Anyone else seeing fewer pronouns in the workplace?

[Pedestrian0]

I work in a large Stonewalled organisation. A couple of years ago everyone was fully 'she/her/hers' on Teams and in emails but I've noticed a real drop off recently and I'm so pleased. I think/hope people are getting a bit tired of the silly business. Now the pronoun-staters are very definitely in a minority.

I can also confidently say that pronouns on Teams or email have NEVER enhanced any interaction I've had at the company over the past five years. I've seen one they/them and frankly everyone referred to the obvious male as 'he' if we have reason to refer to him when he isn't around. It's not malicious, it's just the obvious pronoun to use for an obvious male. Everyone else just has sex-based pronouns. But - if you can't tell by the beard and obviously male features you can tell by the name 'John'. No need for the he/hims. It's really just virtue signalling and makes me eyeroll a lot.

I like that it's dropping away because the fewer people who do it, the more it'll drop out of fashion. But is it just my work or is anyone else seeing this?

It would be more straightforward to put a word like :man" or "woman" or maybe male or female in the signature.

Or (Mr) or (Ms). I know Japanese people don't give themselves honorifics but let's face it, he/him and she/her are also American / Western imports and gendered pronouns are almost never used in Japanese anyway.

The wider issue is really that of sexism, cultural ignorance and lack of curiosity. If you see an unfamiliar name, don't just guess the sex based on your own biases. Avoid gendered pronouns, Google the name to see if it's exclusive to one sex (I've done this before - - ditto with pronunciation), or ask a colleague.

Only Irish MNers will get this, but sometimes Myles na gCopaleen would write English with Gaelic spelling, so Harvey might become Tharbhaigh.

In my more mischievous moods I sometimes think about trying that.

Being Irish, that sneaky missing post-vocalic R in some southern English accents was the bane of my BBC-watching childhood. For example I didn’t figure out Doctor Who had named them 'Daleks' and not 'Darleks' until I was about 10 and reading my first Doctor Who novel and I saw the word written without an R in it 😂

Oh fair enough so, Mytholmroyd, if you only had it in writing at first. I assume all was well when you heard it pronounced viva voce and the bearer of the name was appreciative of the care you took in learning the pronunciation.

Dineasair ·This is stupid, it’s well known for instance that Scottish people have real difficulty saying certain words and phrases, like burglar alarm for instance, I know lots of people who just can’t do it, it comes out burgelar alarm. English people are incapable of pronouncing Loch correctly and Chinese people really do have difficulty getting their tongue around certain sounds too.

'Stupid', is it? Or do you just disagree with me?
Of course it's not easy to pronounce foreign words, but I'm not talking about learning whole languages, just individual words, especially people's names.
And I'm not as pessimistic as you are about people's ability to do so.

Irish people say 'fillum' for film, like 'burgelar' for burglar, because it's a trace of the language we used to speak, but we can say film if we must. English people can say a perfect 'ch' as in loch if they want to - the Shipping Forecast readers on Radio Four always says Belfast Lough and Carlingford Loch impeccably, I suppose out of respect for non-English placenames.

Yes. Thank God. ''Twas a fleeting fad.

Are you sure this is a good thing? Does it say sex at any point in the question because anyone with a GRC could put man or woman if they were a transman or transwoman. Or have I misunderstood?

I've used the wrong quote. It should have been this one!!!

@48wheaties

I've noticed. Last week i filled in a passport application, and the options were man/woman. Good!

As I’ve explained, it’s an editable field in our staff directory - once you’ve put it there it populates your email sig, slack bio etc. This is what our colleagues in China and Japan have chosen to do and I don’t see any harm in it. They use pronouns rather than something else as that is the English-speaking convention as they understand it, regardless of the fact that the convention in the West is intended for very different purposes.

I think criticising them for it is a bit like criticising the French for calling a dry cleaners “Le Pressing”. Ultimately, cultures appropriate words and concepts from other cultures and modify them to their own use.

If English speakers can't agree among themselves about how a particular vowel, or a word like bath would be pronounced, I really don't see how those kinds of differences would not be reflected in how they say unfamiliar names from other languages.

People with different English accents don't even pronounce English names the same way.

Student needed to get over himself.

I mean, my name is a reasonably common name in Canadian English. I find British people pronounce it somewhat differently (and actually how I prefer.) My boss, who is Indian but speaks English from childhood has a completely differernt way of saying it, her vowels are differernt . My partner, who is Carribean, also says it differently, completely changing the way the stress falls on the syllables and the vowels are again rather differernt.

In fact with a new name, the more used to the name people get in English the more likely it is that the pronunciation will reflect regional differences.

