WoT show to begin production this Fall!

[Dinuc]

Then an imm said making the entire mud gender neutral was too much work and locked the thread, which was a very odd response I thought :p

The title Lord is already gender neutral according to Wiki and many dictionaries.

Wiki - The appellation "lord" is primarily applied to men, while for women the appellation "lady" is used. This is no longer universal: the Lord of Mann, a title held by the Queen of the United Kingdom, and female Lords Mayor are examples of women who are styled as "Lord".

lord in American English · 1. a person who has authority, control, or power over others; a master, chief, or ruler · 2. a person who exercises authority from

Lord isn't gender neutral though. It is a term for males. It falls under the category, as many words do, where the male form is used as the default, but that's not what makes something gender neutral and in fact its an issue that the male form is treated as the neuter as it implies that men are the default. A gender neutral term is one that does not have a gendered association, either masculine or feminine.

Yes, there are many cases where the masculine form is treated as the default and applied to men and women, but that doesn't make it gender neutral. "Mail-man" is an example of a term that was used for a person regardless of their gender for a long time, but was not, in fact, gender neutral. Mail-carrier is gender neutral.

But the fact still remains that the definition is gender neutral. A dictionary definition of the word can be used for men or women.

The male form isn't just being used as a default. What is the point of a brand new fancy name? Is the original name offensive in some way?

Is it an insult for the Queen to be called a Lord?

[Fuujin]

The title Lord is already gender neutral according to Wiki and many dictionaries.

Wiki - The appellation "lord" is primarily applied to men, while for women the appellation "lady" is used. This is no longer universal: the Lord of Mann, a title held by the Queen of the United Kingdom, and female Lords Mayor are examples of women who are styled as "Lord".

lord in American English · 1. a person who has authority, control, or power over others; a master, chief, or ruler · 2. a person who exercises authority from

Lord isn't gender neutral though. It is a term for males. It falls under the category, as many words do, where the male form is used as the default, but that's not what makes something gender neutral and in fact its an issue that the male form is treated as the neuter as it implies that men are the default. A gender neutral term is one that does not have a gendered association, either masculine or feminine.

Yes, there are many cases where the masculine form is treated as the default and applied to men and women, but that doesn't make it gender neutral. "Mail-man" is an example of a term that was used for a person regardless of their gender for a long time, but was not, in fact, gender neutral. Mail-carrier is gender neutral.

But the fact still remains that the definition is gender neutral. A dictionary definition of the word can be used for men or women.

The male form isn't just being used as a default. What is the point of a brand new fancy name? Is the original name offensive in some way?

Is it an insult for the Queen to be called a Lord?

It is not neutral. People who write dictionaries are not themselves without bias in how they define or use words. What makes a term neutral or not isn't what's in the dictionary, but in how people actually use and perceive the term. This is like saying 'Dude' is gender neutral. It's not. Even if some people use dude to refer to anyone it is perceived by many to be masculine and it is used in many english dialects as a masculine form of address. Dictionaries don't attempt to capture every nuance of a word, but if you were to get a decent sample size of native English speakers across the globe and ask them if they felt Lord was masculine or neutral, many of them would say it is masculine and used to address men. And that's what's important here.

I'm not saying the title is necessarily offensive, but some people who are gender neutral or would prefer gender neutral terms might be uncomfortable with being addressed in such a gendered way. You can tell them that you think it's not gendered all day, but if they perceive it is then it will have the same impact as a more obviously gendered term.

The point of this conversation is about allowing for more gender neutral titles/ranks. It's not about one thing being offensive, it's about making it more inclusive.

"Is it an insult for the Queen to be called a Lord?" Not if she's comfortable being addressed that way. But somebody who may be addressed as Queen may not want to be addressed as Lord and that should be respected.

[Dinuc]

Dictionaries don't attempt to capture every nuance of a word, but if you were to get a decent sample size of native English speakers across the globe and ask them if they felt Lord was masculine or neutral, many of them would say it is masculine and used to address men. And that's what's important here.

Then you just point to the queen and tell them they are wrong. Why deal with a person's perception of other people's perceptions when you can just deal with facts.

Will this come up in the TV show? Does Min ever get Lorded?

Edit: Of course personal preference is personal preference. I am sure there is many people that prefer some titles over others. Maybe for some guys Lady is too feminine for their female characters and they would prefer to use Lord or General.

[Fuujin]

Dictionaries don't attempt to capture every nuance of a word, but if you were to get a decent sample size of native English speakers across the globe and ask them if they felt Lord was masculine or neutral, many of them would say it is masculine and used to address men. And that's what's important here.

