to learn (yet again) that Jordan Peterson is an ignorant, posturing snowflake?
Same bs as about wearing seat belts, no driving & drinking, no smoking in public places, etc.
These guys (and the antivaxxers) all think they’re so tough, but they’re all just whiny children who don’t want to be told what to do.
What are the historical patterns of abuse associated with cis?
Oh yeah. That’s missing too.
OMG I have not been here in ages. Can’t miss an opportunity to laugh at that pompous ignoramus, though. That human facepalm, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. On Twitter I linked to a presentation of some classic Peterson moments. Just Google “Peterson crying” and you can find more.
“Call me cis to my face and see what happens.”
To resurrect a now ancient phrase, you won’t know whether to shit or go blind. Isn’t that about the size of it, Petey?
But note how Spiked replies:
“The term ‘cis’ is an invention of trans activists. It is being used to shut down dissent, to compel adherence to gender ideology.”
Our opponents have got the idea that we’re engaged in a huge, world-wide debate, and if they can just out-argue us, hey, presto!, they’ll have proven that transgenderism and transgender people don’t exist. That’s why they’ve invented this notion of “gender ideology” so that they’ll have something to argue with.
I don’t get into those arguments. I don’t need to. I don’t need any arguments to establish what I am. I’ve always been what I am, simple as. You’re not going to erase me by coming up with some clever argument. I’m out living my life, and if somebody can’t accept the evidence of their eyes, no useless argument is going to convince them of anything.
They get so angry because we don’t “tolerate dissent”. Hey, Mr Cisman, what I am doesn’t depend on your agreement that that’s what I am. Dissent all you like, make a fool of yourself, you’re not going to tell me what I am.
Moonslicer @ 21
This reminds me, the emergence of Flat-Earthers has had zero effect on the geology of Earth.
And despite the transsubstitution theory the wine and crackers remain wine and crackers.
It is as if reality has greater staying power.
This reminds me of “No way, I’m not a homo!” from some guy objecting to standard terminology defining humans
I’ve called Peterson that and a whole lot worse many times.
Liar, misogynist, kook, hater and bigot, fraud, etc..
This is FWIW, classic Peterson. He is really into violence and threats of violence. Not what you expect for a Professor of Psychology at U. of Toronto.
Then again, U. of Toronto threw him out recently.
And, that cis was invented by Trans people is simply a lie.
Totally OT, but it ties in with weird belief systems. (Also, is God trinary?)
I am posting the latest link to God Awful Movies. You have earned some fun.
https://youtu.be/_3CF6KAv9I
or possibly
https://youtu.be/_3CF6KAv9l
And now, back to Peterson.
Dang. I don’t know what is wrong with the link. Try searching “GAM 410 battle if the spirit”
Sorry for the hassle.
Peterson is a real fan of violence and advocates violence often.
Peterson: “If you’re incapable of violence, not being violent isn’t a virtue.”
This is just stupid like Peterson.
Peterson is so frail after all his self induced intervals of sickness including drug addiction to benzodiazepines and a vent in Moscow, that just about anyone could knock him over. The hard part would be to not hurt him.
Peterson is dumb enough that one day he would pick a fight with someone carrying a gun.
Peterson: “Life is a very difficult process and you’re not prepared for it unless you have the capacity to be dangerous.”
Live by the sword and die by the sword. What an idiot!!!
I suspect that it I called Peterson cis he’d have a hissy fit and storm off. At worst he’d sputter before trying to take a swing at me, and end up flat on his face when I took a couple of steps back.
Meanwhile, he recently managed to annoy his own daughter, who is one of his big supporters.
http://twitter.com/C_Kavanagh/status/1673784314507702274
@ hemidactylus # 6, bcw bcw # 11: You both win the Internet for today!
Peterson is a quack.
I can’t imagine that he is actually treating patients.
And, in fact, he hasn’t been a clinician for a long time.
He is also now about to lose his license to practice.
mordred @ # 13: What about hetero? I bet that’s also a really bad thing.
Back in the ’60s, the famous comedy show Laugh-In had a script which called (then-)Gov Ronald Reagan “a known heterosexual”. Their network’s censor chopped it.
@ # 22 birgerjohansson
“It is as if reality has greater staying power.”
Yes, it does. My generation, in our youth, were seriously guilt-tripped. We had serious difficulties with self-acceptance. But in the end reality won out. And once reality wins, you wonder how it took you so long to get there.
