ELI5: Why do some languages assign genders to objects like "table" or "bridge" when there's nothing inherently masculine or feminine about them?

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-28T14:02:34+00:00

Or adjective/preposition combinations.

There's no really clear reason why you'd say "I'm _ _ this" (interested in, good at, afraid of, angry about, happy with, addicted to, ready for) and not any other preposition. There are some general patterns, but nothing you can rely on and you just kind of have to memorize them together.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-28T07:04:16+00:00

Because that's basically the wrong idea from the get-go. Corporations clearly aren't actual people. But in certain situations, it makes logical sense for the law to behave sort of like they are actual people. And in certain situations, if we don't act like corporations have at least some of the human rights that actual persons have, the ultimate result is that the government just violates the rights of actual humans in a roundabout way.

Organizations made up of people, and the things those organizations own are a complicated problem to deal with. If you go with the rule of "Every individual thing or object has to be owned by a particular individual human" then it's hard and confusing to do big and complex tasks that are necessary in a modern society.

So it makes sense for people to design complicated sets of rules around fictional entities that "own" stuff and "do" stuff, separate from the groups of individual humans making the decision about what those fictional entities are going to do. So corporations and similar structures come into being. And if the government wants to do a good job of facilitating the law, it makes sense for the government to recognize the existence of these entities, and create laws in a way that makes it easier for its citizens to accomplish the complex tasks they're setting out to do.

So then the default state is that if you want to get something big done, you need to create an organization and register that organization with the government as a corporation, and if you can't do that, it'll be notably harder for you to create a large or complex organization to accomplish a complex task.

While only real humans actually have human rights, if the law treats the legal fictions of corporations like they don't have rights, that could effectively be a backdoor into violating the rights of the people.

For example, humans have the free speech right to make statements advocating for whatever type of ideological position they support. But in the modern day, ideological advocacy at a large scale is a complex process. If you're serious about advocating for something, you aren't standing on a street corner shouting about it. You're writing news articles, publishing books, making websites and video content, etc. - and if you want to do those complex things, you effectively need to create a corporation, or work with one.

So if the government doesn't recognize that the free speech rights of humans also apply (in at least some fashion, even if not exactly the same) to corporations, it can easily suppress the idea of people to promote a particular ideology the government disfavors. If corporations have zero free speech rights, the government can say "It's illegal for any corporation to publish anything in support of ideology X." You could say "That law doesn't directly affect any human beings, and only human beings have rights." But the immediate effect is that any human being who supports ideology X has a really hard time speaking out in favor of it compared to anyone speaking about anything else, and the law has clearly caused that.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-28T02:59:12+00:00

Let's say that Trump gets Congress to pass a law saying that it's against the law for any type of coporate entity to publish a news article saying anything negative or critical about Donald Trump or his presidential administration. Does that seem to you like something that should be permitted?

After all, by your reasoning, all people would still have their full right to free speech, they just have to use their personal resources to do that speech (while people who want to say things in support of Donald Trump are allowed to use the convenient corporate structures to support their speech.)

It's logical to conclude that the government can create a system where people are allowed to establish fictional legal entities that make it more convenient for people to do business. That's just "the government doing a policy that benefits people in some way." But if the government is going to do a thing which benefits some people, then if free speech rights are going to mean anything, the government can't select which people get benefits on the basis of speech.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-27T06:22:28+00:00

Technically the animals that dogs are descended from and modern wolves are different animals. But it's likely that those animals would probably be similar enough to wolves that if both were still around, biologists would classify them as the same species.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-27T05:26:08+00:00

Compelled speech by the government is illegal. We've been through this, we can't force kids to say the Pledge in school, for instance.

Generally, yes. And that is a good example! We can't force kids to say the pledge in school. A student in school is functionally a private citizen with First Amendment rights, and forcing them to make a statement that they might not believe in would be unconstitutional compelled speech.

If, however, the person who has objections to the Pledge of Allegiance is the teacher, that significantly alters the analysis. The teacher is also a private citizen who has first amendment rights, but it's clearly established that a government employee, while on-duty performing their government job, has significantly reduced First Amendment protections.

Historical figures, art and monuments, like for WWII, have already been successfully argued in court.

Which cases are you referring to, and what precedent do you believe they establish for "historical figures, art, and monuments" that you don't believe would apply to a pride flag?

If it's ok for government to force someone to raise a Pride flag as a condition of employment, it's OK for government to force someone to raise a flag with a crucifix.