Then you just point to the queen and tell them they are wrong. Why deal with a person's perception of other people's perceptions when you can just deal with facts.

Will this come up in the TV show? Does Min ever get Lorded?

Edit: Of course personal preference is personal preference. I am sure there is many people that prefer some titles over others. Maybe for some guys Lady is too feminine for their female characters and they would prefer to use Lord or General.

I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying when looking at a word you have to consider the entirety of it's use across multiple dialects. You would be hard pressed to find any English speaker who would say 'Teacher' is gendered, but you would find many people among native English speakers who would say that Lord is gendered. And that's important. Language isn't what you find in the dictionaries, but what is understood by speakers of that language.

As to your other questions, I cannot say, but that's outside of the scope of my original point and what was being discussed, so I'm not going to guess

[Dinuc]

but what is understood by speakers of that language.

Not quite. You were more accurate when you were talking about perceptions. Language does change over time based on usage. That is why Lord is now a gender neutral term as per the dictionaries. Lets get with 2021 terms instead of talking about groups of people that still use archaic understanding of those words. I still think that General is very masculine, but that perception of mine is based on an archaic subconscious attitude that most generals are men.

[isabel]

I looked up the wiki reference that you quoted. It clearly states that the gender neutral usage is only in the United Kingdom and for courtesy titled. We don't even follow UK spelling here as I find out constantly when I type 'ride grey' or 'apologise xyz'

Fuujin has degrees in linguistics. You may want to keep that in mind.

[Dinuc]

You don't get Lords in the USA. Only in the UK and fantasy books and maybe other places...

[isabel]

Judges are called my lord / my lady in the UK and in many commonwealth countries

[Fuujin]

but what is understood by speakers of that language.

Not quite. You were more accurate when you were talking about perceptions. Language does change over time based on usage. That is why Lord is now a gender neutral term as per the dictionaries. Lets get with 2021 terms instead of talking about groups of people that still use archaic understanding of those words. I still think that General is very masculine, but that perception of mine is based on an archaic subconscious attitude that most generals are men.

Perception/understood are both applicable here. And language -can- change overtime, but it's not something someone can sit down and say 'Welp, I think this is gender neutral therefore it must be so for everyone'. "Dude" is a great example - for some it is gender neutral because in their dialect it has lost/never really had a gendered connotation. You could use dude equally for men and women and anyone else. But in -many- English dialects it is gendered. One easy way to tell is to ask a person of a particular dialect if they've ever fucked a dude, see how many mean "woman". It's not going to be a lot.

Dictionaries do not capture all the nuances of a language. They are prescriptivist in that someone sits down and says 'This is how I'm defining a word and its usage, this is what I'm saying it means' and they do so without necessarily taking into account the pragmatics of a word - how its used in context. To quote the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Dictionaries are often treated as the final arbiter in arguments over a word's meaning, but they are not always well suited for settling disputes. The lexicographer's role is to explain how words are (or have been) actually used, not how some may feel that they should be used, and they say nothing about the intrinsic nature of the thing named or described by a word, much less the significance it may have for individuals.

Turning to a dictionary and saying "It's now gender neutral because Bob the Lexicographer said so" ain't how it works.

Your point about General is a separate issue of sexism. General isn't gendered any more than Doctor is gendered, but if you assume that a general or a doctor is male that is your sexist/implicit bias at play. (But also - many would argue that the fact that you automatically think 'male' when you hear General or Doctor is because we always default to male when using terms where there is a gendered split and that creates further bias.) However, Lord and Lady are gendered in that they are consistently associated with a particular gender and are split along those lines. And again, to a point I made earlier: it is an issue when you make the male gendered term the 'default' because it implies that men are the norm and everything else are deviations from it. There are numerous instances where the masculine form of a word is used as the default, but there's not a single instance in English (that I can think of) where the feminine for of the word is used as a default.

[Dinuc]

Your point about General is a separate issue of sexism. General isn't gendered any more than Doctor is gendered, but if you assume that a general or a doctor is male that is your sexist/implicit bias at play.

Which is the same for Lord. You assume it is only for men, but that is your sexist/implicit bias at play.

I can use Lord for the queen or other women and that is backed up by the english language dictionary and their given and accepted titles. And the people that manage the dictionaries don't just sit down and change things on a whim. They would have a good reason for doing so.

Just because if in my town we call horses cows and cows penguins, that doesn't mean when I go on the internet I will ask for the websites I visit to change all the horses to cows...

Yes dictionaries won't magically make everyone have the same perceptions of a word. But there is a reason we use them..