I don't think there's any need to criticize, but I'd be interested to know what their feelings about it would be if they understood why it was asked and how it was being used and interpreted in English.

really? This is a bit disingenuous, the chat isn’t in the context of learning a language is it? It’s about being in a workplace meeting or something of that nature and being faced with a word whose pronunciation is wholly foreign to your way of speaking. Not everyone has a facility for learning languages, I always think that you need a musical ear to learn how to pronounce sounds in other languages. I have tried to teach one of my friends to say burglar a million times, she has a university degree in history so is reasonably intelligent btw but she just can’t get her tongue around the word, maybe because of her strong regional accent, while I have no trouble pronouncing it. It’s a bit of a running joke with us. Just because you find it easy doesn’t mean that everyone else does. I think that in some languages it has to do with tongue positions that have to be learnt in early childhood, I could be wrong, but I’m sure I read that somewhere. Try learning Kalahari Bushman click language and see how you get on lol.

No - we have them in our email signatures (though it's not pushed) but now they've introduced them to Teams as well.

And we are talking about affiliating to Stonewall - the mind boggles, it really does. I don't work for the Scottish Greens either ;)

Although I've just checked a few emails in my inbox and noticed that our DE&I lead doesn't have them in his signature, which is very interesting (or maybe he just forgot).

@TempestTost they are perfectly aware (at least the younger more Westernised ones). But that’s not how they use them. I guess it’s like British people who use the bidet for washing their feet in - not the original purpose, but doesn’t do any harm and is useful for them.

I don't see why it matters if you are unclear about a colleague's sex, other than in a few, limited circumstances.

I have a name that is unambiguously female in the UK, but usually a male name in other countries (think Jean or similar). As I have worked in several countries, this has often led to momentary confusion when I meet a colleague in person for the first time, but so what? It's a good ice-breaker.

The only time it actually matters is when I see patients (HCP) and, so there is no confusion for those from other countries, I have a note of my sex after my name on our NHS trust's website. Gender pronouns make it worse for these patients, not better, as now no one knows if I am actually female, or a trans-identified male.

Completely agree. I had a Misha living in my house for nearly 2 years and while I could hear from his parents that the vowel sound in his name was somewhere between the short I of ‘fish’ and the long one of ‘sheesh’ I completely failed to get my voice to hit it. There’s really no point in getting offended with people for mispronouncing your name. Of course we should make an effort, but people vary in their ability to produce unfamiliar sounds.

I have never met someone who learnt the language as an adult and can pronounce the Gaelic 'Th' like a native speaker. "Ouille" and similar sounds in French are incredibly hard for adult learners of Germanic languages and English. The way that Rs are rolled in German vs Dutch vs Italian is subtly different and a give away.

You can make yourself understood, but it is very rare to sound like a native, if you have not learnt in childhood.

agree

@MarieDeGournay thanks! I wasnt being patronising to the student when I said 'patiently' just trying to explain to someone who thought all English (maybe even British) people spoke with an RP accent like the person from whom they had learned English.

As others have said here, the culture can really get in the way sometimes if they are not comfortable correcting a Professor in person/in front of the class. I wouldn't mind but I suspect back home it is just not done.

I started learning Gàidhlig during lockdown but boy do I struggle with some of the small sound differentiations - hearing them and then telling my mouth how to make them!

I agree - and have read research on this when studying the evolution of human speech as a student - that if you don't grow up learning some languages it just is not possible to ever speak it like a native for the vast majority of people.

I can't make the RP open U sound in English words like hunt/under after years of trying. Gives me away every time!

Oh well, I'll just cling to the belief that anybody can do anything, because I know several people who have become fluent and accurate speakers of English in adulthood, indistinguishable from a native speaker.
Maybe coming as I do from a bilingual background makes hearing and repeating different sounds easier?
I absolutely and unshakeably believe that pronouncing a person's name accurately is the most basic gesture of respect. Most non-English names I've come across do not contain clicks... fortunately, I agree with you Dineasair that that would be a challenge
Annyhooo how's about the donkey's pronouns being HE/HAW? did anybody read down as far as the funny bit in my surprisingly shitstirring post? did I make anybody laugh, which is my default mode, not shitstirring

Pfft I'm English and I can pronounce loch AND lough.

Work in retail. Last year they said people can put their pronouns on name badges. No one I work with has taken them up on the offer. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Meanwhile I had to fill out a stupid thing about gender a couple of months ago. Couldn't put my own thing in, which hacked me off.

Recently went to Disneyland and although there were clearly quite a few non binary ‘cast members’ i didn’t see a single pronoun badge which surprised and pleased me

I did @MarieDeGournay 😂 I wouldn't be brave enough to do that! I have just kept my head down. I would not be adverse to putting female after my name if needed although all staff photos are easily available on the department website.

Re: speaking 'correct' English - and yes I know some excellent speakers - mainly Dutch and Danish. It does depend though what version of English they are trying to speak - which I think is the point people are making. We may not have clicks but my accent uses a lot of quite subtle glottal stops and they are always mangled by people (actors particularly) who always overdo it and just sound daft!

I do not care how non-native English speaking people pronounce my name in their own accent and would never request they pronounce it as I do in my accent which is not RP. I would be doing it constantly with the many colleagues and student I have from all over the world.