Might as well feel negative about “control group”.
Yes, every cis transphobe who insists “I’m not cis” should be congratulated on coming out as trans.
PZ asks: is everything a binary?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
An especially weird idea, since you don’t get to “dissent” on the question of someone else’s internal identity. When it comes to who I am, there’s exactly one authority.
Well, it either is or it isn’t.
What happens if I call him an asshole to his face?
Not very successfully, it would seem. If anything, the opposite.
Well, I am exclusively binary. My source code is not available, so I only come in a binary blob.
As for cis, cis what? I’ll be upset if I’m accurately called cislunar, as I’m currently without a space capsule, so I’d be a step worse than up shit’s creek without a boat.
Being called anything else, well, this is me flat out of fucks to give. But, if I had the misfortune of meeting Jordan, I’d definitely call him cis to his face, just to see precisely what happens. If he does something stupid, he’ll get some percussive therapy with my cane while I complain about picking on a helpless, defenseless old guy with a cane.
While everyone’s laughing at him, walk off with the comment, “Cissy”.
I doubt it’d come to that, he’s too much of a mewler to ever consider being a brawler.
On his own BLOG Coyne says recently: “For crying out loud, P. Z. Myers called me an “asshole” on his blog the other day, and I’m fine with that, though I won’t engage in the kind of puerile name-calling that occurs during his daily Two Minutes Hate.”. So that’s what we’re engaging in over here in his delusional view?
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/06/28/celebrities-and-influencers-call-on-social-media-to-remove-anti-trans-hatred/
One commenter named Seth pushed back hard against Coyne quoting his conservative hero Andrew Sullivan with: “This is sheer barking revisionist nonsense, and should forever mark him as not to be taken seriously due to right-wing pandering. There was an ocean of similar reactionary complaining at the time, about “flaunting” and “in our faces”. and “the homosexual agenda”. Rants about how devout religious people were going to be forced to use a new language, and to commit violations of their faith by the PC police by being compelled to go along with accepting a use of “marriage” they did not believe. Oh, woe, about how parental authority was being eroded by radical activists who told kids their sexuality was not a sin. Pundits wrote supposed clever contrarianism about how those who chanted “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used To It!” were the real causes of hatred. On and on.
Sullivan knows all this. His misrepresentation is contemptible.”
How long before the self-knighted free speech warrior banhammers Seth? Remember Paul Topping disappeared after he pushed back on Coyne for promoting conservative Chris Rufo’s ideas. Coyne loves citing conservatives. Hmmmm…
I actually want to know what he’d do.
Because I am sure there is a reasonable queue of people who would cheerfully do it.
Louis
@wzrd1
careful, you might get executed fingerguns
Unlike Peterson, I do not value violence.
I can understand there are circumstances when it is a necessary tool, like for the Ukrainan soldiers defending their country, but that is a sad aspect of living in a world where some humans put themselves above others and use violence to get their way… like some groups harassing smaller groups…
So för instance the Klan will have no problems with Peterson praising violence.
I see Peterson is throwing another cissy-fit. Must be a day ending in Y.
I learned trans and cis the same place I learned about gender . . . Latin class. [rimshot]
I can’t wait until Peterson gets to 4th declension nouns!
drew@46 I bet with enough research we’d find at some point Peterson advocated making kids learn Latin because it’s the basis of Western culture.
@47 timgueguen
Isn’t that a rehash of Thomas Huxley versus Matthew Arnold? If memory serves Huxley wasn’t super fond of Greek-Latin classicism.
@Ada Christine, just make sure it’s the right finger. :P
Maybe friends can come along and I can get a 21 finger salute!
The Canadian wildfire smoke is back in the Harrisburg area, worse than ever, with environmental raising the alert to red, unhealthy. Visibility looks to be down to 1 mile.
I feel badly for those closer to the fire, it’s got to be intolerable! It’s starting to fell like I’m back in the smoggy ’60’s again.
If they hate “cis-,” perhaps we should use the Greek prefix, but my Greek is abandoning me and I can’t remember the prefix that is complementary to “dia-” (the Greek prefix that would be equivalent to “trans-“). My brain is going to “idio,” and I’d like that since it’s so close to “idiot” (and “idiot” is derived from Greek “idios”), but that’s more “same” as in “identical” rather than “same side,” but it could work.
