Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Jeff Jones wrote:

> I also figured out you (YHL) were female, but for the wrong reasons: when I
> saw "Yoon Ha Lee", my subconscious (or whatever) seeing an oriental name
> automatically took Yoon as the surname, even though I knew that Lee was a
> more likely surname. "Ha Lee" then sounded (to my mind) like "Holly", a
> female given name.
<bemused that it sometimes matters>

I've had a teacher make that mistake, and she was teaching in a DoDs
school in Seoul, Korea.  You're not alone.  =^)

If I ever have kids (unlikely prospect) they're getting American *and*
Korean names, and they can pick what they want to use.

> >For those who aren't sure, I'm not offended by referred to as an "it,"
> >but I suspect I'm also in the minority there.
>
> To me, "it" suggests an inanimate object, and you seem to be rather animate!
> I usually refer to a person of unknown gender as "they"; this also works
> well if the person has multiple personalities.
Oh, sure!  :-)  I use "they" as well generally...it's just that "it"
wouldn't offend me if someone chose to use it, is all.

YHL, who dislikes languages that care about sex/gender distinctions out
of habit