What's with the he/she and his/her mistakes?

    I've been wondering about this for a while now.

    Sometimes I see posts that confuse me, because at odd, unexpected places the gender pronouns are getting mixed up: girls and women are being referred to with 'he' and 'his', and boys and men with 'she' and 'her'.


    At first I thought it was just typo's. But it happened too often like this, to be some random typo. And it happened in such weird places where instinctively you'd have used the right pronounces without a second thought.


    Which makes me wonder: is it maybe that in some languages the gender pronouns aren't present or used in the manner they're used in the English language? So that when people from those places use English, they sometimes end up swapping the gender pronouns?

    In some languages, like French, possessive adjectives will change depending on the gender of the noun they're describing.

    Meaning that if you're talking about the father of a female for example, you wouldn't say "sa père", her father, but "son père", because father is masculine. This could end up being mistranslated as "his father".

    Unlike English, most languages have grammatical gender and all nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

    Makes me think about when I was watching a Taiwanese drama with fansub where all the female characters had the "he" pronounces, and I found that weird.

    But the person, who made the subtitles was Indonesian, and I found out that in Indonesian there is no "she/her" and "he/him" pronounces.


    Well.... I remember when I was a child and made a mistake in an essay in Danish class, where I wrote "him" about a horse, when in Danish and English, it is "it".

    In my native language, a horse is a "he/him". Sometimes we give animals and inanimate objects "he/him" and "she/her" pronounces.

    Some people regarless of gender like some pronouns more and use the.

    pronouns don't equal gender

    I can go by they/him pronouns but still identify as a woman its just what people feel more comfortable with and by the other posts language has a huge impact as well

  • AllKill VIP
    Quote from Minkah

    In some languages, like French, possessive adjectives will change depending on the gender of the noun they're describing.

    Meaning that if you're talking about the father of a female for example, you wouldn't say "sa père", her father, but "son père", because father is masculine. This could end up being mistranslated as "his father".

    Unlike English, most languages have grammatical gender and all nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

    Quote from fantasygoose

    Makes me think about when I was watching a Taiwanese drama with fansub where all the female characters had the "he" pronounces, and I found that weird.

    But the person, who made the subtitles was Indonesian, and I found out that in Indonesian there is no "she/her" and "he/him" pronounces.


    Well.... I remember when I was a child and made a mistake in an essay in Danish class, where I wrote "him" about a horse, when in Danish and English, it is "it".

    In my native language, a horse is a "he/him". Sometimes we give animals and inanimate objects "he/him" and "she/her" pronounces.

    Ah, I see. If more languages have this then I see how it might happen.


    It's just in English it doesn't happen like that, you'd get odd looks if you'd be using she, her and hers for a guy, and he, him and his for a girl.

    Quote from LovenRose

    I never noticed it :whatb:


    Users' pronounces or idols' pronounces?

    Idols', those were the ones noticeable.

    Where it was clear that the person talked about was a girl idol for example, but referred to with 'he'.

  • AllKill VIP
    Quote from FoReveries

    Idols', those were the ones noticeable.

    Where it was clear that the person talked about was a girl idol for example, but referred to with 'he'.

    Hmmm maybe they’re trying to make it clear that even though they were talking about one idol what they’re saying now goes for idols in general, not just that specific idol.

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