[rrhain, ἐντός]
FYI, Merriam-Webster says that in the English language, “the first known use of cis was in 1888″ and “the first known use of cisgender was in 1994.” Note that these are the dates of the first written use the editors could find, and the words would likely have been in spoken use for longer. Everyone here knows this of course, but it’s important to keep noting these words are not 21st century inventions.
PZ: “Either that, or he is a liar.”
Ooh. ooh, ask me! Ask me!
Ed, there is a third option. :)
@49:
Is it cis smoke or trans smoke?
Last year we in southern British Columbia got well and truly smoked from fires in Washington state. I’m sure you complained loudly about that, right?
rrhain
Unfortunately English already uses the terms homo and hetero, which are respectively same and different in Greek.
Homo in Greek certainly looks like it begins with an O.
ὁμός
From Proto-Hellenic *homos, from Proto-Indo-European *somHós, from the root *sem-, which also gave εἷς (heîs, “one”). Cognate with Old English sama (English same), Sanskrit सम (sama), Old Persian 𐏃𐎶 (hama), Old Church Slavonic самъ (samŭ). (from wiki)
Modern English uses sym and syn as prefixes that mean same, in addition to the word same.
John Morales
<
blockquote> ἐντός<\blockquote>
Endo (entos) means inside or within.
No idea why that second quote insists that the brackets are on different lines. I previewed, added a line break, moved it around, and rewrote it, but it remained borked.
Homophobes pitched the same fit when “heterosexual” was first introduced into the common lexicon for the same reason.
They don’t want to be labeled, they want to be considered the default, the normal. Either anything with a label isn’t normal or there is no normal because everything has a label – both possibilities scare the shit out of right-wingers.
Tethys, yes, and ‘cis’ means on this side.
Thing is, I took equivalent to mean used in a similar way as a prefix.
Obs, I don’t know Greek, I just took a quick look. I may be way off.
@John
I’m not any good at Greek, but I think entos is a preposition and homo/hetero are adjectives. I doubt the hater of cis would be happier with homogender, or syngender.
Ah well. Maybe an actual expert — someone who can follow the maps of ancient languages, say — could weigh in. :)
It’s a rather short map from PIE *samHos to gr. Homo and the other descendants of *sem, such as same, similar, cis. The Romance languages have a noted tendency to drop their H’es.
Tethys, too erudite for me; I have no idea to what you refer!
You’re overthinking it, I was only suggesting that if cartomancer weighed in, I would take that as authoritative.
(But, without cheating… proto indo european?)
@ 56 Tethys
Indeed this prefix already exists in the “SJW” lexicon. Many maintain that the word for not intersex is endosex. And the puberty a trans child goes through if denied puberty blockers is referred to as endogenous puberty.
@ 60 Tethys
Hahahaha. Which, following the example of cisgender, would be abbreviated “homo” and “syn”. Please make it so. The conservative meltdown would be a thing to behold. X-D
Yes, PIE stands for proto indo-European, and the asterisk denotes that it’s a reconstruction by linguists, but not actually attested in any written sources.
Silentbob:
Huh. I did not know that, so I looked.
(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07435584221100591)
Mmmhmm. Not how I’d put it.
—
What I do know is that puberty blockers presumably block puberty, and so any puberty of any kind is the the puberty any goes through — after all, puberty is puberty.
Thought so, Tethys. Ta.
[inside, outside; on this side, on the other side. Obs, different]
OK, I see now I was possibly ambiguouse and too allusive; to be clear, the mention I quoted seems perfectly fine to me (and for that, thank you Silentbob), but what Silentbob adumbrated (to my benefit) I think would be better adumbrated along the line of something like: “And the puberty a trans child goes through if denied
puberty blockersexternally administered sex hormones or Hormone Replacement Therapy is referred to as endogenous puberty.”(Sorry, the pedant in me)
@ ^
Yes you’re just trying to pick a fight again aren’t you because trolls gotta troll.
I meant the puberty they go through if no medical intervention prevents it.
(Having said that, blockers are a necessary part of HRT for trans girls.)
Silentbob, I’m hardly picking a fight, I’m thanking you.
Anyway.
Consider: if puberty blockers block puberty (else they’re misnomers, no?) then either way, for puberty to occur, they must perforce cease being administered lest puberty be blocked, no?
So for any sort of puberty, it must require their cessation.
