Merriam Webster changed definitions of female and male

[MondayYogurt]

Every word means any and every other word. All words mean the same thing? Word word word word word, word word.

Male is the opposite of female, female is the opposite of male, and neither male nor female have any set meaning.

What an embarrassing mess.

One giant game of let's pretend.

Except you cant hack your way into or control the narrative inside of someone's head. Not worked well for Cummings, has it? People look, think 'bullshit' and move on.

Ridiculous.

And this is their definition of gender identity:
A person's internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female

So female is having a gender identity which is the opposite of male. Male is the opposite of female. And gender identity is your internal sense of female or male or neither female or male or both.

Well that clears that up then.

Wait for it... wait for it...

m.youtube.com/watch?v=gmk4PfuiPVY

'Your definition of cat is?' 'Not a dog.'

@twoHopes

And this is their definition of gender identity: A person's internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female

So female is having a gender identity which is the opposite of male. Male is the opposite of female. And gender identity is your internal sense of female or male or neither female or male or both.

Well that clears that up then.

If only they'd framed it like this from the start. Would have saved us all the confusion.

@Tempusfudgeit

'Your definition of cat is?' 'Not a dog.'

It's cringeworthy isn't it!

"It's all a dream, isn't?"

I only wish it were.

This is really bloody dangerous

How binary. Surely you can't be the opposite of a spectrum.

Are people going to boycott the dictionary now?

Words mean nothing anymore

SerenityNowwww Great minds!

Are people going to boycott the dictionary now?

They'll certainly stop having any respect for it, or paying much attention to it. And understandably, wouldn't you agree? It's kind of just signed its own exit clause.

The point of a dictionary is objective factual accuracy and reference, rather than to provide validation to a niche political ideology: that makes it useless and pointless. Unless it plans to change the 'evolution' entry to 'a blasphemer's charter that rejects the one true church' and 'Christians' to Infidels, Father Christmas as an affirmed real person, and 'heaven' as a certain place where everyone goes where they die, etc etc.

What on earth is a male gender identity?

Go and read the entry and you will see it is only one of the definitions. Here's another one.

female noun
Definition of female (Entry 2 of 2)
1a: a female person : a woman or a girl
b: an individual of the sex that is typically capable of bearing young or producing eggs
2: a pistillate plant

@Quaagars

Are people going to boycott the dictionary now?

What do you mean by 'people'?

Female is a scientific term applicable to all species which reproduce sexually. I don't think holly trees have much by way of gender identity.

They seem to have got confused with 'feminine'.

What do you mean by 'people'?

They quite obviously mean that thing that is the opposite of a non-person, which is the opposite of a person, which is the opposite of a non-person.

Do get with it Yogurt, progression innit.

Female is a scientific term applicable to all species which reproduce sexually. I don't think holly trees have much by way of gender identity.

Exactly. What the fuck is a 'male gender identity'?

Lots of TRAs letting the mask slip on Twitter by gleefully talking about how upsetting this will be for women. Some not happy though as it is not inclusive of non-binary people (or something) so MW may have made a bit of an own goal here.

This is asinine.

It would seem to be pretty important to have at least one pair of names for biologically male and female people. Covid-19, for instance, appears to affect them differently, and there are other uses for those terms, too. For instance, fighting against sexism requires a name for the people of a certain sex.

So yes, add the gender identity to 'woman' and 'man' if you wish, but not to 'female' and 'male.'

It was the Webster of Merriam Webster who decided that Americans would drop the 'u' from colour, favour, etc in part to make a linguistic break from British English. It's a dictionary which was founded on petty political point scoring.

Julia Hartley-Brewer has tweeted about this, enough is enough! I agree

mobile.twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1302296017476386817