a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by galen

That seems like the proper response to every institution with the audacity to still call itself the Royal Academy of something :D





cardamom  ·  1487 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I mean it is an academy of the Spanish language sanctioned by the crown, like the royal mint or real madrid.

And they come up with weird words that no one uses every now and then, like cederrĂ³n (CD-ROM). I don't think anyone cares about them beyond perhaps people who use the language professionally like writers and editors.

Fun fact "elle" is the name the double consonant "Ll" which the RAE decided to stop considering a thing some time ago, so it is a weird choice. We technically already have a gender neutral pronoun "Ello" but last time i checked it was rather rude to use on people.

elizabeth  ·  1486 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Would "Ello" be kind of like "it" in english? I don't speak Spanish, just wondering what would make it rude.

In French, the gender neural pronoun is iel (pronounced yell) but to me just reminds me of the year 2010 pop star Yelle:

Maybe i just need to spend time with french speaking gender neutral peeps to get used to it? They in english flows pretty naturally IMO.

cardamom  ·  1486 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Kind of like "it", yes. It is rude because it is used for objects or concepts, not living things, so it is kind of dehumanizing. That said, I don't know people who identify themselves as gender neutral so I don't know how they want others to address them.

johnnyFive  ·  1488 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Haha yes, although I'd replace that with "the audacity to think they can control a language." Spain does still technically have a king, after all, and the RAE has a long enough history as such I can't really blame them for not giving it up.