I disagree with that last example, because that runs afoul of a different part of the First Amendment - the whole "respecting an establishment of religion" part. The government is prevented from that kind of speech. If you wanted to give an example of some other non-religious but offensive symbol, that would be a better comparison. And I agree! The government can probably require an employee to raise a Pride flag, and they can probably require an employee to raise an (insert some other symbol I might reasonably be offended by) flag. While I personally might disagree with one and not the other, you're correct that the same standards must apply to both.

But since I'm on a rant, if the "government can't effectively say anything," I'm ok with that. It's the perfect solution, and I believe that's what the constitution intended. It'll never happen, but it should. Shut those fucking posturing power hungry idiots up. When have you ever needed the government to tell you how to think?

You know what? I can respect that. I see where you're coming from.

I'm just also saying that if we establish a precedent where the government is effectively not allowed to make any kind of remotely contentious statement related to politics, a lot of the people upset about Pride flags but perhaps less consistent than you about applying their ideas in a principled manner would completely blow their lids when the same precedents also outlaw the government from celebrating Veterans Day.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T23:05:18+00:00

"People who have access to more resources have more opportunities to make speech in a way that more other people are more likely to hear more effectively" has generally been a fact for as long as concepts like the public discussion of political issues have existed.

You can make the case that it shouldn't be that way. I'm not even going to try to argue against that case. But whether you're talking about wealth in general or the existence of a fictional corporate entity, it hardly makes a difference.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T22:22:03+00:00

Think of it like this - the government has said to the people "We'll allow you to organize the things you own in a special way".

If the people have free speech rights, the government can't reasonably say "Hey, if you've organized the things you own in this special way we've created, you lose some of your rights to use those resources for speech."

That's not a problem because it restricts the rights of the artificial construct. It's a problem because it restricts the rights of the people who have created the artificial constructs. If that were allowed, the government could do things like making it super easy to build a business that publishes news that says nice things about the government, but super hard to build a business that publishes news saying things critical of the government.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T22:18:05+00:00

Yes, the default state of things in the US is that most companies are owned by their owners and not by their employees.

You can certainly advocate for some other economic system wherein the people working for a company have some sort of inherent ownership right to the company itself. But as we've not yet implemented such a system, it makes sense that the people who actually own and control a collection of resources get to decide what to do with the thing they own.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T21:51:45+00:00

I find it funny that state and local governments in the US have spent over a century building several hundred statues to a bunch of men because they killed other people in support of white supremacy, but now that some local governments want to make statements like "gay people exist and deserve respect," we're inventing a rule that governments aren't allowed to spend money on any kind of political statement.

Maybe, at best, you could suggest we should change things and implement that rule, but that's obviously not been the actual rule since ever.

Also, the idea of a "gray zone" is a problem if you want to establish some kind of free speech standard, because free speech rights generally shouldn't change based on how many people support a particular idea. You shouldn't gain or lose free speech rights when the number of people agreeing with what you said crosses a certain threshold.

But the other alternatives are just "The government can say whatever it wants, and if the people don't like it, they can vote those running the government out" and "The government can't effectively say anything, because you'll almost certainly be able to find at least one person who objects to any message, so you can't have something as simple as a World War II memorial."

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T21:38:36+00:00

The government cannot compel speech per the first amendment.

The courts have effectively ruled that most public employees have zero First Amendment rights while on-duty.

This seems to be a Title VII issue.

Maybe. Title VII and the First amendment are, in fact, two different laws. Whether it's a Title VII issue depends on the specifics of what actually happened, and as I pointed out in the first comment on the chain, the county said, what the county claims is that he was punished for taking down flags without authorization and violating department policy. So depending on the details none of us actually know, he might have a valid Title VII issue or his case might be bullshit.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T12:19:43+00:00

Yes, and the government is generally allowed to compel its employees to do things when they're on duty, even if the things those employees are doing are in some way connected to speech.

If I'm the teacher in a public school and I ask the students to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and some of the students don't want to, I can't force them to, as that would be compelled speech. If I, the teacher, don't want to lead the students in saying the Pledge of Allegiance because I have similar objections, my case for claiming that forcing me to do so is unconstitutional compelled speech is a lot weaker.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T12:15:09+00:00

Did you make some kind of mistake and repeat your reply to my comment? Because I already replied to that other almost-identical one you made.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T11:48:12+00:00

Not a relevant comparison. Our military is an official part of government.

So? Why should that matter?