Again: If I read the mention I quoted aright (I think I do), then the actual salient difference is the administration of external sex hormones, not the cessation of puberty blockers. It follows that I think it misleading to only mention the latter.
(And, by the way, whatever antipathy and emnity exists between us only goes one way; to me, you are just another commenter. And I did thank you)
@John
iirc gnrh antagonists dont need to be stopped in order to start hrt-induced puberty
Trans hate lacks even the most elementary logic.
John, ‘puberty is puberty’ is way too simplistic and even though I know you are not anti-trans from earlier threads, it is the sort of simplistically wrong statement that trans people hear all the time from those looking to justify mistreatment, so it’s triggering. Also, and this is important, the subject of puberty blocking in transgender care is not hard to look up.
Royal Childrens Hospital Australian Standards of Care
Go directly to page 15 for information on puberty management. It is written for medical professionals while being accessible to trans children and parents.
I’m not going to get into the huge topic of pubertal endocrinology in a blog comment, but in a nutshell:
Endogenous puberty = the normal process of sexual maturation, usually from ages 10-17, involving hormonal, physiological and anatomical development
Puberty blocking/suppression = the process of hormonal intervention to prevent triggering pubertal development; used for trans children who do not want to develop feminising or masculinising features that clash with their identity, and for children with endocrine abnormalities that cause precocious puberty who will likely want to develop adult sexual characteristics a few years later.
Exogenous puberty = puberty that is triggered by direct hormonal intervention. This applies to trans YAs who have blocked puberty but now want to develop adult sexual characteristics as closely aligned with their identified gender as possible. It also applies to YAs who have endocrine disorders that prevented puberty in the first place but who would like to have mature sexual characteristics.
As per sexual orientation and gender identities, puberty is not a simple either-you-go-through-puberty-or-we-block-it binary, even in cis people. Puberty is a complex process and, like all complex biological processes, there is a huge diversity on the range of natural outcomes — including people who will never go through endogenous puberty at all.
chrislawson, no worries. You are more precise, I do appreciate that.
Thanks.
@62. Tethys :“It’s a rather short map from PIE *samHos to gr. Homo and the other descendants of *sem, such as same, similar, cis. The Romance languages have a noted tendency to drop their H’es.”
Huh? -> u (.) wot?
Thing that really baffles me is why espanol says ‘H’ but spells it ‘J’ or ”x” eg, Jerez is said “Hereth” and Mexico is said “Mehiko” and Fajitas said “Faheata” since I don’t know why you wouldn’t just either say it the same as its spelt or spell it the same as its said.
Oçourse english has more than its fair share of issues when it comes to prouncing verus spelling words eg blue “Bloo”, thought “thawt” through “thro” et cetera.. but still.
Nope. Jerez is said Jerez, Mejico is said Mejico (well, Mexico these days), and fajitas (“small bands/girdles”) are said fajitas.
Juan is similar — back when I came to Oz (1973) I started being called Huan and Yuan and so forth, thus I anglicised it for everyone’s benefit (seeing one’s name butchered is tiresome).
Weirdly, it’s Spanish where if one sees a word one knows how to pronounce, and almost as easily when one can pronounce a word one can spell it. A much more recent intervention in the language than English, and so the concordance between pronunciation and spelling is quite strong and very consistent.
And yes, silent ‘h’ at the beginning of words.
Point being, la jota no suena como la hache inglesa, y la zeta no se pronuncia con una ese (well, Giliell’s claims aside) en Castellano.
But it is, to a degree that to a native English speaker cannot comprehend without also learning Spanish. From actual spain, ‘fajitas’ is a spanish word, but not a Spanish word from actual Spain.
Dude, there’s no such thing as saying it the way it’s spelt or spelling it the way it’s said.
Also, if anyone thinks the foodstuff called a scone rhymes with “stone” rather than “gone” I will meet you in the parking lot.
Bring knives.
Sorry, bob, but that’s how it is in Spanish. Really.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Spanish
“One area of the language the Academy sought to fix was its orthography. Because of the growing distance between spelling and pronunciation, a concern for spelling reform had developed in the 17th century.[20] This culminated in the 1741 publishing of the Academy’s Orthography of the Spanish Language.[21] Between then and 1815, the Academy carried out a significant number of spelling reforms, until Spanish orthography essentially reached its modern form.[22]”
English has not had such a reform for a very long time, and of course now its spelling vs pronunciation is a total mess. I’m pretty good at the former, not-so-good at the latter since I retain a strong accent.
