Are pronouns & pronoun policing really that new?

First they came for the definition of woman, then they came for the definition of pronoun.

"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

I can sort of understand what OP means. The recent push to enforce pronouns is a performance of dominance/force, a class enforcement. To force people to address obvious men as "she, her", when they are obviously male and will never be anything other than male. To be forced to defer to these people in their preferred identity, rather than acknowledge physical reality.

I think that's right. Of course you also have female people insisting on being called "he" or "they", but it's still arguably a show of dominance. It's not accidental that the vast majority of people identifying as trans are white and middle-class. An insistence on enforcing preferred pronouns is a display of entitlement that is alien to most working-class people.

oh OP your first couple of posts are a lot of words to show that you don't understand why a maid would be castigated for saying

"she went to the library" instead of "her ladyship went to the library". I'm an ancient old crone so i remember the expostulation "who's 'she'? the cat's mother?"

It was considered seriously impolite for a long time to say "she" when you could have used something else.

It's all very class-based, and at base - men seeking to assert their control over women.

"These examples replace a pronoun with an honorific."

Yes - I agree that the pronoun in this scenario does take on the class loading of an honorific.

And demanding that, e.g. certain men (self-chosen, bolstered by centuries of male-dominated society) be addressed and referred to as women, even though those individuals are men, male sex - that is demanding that everyone else concedes an honorific for those men. An honorific that defies reality. An honorific that actively damages women's rights by making women's rights subordinate to Men With The Honorific Title.

These examples replace a pronoun with an honorific.

There's also 'tutoyering' in French.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tutoyer where calling someone 'tu' rather than 'vous' can be disrespectful.

There was always an objective basis to the honorific title though - a person was a lord, a teacher, a judge, a doctor etc.

It wasn't as if the chimney sweep could just rock up and demand to be called m'lady.

It might be that class signifiers are also a horrible system but that doesn't say that demanding pronouns is okay in any way, I don't really follow the logic.

Compelling people to use specific words when talking about other people in positions of power and influence is as old as the hills. The op has a point in that respect. They just aren't pronouns.

I can sort of understand what OP means. The recent push to enforce pronouns is a performance of dominance/force, a class enforcement. To force people to address obvious men as "she, her", when they are obviously male and will never be anything other than male. To be forced to defer to these people in their preferred identity, rather than acknowledge physical reality.

Similar to historical times, when some people were forced to call other people "Sir" and "Madam", "Lord" and "Lady", and curtsey, bow, dip your cap to them, because of social conventions; even though, in your mind, you were going, "Fuck off you total arse," or appropriate historical words to that effect. But if you don't curtsey/bow/grovel appropriately, you could lose your job and standing in the community, and end up destitute. And the law backed up those it called your "superiors".

Plus ça change!

I’ve stopped caring about spelling or malapropisms on mumsnet - ever since the site updated I’ve found it randomly reloads and deletes fucking everything before I get to hit post.

So while I often cringe at my mistakes, it’s less annoying (to me!) than writing something and losing it.

I tried to style it out by repeating the original mistake on my next post but you busted me

I've just read about this book and apparently he has been on a quest what he calls "the missing word : a third person singular, gender-neutral pronoun". So "they"? As used by Shakespeare according to the blurb (ignoring the fact that it is still used to this day and therefore is not missing)

"I've also followed the sci-fi series Bridgerton"

If you think it's sci-fi I'm genuinely worried about you op 😆

Although now, gracious reader, one shall amuse oneself, with the thought of Daleks at the Featherington's Ball!

Can’t anyone spell ‘honorific’? 😢

It’s not ‘honourific’ in any form of English.

The hyphens are worrying too

What a load of word salad! You can't just decide things are pronouns because of Bridgerton or something!

Are they actually used that way in schools ?

But yes, @TheLassWiADelicateAir , sir and miss are very much used that way in real schools, not just programmes about schools! Certainly in all the ones I've taught in except the independents. I'm guessing you didn't go to a comprehensive... Doesn't make them pronouns though, whatever the OP says.

The insistence today, to include pronouns in email signatures, and to share your pronouns at the start of a meeting or gathering, is very similar to when people were forced to use the Nazi salute and say "Heil Hitler".

It's a form of coercive control, a form of abuse.

Lots of academics are idiots who just make shit up. Alas.

Sounds like you've got your grammatical categories thoroughly mangled.

There's one single example I remember of historical pronoun usage denoting social status, but I'm reasonably sure it's not what you had in mind. Still... in 18th century German usage, servants were addressed using the 3rd person singular ("er"/"sie"). In contrast, superiors were spoken to in the 2nd person plural ("Ihr").

Yeah. No. That makes no sense.

I feel like this should just be the stock response to all this nonsense.

I don't think they were used in history to police how people thought about the sex of other people, no.

I agree that there is a long history of societies and social groups developing correct/courteous/preferred forms of address. These aren't restricted to the aristocracy and will vary from group to group.

BUT - and it's a pretty big difference - none of these involved actively imposing a fiction that a man is a woman or a woman is a man.

These forms of address are also not pronouns.

Sounds like your book writing man is getting a whole host of things confused and not expressing his arguments particularly well.

Yeah. No. That makes no sense.

And fyi changing from Queen to King isn't a pronoun thing either, in case you read that wee gem on Twitter. They're 2 different people, not 1 person demanding to be addressed as the opposite sex. 👍

Are they actually used that way in schools ?

Or just in sit coms or soaps about schools? It doesn't seem a very natural way of speaking.

Not really a criticism, more an interpretation!

if you just stop trying to insist that honourifics ARE pronouns and instead say gender-y people are demanding new-fangled honourifics under the guise of ‘requested pronouns’ your idea makes a lot more sense.