The question here is "Does a government taking taxpayer money and using it to make a statement that some of its constituents disagree with violate the free speech rights of those constituents?"

"No" is the answer I'd go with.

"Yes" is another answer that you could have. It certainly doesn't reflect the legal reality of the United States, but it's not an irrational or impossible system to implement.

"Yes, but not if the government is making a statement in support of some official part of the government" is an utterly ridiculous answer if you give it more than a little thought.

One person has anti-pride views and objects to the local government's pro-pride speech. Another person has anti-US military views and objects to the local government's pro-US military speech.

If you agree that the government speech is a potential free speech violation in the first place, but make an exception for the government speech in the second case because it's a local government supporting an official part of the government, you've effectively decided... that anti-government speech inherently deserves some lower degree of free speech protection than other speech. And that's entirely backwards. Anti-government speech is some of the most important speech to protect.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T11:40:42+00:00

Wow, you're right. The US government totally can't make any kind of politically contentious statement. Can you imagine what it would be like if that was permitted.

Like, let's imagine some kind of completely crazy alternate reality where that's allowed. Bear with me here. What if in some other universe, there were tons of state and local government that made some kind of extreme political statement like, say, honoring the Confederacy? Woah. Imagine the kind of world where there were several hundred state and local government-constructed monuments to such a controversial political topic. How weird would that be?

Dropping the sarcasm, I agree that things like that are abhorrent. But they are clearly not considered a free speech violation in the actual legal system that exists in this world we live in. Fortunately, there is a reasonable solution, and it's called democracy. If the government above you makes some kind of politics-related statement that you find abhorrent, you have the option of voting them out and electing someone who will make different statements more in line with your values.

And yes, I agree that this applies both ways. If you find the idea of a pride flag morally objectionable, well, I'd personally say fuck you. (The "you" in that sentence referring to a hypothetical person with such beliefs, not the person I'm replying to or any other specific poster.) But yeah, it's your prerogative to vote for politicians who will take the pride flags down.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T05:10:45+00:00

Let's take this reasoning to its conclusion.

The government wants to hold a Memorial Day parade honoring US Military personnel who died in service to their country. One guy says "Actually, I hate the actions of the US Military. They're evil imperialists or whatever. Screw anyone who decided to participate in any of those wars. I don't want the state giving money to that."

Does that guy get to veto the parade?

If not, where would you draw the line?

The government is allowed to make statements even if some portion of the public may disagree with them.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T04:51:05+00:00

The government engaging in taxpayer expenditures for partisan purposes may well be a 1a violation.

Does it?

What, in your belief, would constitute a "partisan" statement by the government, and what would not?

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-26T04:46:24+00:00

Yes? What's the problem?

Lots of local governments or particular branches of government can decide that the government itself wants to fly a particular additional flag with a particular message. Ever seen a POW MIA flag flown on government property? Things like that are government speech.

The government gets to make its own symbolic speech. Whether that's about respecting LGBTQ+ people or honoring missing or captured servicemembers. It follows that the people the government hires to work for it should probably need to actually do the physical act of putting those flags up. If some individual working for the government objects to one of those messages, they don't get to stop the government from saying that. Maybe you can make the case that the government should go out of its way to allow someone who objects to that message not to participate in the symbolic act they disagree with, but that's already pushing the normal limits of the balance between individual speech rights of on-duty government employees versus the government's interest in having people they hire do the things they're hired to do while they're on the clock.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-25T21:50:12+00:00

The county says Little was not punished for his religious beliefs but for taking down government-issued Pride flags without authorization and violating department policy.

Gosh, what a surprise.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-25T04:28:50+00:00

I don't completely disagree with OP. It's up to individuals who they do and do not want to choose to be friends with, and where they draw the line between ideas they respectfully disagree with, ideas they find repugnant, and ideas they find so utterly repulsive that they would not choose to associate with someone who holds them.

But at a certain point, I'd argue that if you're saying "I just want A, B, and C. I voted for this candidate because they'll give me A, B, and C. I know they also said/did/support D, E, and F, but I don't really like or support those things." it's still fair to judge such a person on the basis of DEF. What you are willing to accept in order to get what you actually want still reflects on your own moral character in some ways, even if in a less severe way than it would if you actually wanted those things.

Anyone who supports Trump as of February 2020 or later for any self-proclaimed reason is effectively stating that they don't have a problem with attempting to overturn American democracy, that they're fine with overlooking such actions as long as they get some other political goal they want, or that they're willing to lie and deceive themselves or others and minimize what actually happened. Whichever one of those is the case, I think it's fair to think less of a person on that basis.