Trust me; if a Spanish person sees a word, they can pronounce it, and if they can pronounce it, they can generally spell it.
Just from that, no need to actually know it.
@ ^ Silentbob : Well, yeah, kinda. It does all depend on which SylABle you emPHAsise but then there’s that and there’s saying whole letters totally differently.. If it was a matter of say “Juh-rez” vs “JAY-rez” or even “Gee-rez” it’d be one thing but Jerez being “Hereth” just totally baffles me.. such a different sounding letter en anglais anyhow.
StevoR:
It’s not. It’s Jerez. Je-rez. Jota, e, erre, e, zeta.
Jerez.
BTW, in Spanish, “Hereth” would be pronounced ‘eret’. Just saying.
Anyway.
Spanish jota (j) is not English aitch (h), and Spanish zeta (z) is not English thorn (th). That’s just the closest analogue to what your Anglic ear can hear.
You are just like the people at school (not just the other children) who called me Huan. No.
@ ^ John Morales : Thanks and sorry.
Afraid you’ve lost me with the “jota” thing. I don’t really grok that and am not a linguist – and respect those with that sort of knowledge. It’s how I hear things which, yeah, likely wrong and missing nuances. Maybe the Aussie accent – mental as well as audible?
No worries, StevoR.
I wrote what I did because I damn well experienced the converse.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/J
Anyway, truly a digression.
That’s don’t grok beyond that the Spanish ‘J’ (jota?) is quite a different letter to the English ‘J’ that is. Ditto ‘z’ versus ‘zeta’ which I know as Greek letter .. which may or may not be same as the Spanish zeta. I do know that the Greeks pronounce their alphabet and letters very differently to the english versions of them too. Which all gets very confusing fast for me sadly..
(Could say its all Greek to me and makes me resort to French* colloquially speaking but.. )
Seriously, I wish Aussies were more multilingual and that children here would be taught other langauges – notably here our Indigenous ones like locally Kaurna & Ngarrindjeri but also francais, espanol, deutsch and other European languages too. I don’t really know enough here – albeit I have studied French at high school and Nihongo (Japanese) at uni both of which I struggled with and am now extremely rusty in and have have forgotten far too much of.
.* I.e. swear words in Aussie slang ..
getum við að lærum íslensku saman?
In space travel, the process that sends a spacecraft from Earth orbit toward the Moon, is known as “trans lunar injection”, and the region of space from Earth out to and including the region around the surface of the Moon is known as “cis-lunar space”.
I remember these terms being used commonly during the 60’s and 70’s by those extremely patriotic men who ran the Apollo project that sent Men (Real Manly and Truly Patriotic Men) to the Moon and brought them back to Earth.
hoists peashooter, strides out the door to meet silentbob
Showdowns are binary.
This comes a bit out of sequence, as I wrote it last night but (sob!) an ISP glitch deprived everybody else of it until now:
• Jumping in far out of my linguistic depth •
We have a lot of confusion coming from an inadvertent pun: “Homo” meaning “man” in Greek and “same” in Latin (thus, respectively, “Homo sapiens” and “homogenized” milk). Some Brit coined “~sexual” in the 19th century for Victorian-era purposes; we need not trouble genuine classicists on that word.
I once knew a Greek-teaching-nun who enjoyed telling a story about a classroom flub in distinguishing two words for “man”:
Pierce
No, it’s the opposite. Latin Homo means man, as in human. It eventually evolved to meaning man, as in Spanish Hòmbre, or French Hómme.
Both words for man are pronounced with silent initial H, despite the spelling.
Ada Christine
<3 Datives! Dangling participals! Diphthongs!
Ek hygg at that sé “We get the same as regards learning Icelandic.” , but the question mark leads me to believe I am missing something.
John Morales,
Yeah, I don’t know about “endo.” “Within” is not quite the same thing as “same side.” It may very well be that Greek just doesn’t divide the world up like that where there would be a complementary prefix to “dia.” English, for example, uses “trans” all the time to describe things going across, but it doesn’t really have a prefix for things staying on the same side. Yeah, “cis” exists and is used, but not nearly as often. There’s “syn,” but that’s more along the lines of “iso” and “homo” which aren’t really antonyms of “across,” either. Instead, when English wants to describe things as being on the same side, we say, “On the same side.”
