mellowtigger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mellowtigger) wrote2010-02-20 12:15 pm
mellowtigger) wrote2010-02-20 12:15 pm
Entry tags:
changing my mind
There has been some evidence in recent years that our language affects our thoughts. I want to be pro-active in this matter, so I've decided to make a stronger push in my life to include 3 specific changes.
metrics: As ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
philbutrin pointed out recently, the USA looks rather silly as a holdout on officially adopting the metric system. America has been in the process of converting since 1975. I remember attending classrooms where we talked about the new system and our conversion to it. I also remember 1982 when President Reagan defunded and closed the office that was supposed to be helping the nation make the conversion. We got stuck with liter Coke bottles but gallons of milk and gasoline.
I've been in the habit of posting temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. That practice ends now. I will post only in Celsius.
I have an easier time (because of the aforementioned school classes) thinking of small units of distance in terms of meters and centimeters. Harder, however, are long distances. It doesn't help that roadway signs are no longer posted in dual metrics. Thank you again, President Reagan. It will be difficult to figure out my vehicle mileage. I'll still call it "mileage" rather than "kilometerage".
history: Calendars, in addition to helping us predict future events, are supposed to help us relate current events to past ones. I've never been able fully to wrap my mind around our current year-counting system. Enough of that silliness. I've grown lax in adhering to my Recorded Human History timeline. I'll work harder at posting dates in this RHH format. Oversimplified, just add 4,000 to the current Gregorian year and you'll have your RHH date. Welcome to the year 6010! *cheer*
Signing/dating my checks will be confusing to me, since I'm guessing that banks would not appreciate or adopt the new and more sensible calendar. I'll have to convert to Gregorian years when I pay debts.
gender: I'm glad that English doesn't insist upon gender for every single noun. Pronouns, however, are an obvious holdout to older ways of thinking. I dislike "s/he" which is readable but unpronounceable. I dislike "they" as a neutral singular. I have not found a consistent usage among transgender folk yet, but I'm going to choose one now. I'm selecting a modified Xe vocabulary. This option probably feels more natural to me only because of prior exposure. This language was proposed by Jim Sinclair (genderless autistic human), and I spent a few years reading xer email communications.
The letter "X" is pronounced like the letter "Z", as in the familiar corporate name "Xerox".
metrics: As philbutrin pointed out recently, the USA looks rather silly as a holdout on officially adopting the metric system. America has been in the process of converting since 1975. I remember attending classrooms where we talked about the new system and our conversion to it. I also remember 1982 when President Reagan defunded and closed the office that was supposed to be helping the nation make the conversion. We got stuck with liter Coke bottles but gallons of milk and gasoline.I've been in the habit of posting temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. That practice ends now. I will post only in Celsius.I have an easier time (because of the aforementioned school classes) thinking of small units of distance in terms of meters and centimeters. Harder, however, are long distances. It doesn't help that roadway signs are no longer posted in dual metrics. Thank you again, President Reagan. It will be difficult to figure out my vehicle mileage. I'll still call it "mileage" rather than "kilometerage".
history: Calendars, in addition to helping us predict future events, are supposed to help us relate current events to past ones. I've never been able fully to wrap my mind around our current year-counting system. Enough of that silliness. I've grown lax in adhering to my Recorded Human History timeline. I'll work harder at posting dates in this RHH format. Oversimplified, just add 4,000 to the current Gregorian year and you'll have your RHH date. Welcome to the year 6010! *cheer*
Signing/dating my checks will be confusing to me, since I'm guessing that banks would not appreciate or adopt the new and more sensible calendar. I'll have to convert to Gregorian years when I pay debts.
gender: I'm glad that English doesn't insist upon gender for every single noun. Pronouns, however, are an obvious holdout to older ways of thinking. I dislike "s/he" which is readable but unpronounceable. I dislike "they" as a neutral singular. I have not found a consistent usage among transgender folk yet, but I'm going to choose one now. I'm selecting a modified Xe vocabulary. This option probably feels more natural to me only because of prior exposure. This language was proposed by Jim Sinclair (genderless autistic human), and I spent a few years reading xer email communications.
The letter "X" is pronounced like the letter "Z", as in the familiar corporate name "Xerox".
- xe (plural they); replaces he, she, and it
- xem (plural them); replaces him, her, and it
- xer (plural their); replaces his, her, and its
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In Canada we call it fuel efficiency. People still say mileage and then use how many kms they get per litre.
There was an attempt to describe how little you use it for a fixed amount of fuel. As in: this car uses only 5 litres per 100 kms whereas this other car uses 10 litres per 100 kms. It didn't catch on. Car culture doesn't care how little it uses, it cares about how much they can get out of something so people say it gets 30 k per litre.
Most asian languages don't have a separate he and she and you can hear it when they make mistakes speaking English. "That man there, she is... oh he is... tee hee."
Mandarin Chinese says "ta" for "that person". I agree that "they" isn't quite suitable since it's a plural thing but it is pretty common though.
