Ill start:

“Me cago en tus muertos” - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    In polish, calling people with the neutral gender. It’s a grave insult which implies lack of agency and dehumanisation, and thank to some rightwinger assholes in parliament is also a specific transphobic insult now.

    While in english it’s completely normal thing to say if you’re not sure of a person’s gender.

    So definitely not my “favourite”, i would never said this to anyone in polish and i occasionally get a hiccup of misgendering someone in english because of that, but interesting from language point of view.

    • What_Religion_R_They [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      This seems like a thing in Slavic languages in general. In Russian the equivalent is “одушевленные и неодушевленные существительные” - animate, and inanimate objects, so I guess they add one extra pronoun to the usual three, which is just for objects. I think some genderqueer people prefer using the plural pronoun in that case (“они” instead of “оно”). Is that possible in Polish?

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The neutral gender is perfectly grammatical in polish, just it was never used for people other than small babies, i seen some effort to use it in literature for gender fluid or genderless people but it’s rare and don’t get positive reviews. It might catch some day though, i don’t know.

    • Chapo_is_Red [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      In polish, calling people with the neutral gender…While in english it’s completely normal thing to say if you’re not sure of a person’s gender.

      Maybe I misunderstand, but you should never call someone “it” in English, except for animals and babies. Calling someone “it” is considered dehumanizing in English.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yes, what i meant that in english you call people in 3rd person “them”, “they” regardless of their gender, but in polish neutral gender would always be “it”. That’s why it’s so insulting to use it despite it is gramatically existing. Polish had pronouns literally build in every noun, verb and adjective.