I still like “idio” though “homo” is getting up there in my mind for the petty revenge. I think kome’s right: They want to be thought of as “default” and thus don’t need any label because to have a word to specifically describe them means that everybody else might be considered “normal,” too. We see this all the time with the laws that discriminate against other religions besides Christianity, other sexual orientations besides heterosexuality, etc. Exactly how do you talk about who Martha Washington is without discussing her gender and her marital relationship to George, which necessarily means her gender and sexual orientation? “Oh, but that’s not the same thing.”
Right.
Tethys @ # 91 – Ooops! Thanks!
rrhain
I don’t think there is an antonym for dia. I can’t think of any words that mean the opposite of diagonal (between two angles) or diameter. (Between two measures)
There is diameter and parameter. Also diamagnetic and paramagnetic.
Is it about opposites?
Greek and most Germanic languages have three genders and gendered nouns. You could easily indicate masculine, feminine, or neutral simply by inflecting the nouns, verbs and adjectives to reflect a precise gender.
English has lost grammatical gender, and along with it the vast majority of its original gendered pronouns, dative case, and gendered nouns.
It just uses the neuter case, and only things that are actually gendered retained gendered pronouns such as he and she.
@Tethys
“Can we learn Icelandic together?”
“we get the same as regards learning iceclandic” would be, i think in my pidgin understanding, “við eigum það lika með að læru íslensku”
also, an interesting overlap, a negation of an adjective in icelandic is merely to prefix it with “ó”, for example “dyrt” means “expensive” and “ódyrt” means “cheap”
Ancient Greek prefixes tend to have a lot more range in their meanings than Latin ones. δῐᾰ is one of the broadest. It can mean “across” in a similar way to the Latin “trans”, but it can also mean “through” (in Latin “per”), “against” (in Latin “contra”), “thoroughly” (per or con) or just “in different directions” (inter se). It can even have the sense of “somewhat” (e.g. dialeukos means “somewhat white” or as we would say in English “off-white”). As such it does not have a general antonym.
In terms of usage, I would saγένοςy that the closest Greek equivalent to how the Romans used cis- and trans- would be hyper- (ὑπέρ) and hypo- (ὑπό). These in their most basic form mean “over” and “under” (like Latin super and sub or supra and infra), but when Greeks were describing journeys they would say that they were travelling, for instance, “hyper Malean” – beyond Cape Malea, or stopping “hypo Malean” – before they reached Cape Malea (the southernmost part of the Peloponnese, culturally marking the edge of Greece proper). Again, though, hyper and hypo have a range of meanings (too much and too little for instance).
So, given that the Greek noun used for gender is γένος, we have cis people being hypogenoi and trans people being hypergenoi
cartomancer @ #101, fascinating!
Would this have been mainly used in discussing like art and design, natural phenomena, or something else?
Bloody ‘ell, first the transphobes (or are they cisphobes?) are complaining about pronouns, now they’re complaining about prefixes?!
Cartomancer: I really don’t think “hyper-” and “hypo-” work in the area of gender — unless “hyper-” means sticking to your assigned gender (the one that others see on/over your skin) and “hypo-” means insisting on a different gender-identity that’s currently under your skin…? Not sure if that works; it kind of implies that hypergender people are relatively shallow and hypogender people are “deep” in some sense of the word…
Raging Bee @ #104, or maybe, rather than “sticking to” or “insisting on a different…,” falling within or without the (mostly arbitrarily) the boundaries of your assigned category?
But I think I understand your larger point. I’ve been trying to work out the issues I have with the implications of shallowness vs. depth, “conformity” vs. “nonconformity,” etc., for even longer than I’d thought (2015!).
hemidactylus, #2
It was used pretty indiscriminately for both man-made items and natural phenomena. Plutarch uses it for Macedonian military tunics in his Life of Alexander, for instance, and Aristotle for the frothy salt water of sea waves.
Raging Bee, #104
To be honest, from a linguistic point of view, cis- and trans- aren’t ideal either. Trans people haven’t actually “gone across” to another gender (many may have changed the way they present, but they were always the gender they identify with), and cis people haven’t “remained this side of” a gender divide. That would imply that cis people COULD change their gender; that there was an actual journey they could go on. Nobody has “gone” anywhere, some of us just started out as a gender different to that they were assigned at birth or perceived as by society.
Fun fact: In Danish, masculine and feminine have been combined, so we have two cases; ‘both’ and ‘neither’.
