chive bunny steroids

[mellowtigger]

Chive bunny is back.  The strawberry patch is in front of my black truck in this first photo.  The patch includes some nice clover too.  Chive bunny ate all the clover leaves a week or two ago, and finally they were starting to grow back.  I guess that's what brought zhem back to my garden today. 

Eating all the clover leaves has done some good.  No longer hand-sized, chive bunny has quickly grown to about twice zheir original size.

When chive bunny was being especially cute, adorable, and photogenic, of course I didn't have my camera with me.  *disappointed sigh*  By the time I went indoors to get the camera, chive bunny was acting a lot more skittish.  Here are the photos that I captured.




I've been working on the garden to arrange a raised bed area.  The first wall looks great with a very even grade... except that the slope is a bit too steep.  It's not what I intended when I measured previously.  I guess next weekend (weather cooperating) I'll lift off the bricks and regrade that bed for the cinder block base.  Photos of that project after I make some more progress.

I'm installing a raised bed in part of the garden so that joshuwain (one of my roommates and landlords) can do some easy-to-reach gardening.  While sitting on the wall before finishing up today, though, I thought of another really good use for this raised bed next year.  Cold frame!  Just put some plastic over the top ledge of the brick border, and I can start seedlings outdoors instead of indoors next year.  :)

Now, shower finished, photos posted... I think I might actually head to downtown Minneapolis to the local Eagle bar for some food and beer.  I haven't eaten yet today, so I'm feeling rather hungry.  Well, I ate some strawberries from the garden this morning, but a handful of fruit doesn't go very far when digging dirt and hauling cinder blocks and bricks for much of the day.  I haven't been to the Eagle for many months either, so maybe I can enjoy a visit today.

Comments

[pangolin.livejournal.com]

Why do you use zhey, zhem and zheir when you could just as easily and somewhat more grammatically use they, them and their? While the latter set are technically plurals, and therefor incorrect, they are, by common usage both non-gender and non-number specific, and in any case are more correct than made up words.

And just to forestall possible questions about why this is in a gardening thread, that's how distracting it is.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

My personal preference is for the Spivak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun) pronouns for gender-indefinite single - ey, em and eir. I dislike misusing plurals for this purpose, and I get the impression that mellowtigger feels similarly. In my view, simply dropping the "th" seems more natural to me than replacing the "t" with "z".

[pangolin.livejournal.com]

changing the beginning t to z is more of a "breach" of language than using plurals for singulars, and simply dropping the initial "th" is no different that if you did not, except that you sound like you're speaking informal country speak, as if you had just replaced the "th" with an apostrophe, though it does consequently sound more natural than the z forms.

To be sure, in languages with gendered pronouns or other words, and English is by far not the greatest offender on this count, the masculine form is generally also the neutral form, so really, you just may as well say "he" when referring to persons of any gender as to make up new words, and simply drop all feminine referents. This is of course confusing, since persons generally have gender (whether or not it matches with their biologicals).

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I find the idea of referring to all beings of indeterminate gender as males highly sexist; in a language where using the masculine form for neuter or unknown gender is the traditional construction it's one thing, but English has never really had the concept of a neuter or genderless third-person singular pronoun. I prefer the Spivak approach to misusing plurals or clumsy circumlocutions such as "he/she". Just because it's a relatively new introduction to English doesn't mean it's a horrible idea - or are you staunchly opposed to all the new words that are coined every year?

I differ with mellowtigger on choice of third-person singular gender neutral pronoun set, but we are in agreement on the desirability of using such words.

:o)

[otterlover01.livejournal.com]

You got to love that cute bunny! Yes, I hope you will be getting better photos of him/her soon! :o)

I have just arrived from a part leisure/part working trip to Loreto, at about five-hour drive from La Paz, where I spent most of the weekend. I have just arrived home. I am stating my two last week of this semester tomorrow. Then a one-month vacation for the first time in years!

I hope you truly enjoyed your time at the Eagle bar and hope you will post something about it. :o)

Warmest hugs your way,
Luis ;o)

[mellowtigger]

I really should write up a post specifically on this aspect of language to clarify (justify) my intentions. Briefly, though, I think that English needs an appropriate option for gender-neutral language.

Co-opting plurals is an insufficient solution because it dilutes the ability to specify plurals when plurality is important. I think that perhaps (low confidence rating) number needs to be preserved in common language.

Likewise, "he" language dilutes the specificity of "he" when it's needed. I think that he/she/it should be retained for rare circumstances where those words are needed for specificity.

Spivak pronouns leave me with an odd mental sensation of inappropriate construction. Somehow the use of vowels to begin these words for anthropomorphic nouns is a violation of some subconscious rule of grammar. I don't know how to form that psycholinguistic rule. It would be interesting to learn what it is. (It seems an even more complicated rule expression than when to use "a" versus "an" for articles, which itself is rather complicated because the rule reflects the ease of certain muscular movements of the tongue on the palate.)

Zhey/zhem/zheir are an ongoing experiment, still subject to change.

Re: :o)

[mellowtigger]

Not as exciting as I'd hoped, but I did talk to Al for a while. (Gray beard in this photo.) They had their barbecue buffet going on the patio, so I got to eat a bratwurst and a hamburger along with my cheap beer. :)

[pangolin.livejournal.com]

"I find the idea of referring to all beings of indeterminate gender as males highly sexist"

It is your privilege to be bigoted against several cultures then. Language is arbitrary, and it's pretty stupid to be offended by arbitrariness.

I have no problem with new words, I make them up all the time. I also don't expect anyone else to use them. Most new words are made up to describe something new or out of popular coinage. Words made up to promote political agendas don't often see longevity.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Did you even bother to read the rest of that sentence?

And if I'm to be considered "bigoted" about something - being "bigoted" against something as grievously WRONG as sexism seems a fine thing to me.

The primary motivation for me behind using Spivak pronouns is accuracy. If I don't know if a person is male or female, it is inaccurate to assume that person is male; using any third person gender neutral pronoun (whether Spivak or some other system) indicates that I don't know - or that gender is irrelevant. If you don't see the need for this point of clarity - fine, no one's going to force you to use this kind of pronoun... but neither will your position on the subject stop me from using them.