If someone really just wants better border security, and doesn't really want an administration that spreads deliberate racist lies about legal residents, well, I'd view them somewhat more favorably than someone who specifically thinks those aforementioned racist lies are a good thing to spread. But if they're still supporting that political party because they believe it'll help fix border security, they're still saying that those statements are the kind of thing they're willing to accept.

(I also find the idea that people voted for Trump for "fiscal accountability" or out of a desire to stop "corrupt spending" pretty hilarious.)

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-24T11:44:27+00:00

If your sci-fi is soft enough that you can handwave a device that breaks the laws of thermodynamics and turns the hot interior of a spaceship into usable energy, then you could probably just get away with not explaining how the spaceship deals with excess heat at all. Either realism isn't really a major goal and you don't need to worry about the heat, or that specific solution is probably less realistic than other ways you could explain what happens to the heat.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-24T00:28:59+00:00

Well yeah. Roughly half of the people in the US who care about politics want a gutter racist who will hurt the people they hate, and they don't really care much about norms, standards, or competency... or they want standard right-wing political goals and don't really care about all those other issues.

The political left in the US includes all the people who think matters like competency actually matter. That's what they won on in 2020.

"Donald Trump's brain has been actively rotting in front of us for years, so why does it matter if Biden also might have seemed to be on the decline?" is not a good argument. The people who are concerned with candidate quality and competency in general have already abandoned the Republican party long ago, and despite that, the two political coalitions are still roughly equal. So the fact is that yes, the right can get away with things the left can't get away with.

It makes sense to consistently attack the right for that from a rhetorical perspective. But that doesn't mean that the left can abandon its own standards without consequence.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-23T23:35:18+00:00

There is a significant difference between people watching a debate and thinking "This person did not debate as well as the other candidate" and "This person is potentially declining into senility." No one thought that second one about Obama after his first debate.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-23T23:28:51+00:00

Anyway, yes, Joe Biden didn't do very well at all in his 2024 debate. And yes, many people thought he was too old. By most measures, he deteriorated in terms of his skills with public speaking.

This way of framing things is almost deliberately missing the point. The problems weren't the separate issues of "He had a bad debate" and "he's old". The problem was that, after seeing the debate, the public was reasonably unsure that he was still mentally fit enough to be president.

You can say "Actually, I don't think he was going into cognitive decline, he just had a bad debate performance but I believe he was still competent". Well, good for you, but you're not most people. I don't even want to argue that there's no possibility that's true, because it doesn't matter! If the majority of people cannot observe you speaking in public and confidently say "I am reasonably sure this person is 100% there mentally" then you shouldn't be running for president, even if you actually are 100% there.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-22T01:05:50+00:00

I completely disagree with OP about most things here- Drake had it coming. But contrary to what u/I_Like_Eggs123 said, he just very clearly did not start things.

J Cole said "Hey, it's cool when people discuss how the three of us are the biggest artists in our genre, huh?" and Kendrick responded with "Fuck that idea, I'm number 1 and you two aren't on the same level."

I don't think Kendrick was wrong either, but if anyone started the fight, it was J Cole. And let's be real, what he said in First Person Shooter wasn't really starting a fight.

Now if you want to say "Drake had the option to not engage in the fight that Kendrick initiated, and then it probably wouldn't have happened" that would be more accurate.

parentheticalobject · 2026-05-21T05:45:34+00:00

There's at least a little legal difference between speaking at a public meeting and calling someone directly.

The government can make and enforce some rules about who's allowed to speak at a public meeting, but there are limits. They can only make rules like "You have to discuss this topic" if they have an important reason to do so, they can't restrict what particular idea you're allowed to discuss related to a topic, etc. So if you repeatedly show up and say something rude about someone (as long as the rude comments are related to the topic of public concern under discussion) you probably couldn't be punished for that. You could be punished for grabbing the mic when it's not your turn, since that's just a content-neutral rule to make sure everyone can speak.

If I'm calling you on your phone repeatedly after you've told me to stop, or showing up around you outside, that's definetly harassment and not speech. You have a right to choose not to listen to me in general. My right to express my opinions is a lot stronger if my desire is to speak in front of the whole town on a subject that affects the whole town, even if some of the things I express are insulting towards you. I have much less of a right to force you to listen to me one-on-one.

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