It's the idea that trans (or other similar terms) must be used as adjectives and never as nouns-- which I've seen promoted in this thread.

And I understand that it isn't necessarily specific to the term trans and that people might take issue with something like "Lots of blacks live in Mississippi", but sentences like that seem perfectly grammatical to me.

Something like: "Blacks, trans, and gays should all come together to fight oppression" seems pretty equivalent to "Jews, Muslims, and Christians are all the children of Abraham".

We wouldn't say "Jewish people, Islamic people, etc..", because we recognize that these terms are mass-nouns that signify all the members of those groups, and use them as such.

I'm trying to understand it and do understand that no group is a monolith, but I can't see the logic in some groups needing 'people' to follow whatever the term is and others not needing it.

There is no honest engagement with you in these areas. Every post by you is you Woke bragging for others to see by attempts to always polarize and shame with anyone you engage with.

You literally are not capable of making a point without suggesting the other person has nefarious malicious intent and labeling them as such.

You are all about your 'wins' and trying to 'pwn' those you think bad, even if you have to frame them as bad first so you can then 'pwn' them.

So don't expect any serious engagement from me as you are a child and obviously so.

Ya you entirely miss the point, as usual.

Oh ya, that's totally fine.

Googling some and found someone making the point that saying "He is a gay" would be considered unacceptable whereas saying "She is a lesbian" would be perfectly fine-- and that's both true and interesting.

Or, it could just be that you're wrong. Instead of trying to win something or annoy someone, why not just try to be respectful to those in the thread or those who might be reading it? Is it that difficult to just let something go?

Lol relax. You said something cringey af. You got called out. That's it.

"the Trans". Man, you really are the gift that keeps on giving.

Guessing here that this is due to the etymology of the term 'lesbian'-- in that it originates as a demonym used to represent the inhabitants of Lesbos, whereas the origin of 'gay' is purely adjectival.

This language discussion is really pfizering up this thread.

English language is screwed up. So many bizarre oddities and inconsistencies. Thankfully, we all have brains, and so simple things like not calling black people "the Blacks" or trans people "the Trans" are just one more in a long list of English language things you just learn growing up.

Unless you are one of "the Specials".

Because uke brought it up, and not especially respectfully. Once that happens, it's game over. I think Luckbox actually explained the issue really well, but that's lost on him because of how it was originally brought up.

Oh no, it's spreading (getting out of Afghanistan thread). Go get em, Uke!

THis post is totally laughable in its bias. And thus why you have no credibility to post.

Go back and read my first post of this exchancge.

If yhou think I had any intent to use The Trans as anything more than a colloquial short form for the The transmen and the The Transwomen you are lying to yourself like uke does to create demons to attack.

uke has to pretend it has malicious intent JUST SO he can attack it and "win something". He ALWAYS offers it in his first engagement with every allusion to the most negative things he can cast aspersions on you with.

uke wants to virtue signal to others that he is the warrior on behalf of others and is at the leading edge of knowing what is woke by attacking aggressively anyone he thinks transgresses woke rules.

That statement "The Trans" only missed him suggesting I was Hitler'esque. It got a racist allusion, a gay bashing allusion, and Xenophobic suggestions about my intent.


If you think, coming out of the gates that way will EVER or SHOULD ever receive conducive replies back that are genuine then you are equally part of the problem.

This is everything one needs to know about uke.

I don't agree it was a "cringey" use. And I don't accept I called out.

LuckBox has explained why the use is grey at best.

Had uke said 'that usage could be taken badly, perhaps consider not saying it' without immediately attributed the most malicious intent he could think of perhaps he achieves what he wants which is some agreement and change.

But he does not want agreement and change. He wants a combatant on the other side he engage with so he can virtue signal that he has found he 'bad people' and he is fighting them.

For him to act in areas like this where the topic exists in a grey area (as Lucky pointed out) like it is so crystal clear that one likely has racist, gay bashing, xenophobic intent is him projecting onto the person what uke wishes he was engaging with and trying to illicit that in the person so he can have his fight.

His language is laced with him 'winning' and having the other person just 'acknowledge they lost on move on', as woke warrior uke moves from battle to battle collecting his imaginary skulls even if he has to create every demon along the way..

Luckbox hasn't even slightly said that this is a grey area. His posts explicitly say that your usage is wrong and that it's not acceptable to refer to a large, non-discrete group of people as "the Xs", you just won't admit it because uke is the one who pointed it out.