Trans people haven’t actually “gone across” to another gender (many may have changed the way they present, but they were always the gender they identify with)…
Well, yeah, such changes in overt presentation do constitute a form of “crossing,” so the prefix “trans-” still is (relatively) more appropriate here.
…and cis people haven’t “remained this side of” a gender divide.
If cis people don’t make any changes in their self-identification or outward presentation, then they’re not making the kind of “crossing” that trans people make (or at least feel a need to make).
That would imply that cis people COULD change their gender; that there was an actual journey they could go on.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see where the use of these prefixes implies any such thing. They’re understood (by decent and sensible English-speaking adults at least) as statements of who/what someone IS; and what “journey” they take or don’t take follows from that. (Most people don’t say “I’m going trans/cis,” they say “I AM trans/cis.”)
Fun fact: In Danish, masculine and feminine have been combined, so we have two cases; ‘both’ and ‘neither’.
OMG you decadent European perverts are polluting your precious bodily fluids all sorts of ways! Which, yeah, that does sound fun…
Raging Bee, #108,
The thing is, though, that trans people are still trans people even if they haven’t done anything to present themselves as their actual gender in society. You don’t become trans by changing your gender presentation, or, to emphasise the disjunct in the language we use more, you don’t become trans by transitioning. As you say yourself, trans is what you are, not what you do.
But “trans-” as a Latin prefix implies movement. It implies motion. It implies making a journey. A clue to this is the fact that as a standalone preposition it takes the accusative case, which signifies motion towards. “cis-“, similarly, implies a condition relational to a journey, and it too takes the accusative. Latin prepositions signifying position in place without relation to motion take the ablative case instead. Transalpine Gaul is trans-alpine because you have to cross the Alps to get to it. The Romans would have called it super-alpine if they were thinking only in terms of position.
But “trans-” as a Latin prefix implies movement.
Not always. Julius Caesar wasn’t implying any movement or journey when he wrote of “Cisalpine Gaul” and “Transalpine Gaul” (except maybe the movements of his armies, but that’s another matter). In those cases at least, the prefixes spoke of where something (a part of Gaul) was relative to something else (the Alps). So they could also describe where your true self-identified gender is relative to your gender assigned at birth.
Raging Bee
Words often have multiple uses, but as Cartomancer has noted, when trans is used as a standalone word it is a preposition and takes the accusative case. Cisalpine is absolutely describing where the nearest Gauls are versus Transalpine Gauls, relative to Rome, rather than any trait inherent to Gauls.
Both Old Norse and modern German also use accusative case if the direct object involves movement to vs dative. Explaining dative in a language that lacks dative case is rather difficult.
Ada Christine @98-100
I am not familiar with Icelandic, but I’m fairly competent at reading and translating Old Norse. (formulating sentences from scratch is an entirely separate skill) It also uses ó in the same manner. An óminnishegri is a heron of unmemory who visits those who overindulge in ale. Havamal has several verses that begin òsnotr madr- an unwise man, or òsvidr madr, a foolish man.
getum við að lærum íslensku saman?
You managed to use several tricky aspects of O.N. grammar in this sentence. Both við, and að have multiple meanings and parts of speech. Eth is a later innovation, with vit being the older spelling. Vit can be a noun, a preposition, or a dual pronoun, meaning we two.
I quoted a small part of the wiki entry about its use as a preposition below. Particularly important is when to use accusative and when to use dative.
Gettir means to earn/win, but I think you need to say shall we, or should we to form a question. I’ve seen Kannst, but that means do you know how, rather than can you.
You could say “ við á að læra íslenski saman.”
(We two should learn…) but AFAICT to phrase it as a question it would be-
Skulùm (dative) vit að læra(acc) íslenski saman? (Shall we two learn to Icelandic together?) Vit can be inflected for gender and this construction specifies two people of different genders.
Apparently their first rule of grammar is ‘Inflect all the things!!’. Even numbers 1-5 can be inflected for gender and case.
Preposition
við
(with dative)
against
(of direction) towards, against
horfa við e-m
to look towards, to face
(sociative) along with
(instrumental) with
among
(denoting barter, exchange) against, for
(denoting remedy) against
(denoting contest) against
(with accusative)
by, at close to
(about time) towards, at
við sólarsetr
at sunset
(about a person) towards, respecting, regarding
(of cause) by, at
falla við hǫgg
to fall by a stroke
as compared with, set off against
according to