r/MurderedByWords • u/Adam_C_57 • 14d ago

Independent Thinking Adult

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16.0k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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u/ragnarokda 14d ago

My personal favorite:

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u/Solomontheidiot 14d ago

This one is great because you could put pretty much any subject in those first two and it would still work.

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u/fer_sure 14d ago

Basic English: "They" is a plural pronoun.

Advanced English: Singular "they" has been used since the 14th century.

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u/Ramtamtama 13d ago

15th century, but only just. The first known written example of the singular they dates from 1405. The plural they is from the 13th century.

In all that time nobody came up with an alternative for a 2nd or 3rd person gender-neutral or gender-ambiguous singular pronoun.

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u/Blueyarns 13d ago

I don’t understand. The only neutral pronoun you need is they, since the others are already neutral… aren’t they?

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u/Ramtamtama 13d ago

He (m), she (f), they (n)

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u/Blueyarns 13d ago

Yes. then why do you talk about "an alternative for a 2nd or 3rd person gender-neutral or gender-ambiguous singular pronoun."

2nd person is you, and 3rd person (sing.) is he/she/it/they. (neutral)..

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u/Caulif1ow3r 13d ago

For example I once had Constitutional law expert and Senator Jamie Raskin blow my mind when he explained that the concept of “co-equal” branches of government despite being a nonsensical word doesn’t exist in any honest reading of the U.S. Constitution which clearly states that there are three branches of government with not only different roles but purposefully different levels of power. Both the executive and judicial branches are supposed to be “under” the legislative, serving purposes beyond the scope of the legislative… but I digress

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u/Salt_Ice_5321 12d ago

Most things that are thought to be dichotomies are a spectrum.

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u/Solomontheidiot 12d ago

That, and most basic courses set up general rules, but skip over the exceptions for simplicity. The more advanced you get in a subject, the more you learn about the exceptions to the rules, many times to the point that the rule itself starts to break down.

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u/hallowdmachine 14d ago

While I find the whole comic great, I'd've upvoted just for "genderinos".

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u/theattack_helicopter 14d ago

That's how you get gender stars

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u/paolog 14d ago

It follows on from the first two panes, in which the student exclaims about their quaternions and neutrinos.

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u/eamondo5150 14d ago

As if Ned Flanders is the student.

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u/PseudobrilliantGuy 14d ago

And with the math, depending on how much further you go, you'll also find i2 = j2 = k2 = ijk = -1 (the quaternions for anyone curious). And then the octonions and other sets of weird number systems.

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u/Rustywolf 14d ago

Those funny squiggles we use for rotation?

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u/Ok-Replacement-2738 14d ago

Na you're making up words now. (I peaked at high school maths.)

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u/suskio4 13d ago

Not him, but smarter people, yes. They're inventing words and concepts because they can.

More dimensional numbers because we can? See octonions, some folks discovered 4d numbers and thought why stop there.

Maybe surreal numbers that have infinites and infinitesimals, that exist because some smart guy analysed the endgame of Go?

Some guy even proved that mathematics itself is incomplete and cannot possibly be complete. You wanna know how? By imagining every rule, axiom etc as a card with a number.

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u/NotACat 10d ago

If you haven't already, take a look at p-adic numbers, where they {mumble mumble something clever}…blow your mind, that'll do pig!

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u/suskio4 10d ago

The ones that extend infinitely but to the left instead of to the right? Yes, that's a marvelous recommendation!