At this point it's fairly obvious that you are deliberately using inappropriate/disrespectful language to troll uke. You might have had a point about uke being overly confrontational to begin with but you lost any credibility when you chose to be obstinate and trolly with your usage instead of making any effort to change.

I never stated implicitly or explicitly that your initial usage was anything malicious. But it was still wrong, and your continued usage after being corrected is the problem. Once you knowingly use incorrect grammar, it's no longer about the other person, it's just about you, what image you are trying to portray, and what goals you are trying to achieve. I don't think this image or these goals are good.

Lol. Stop making stuff up. I never said you had "malicious intent" when you said "the Trans". I just think you were being ignorant and said something cringey af without realizing it was cringe.


WOOOOOOSH. I was saying that
"the Blacks"
"the Gays"
"the Trans"

are all things that are cringey. I thought maybe you would already know you shouldn't be saying "the Blacks" and the comparison would help you recognize your ignorance about "the Trans". It wasn't a racist allusion you silly willy!

a) The Black's are upset about police brutality.

b) The Black community is upset about police brutality.

c) Black people are upset about police brutality.

Which, of any, of the above would be incorrect?

People assume language use issues are crystal clear to everyone just because they think they are crystal clear to them.

My point about Luckbox's posts is not based on Results based Thinking and a conclusion but that some might talk it thru to see if and where it fits, if at all on a scale of appropriate to not.

Certainly it is not this clear cut thing you are pretending it to be. It was not clear to me.

And yes, once uke engages with me like that from the onset I am not going to cede him his 'wins' he is fishing for and trying to set up with his very first address that might has well said 'what about Hitler' as he alluded to every negative thing he could throw at it so that in any future engagement he can 'remind me about the last time I posted in a manner that had racism, gay bashing and xenophobia'.

I am not going to engage in uke with good faith as he does not warrant that.

And when you call that out, you should consider why you won't call him out for it, and only see the reaction to it as the negative when his behaviour is far more harmful, not only to discourse but in trying to educate or help anyone use language better.

uke is exactly the type of person who push otherwise well meaning people into polarized camps and is never part of helping bridge the differences and that makes me sad that he is a Uni Prof, but it certainly is indicative of what we hear is happening on campuses. Sad.

I would just say 'Jews' here' and not 'the Jews' but this is more questionable than some of the other stuff we've looked at.

When have I ever mentioned Catholics?
*When have I ever mentioned the Catholics?
When have I ever mentioned Buddhists?
*When have I ever mentioned the Buddhists?
When have I ever mentioned the Russians?
When have I ever mentioned Russians?
??When have I ever mentioned Irish?
When have I ever mentioned the Irish?
?When have I ever mentioned the Jews?
When have I ever mentioned Jews?

The issue is that Jews are considered to be both a people AND a religious group.

In the examples with Catholics or Buddhists, using the definite article seems clearly wrong, whereas with Russians, I think without the definite article would still be more appropriate for most contexts but there are plenty it would be correct-- because when we think of a group as being a unified people or nationality, there is a wholeness about them that can make the use of 'the' correct in spots.

Ultimately of course, Jews are a disparate group of people composed of different ethnicities all around the world, and it is a religion and not a race, making them a lot more similar to Catholics and Buddhists than to Russians and Irish, but it's hard to ding Victor too much there.

Also of note is that with 'The Irish', use of 'the' seems mandatory', so some groups demand the use of the definite article.

A treasure trove of useless information.

This thread finally got interesting.

all generalities are false

gender realities

The first is clearly incorrect and problematic, even ignoring the basic grammar mistake of using an apostrophe for a plural. Using the definite article to refer to an indefinitely defined group of people can be problematic because, as Luckbox quoted, "if the phrase [using the definite article] is entirely generic, there's an odd implication of homogeneity and otherness".

Also regarding the use as adjective vs noun that Luckbox mentioned, "trans" is a bit weird because it is not a simple pluralisation of a nominalized adjective and so using it in the acceptable ways that you might use "blacks" or "gays" is awkward.

On a personal level I often find even the accepted uses to be weird; I don't think I've ever seen someone use "straights" as opposed to "straight people" and so find the use of "gays" rather than "gay people" jarring. I don't really know exactly what causes something to seem wrong though, as while writing this I realised that I would be fine using "homosexuals" and "heterosexuals" in some contexts, which is obviously contrary to my thoughts on using "gays" and "straights".

Lol. Again the obsession with my job, and lol at you thinking the way I interact with math students would be the same way I lol at you on an anonymous internet ****ing up - once again - with basic terminology about trans people.

"the Trans". Just lol.