Xe pronounced zee (or is it zeh?) is a bit awkward to my ears at this point. I wonder what Ze Frank thinks of this.
http://www.zefrank.com
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I intended a /zee/ pronunciation, but I may revise my resolution shortly. (See other comments below.)
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Of all the genderless pronoun sets I've looked at, ey/em/eir seems more "natural" to me, being derived from the plural pronouns. And because of that, I have an unsubstantiated feeling that if someone unaware of the concept ran across them... they'd be more understandable in context. I think someone unfamiliar with them would probably see them as an odd typo and get the intended meaning.
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With Xe terminology, for instance, I found that I had a strong distaste for similar words differing in their vowel structure. I have a smaller distaste for the uncommon consonant pronunciation (/z/ instead of /ks/ for the letter X).
Intellectually, I like the Spivak pronouns. Instinctively, however, I encounter a large barrier. Something seems "wrong" with these words beginning with vowels. I know that English has perfectly usable and understandable words that begin with vowels. I look at the Spivak pronouns, however, and can't escape the impression that I'm examining syllables instead of whole words.
Pondering it now, however, I have an idea. A new Z terminology. Simply use the plural pronouns, but replace letter T with letter Z.
they -> zhey
them -> zhem
their -> zheir
The English is still perfectly pronounceable, the word-form similarity will ease transition, vowel usage remains consistent, and lead consonance is preserved. Even though the spellings are unfamiliar, they still "look like words", unlike the Spivak pronouns. That solution suits all of my gut instincts in the matter. :)
Actually, I'll consider this usage instead of the modified Xe terminology for my new resolution.
Removing the nearly-extraneous 'h' from the words can wait until the revamp of the English alphabet to improve phoneme-grapheme relationships. :)))
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So what kind of change in yourself are you trying to make by changing your language?
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I don't have much of a notion where it might lead. If I knew what would come of it, I'd skip the intermediate step and go right for the goal. :) I'm sure I've read some review of national languages and gender equality, and it found some sort of correlation between the two. Maybe it was the gender-neutral languages which first promoted the equality concept? I can't remember. :(
I would hope that a year-system that makes some logical sense would help everyone to better think of our history on this planet in terms of changes and transitions (of languages, empires, religions, everything). Our non-zero-year with backward-positive-years calendar confuses me, if no one else.
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Sounds like you are trying to use language to change other people rather than yourself, not sure that's a good idea. It at least raises issues of consentuality.
Ever heard of E-prime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime)? The changes that it is supposed to evoke seem to be things I'd like to develop in myself.
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Besides, in general, units of measure are completely FUBAR. Yes, switching to SI would help, but it would hardly "make things easy." E.g., pipe "sizes" are determined by the inner diameter. Which is nice for being able to quickly estimate flow through a given piece of pipe, but it also means that the outer diameter for "half-inch pipe" varies quite a bit depending on the material of construction of the pipe. (Conversely, tubing--which is merely really tiny pipes--is named by the outer diameter.)
Then there's the land of IT, where one kilobyte is 1024 bits, and to convert from Mbps to KBps you multiple by 128 (or maybe 125, or perhaps 122--no, no, really, I've found references for all of those).
While I have always admired your will power to stand on principle, I don't think the SI thing is a great idea. The next time you walk into a hardware store, your head will explode. Hell, mine does, and I'm not trying the least bit to encourage SI usage.
PS: Weird trivia. The Fahrenheit scale makes more sense than it appears to at first. The freezing and boiling point of water are 180 degrees apart--which is reasonable, given clocks and degrees of angles, and other base-60 units. (<yakkowakkodot>Thank you Sumeria! (http://www.metafilter.com/65751/Why-did-Sumerians-use-base-60-mathematics)</yakkowakkodot>) And 100 F was originally set at normal body temperature. Unfortunately, everyone's normal body temperature isn't exactly the same, and the early thermometer technology wasn't very precise, so now it's around 98.6.
PPS: Indeed, C isn't that great either, since it has negative numbers. How can you have a negative temperature? If you're going to switch to SI, go for Kelvin temperatures. Then your calculations will always work out properly.
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Meh. When I walk into a hardware store, my head explodes anyway, what with that sudden testosterone surge. "Wait, what am I doing here? Oh yeah, just keep focused on the merchandise not the employees." *laugh*
I half-remember the base-60 connection to Fahrenheit, but I think that's the first I'd heard of the 100F temperature setting. That's a neat idea.
I thought of the Kelvin switch too. Yes, it makes much more sense. Up here at higher latitudes, however, much of the year is spent hovering around the freezing temperature of water. Scaling the temperature gauge for that significant point also makes sense.
Personally, I think it would be interesting to do the math and see what comes of a temperature scale based on the freezing point of water at zero and the warmth of the average human body at 100. This kind of scale would be quite useful in determining habitability grades as humanity goes interplanetary. They are both arbitrary numbers, but exceeding those bounds produces an immediate psychological impression of "stressful environment".
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The one neat thing about fahrenheit though is that you can use the pun "Life begins at 40". It's said by refrigerator people because below 40ºF is where food should be stored. Above that it can go bad.
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