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Re:Cameras and Lenses by smnscu on Thursday December 10, 2020 @07:36AM (#25373020)
I'm Romanian and have many Polish friends. This is not even remotely accurate, except for basket cases that I have yet to meet.
Re:Cameras and Lenses by bboozzoo on Thursday December 10, 2020 @07:44AM (#25373087)
Actually being Polish I can say it is correct, at least for the cases mentioned (also correct for suffix -cki). However it is true that there are surnames that do not follow this particular inflection scheme.

Keep in mind that Poles are likely to use a single, male variant of the surname, rather than explain the intricacies of inflection in the Polish language.

Re:Cameras and Lenses by lb1lf on Thursday December 10, 2020 @07:58AM (#25373180)
-A former girlfriend is of a Russian emigré family; she always got a chuckle out of Norwegians' inability to understand the concept of inflection.

Her father as a matter of course got letters from all her leisure activities, school &c addressed to 'Mr. Yuri ----skaia'. - as her last name was ----skaia, obviously his would be, too.

At least for us inflectionally challenged Norwegians.

Re:Cameras and Lenses by leephillips on Thursday December 10, 2020 @08:34AM (#25373495)
Reminds me of Nabokov complaining about the incompetent translators of Russian novels → English writing Mr. Karenina.
Re:Cameras and Lenses by jgwil2 on Thursday December 10, 2020 @08:08PM (#25381068)
It wasn't "Mr. Karenina" (I've never seen anyone use that form) he took issue with; he believed that the name should be translated as Anna Karenin rather than the usual Karenina, since English does not inflect surnames.
Re:Cameras and Lenses by StavrosK on Thursday December 10, 2020 @01:04PM (#25376454)
Basically the same as "Miss John Doe".
Re:Cameras and Lenses by h_spacer on Thursday December 10, 2020 @07:43AM (#25373081)
Re:Cameras and Lenses by echelon on Thursday December 10, 2020 @09:11AM (#25373846)
I'm still going to use they/them because a name doesn't necessarily match with one's gender.
Re:Cameras and Lenses by baq on Thursday December 10, 2020 @11:35AM (#25375444)
language 1 extracts gender to a separate word.

language 2 embeds gender in the word itself.

names are words.

it's a lose-lose situation: native speakers of language 2 will look at what you wrote and cringe or just assume you're ignorant. they won't get the point you're trying to make, null, nada, 0% chance. source: i'm a native speaker of language 2.

Re:Cameras and Lenses by StavrosK on Thursday December 10, 2020 @01:07PM (#25376486)
Yep. "Greek is gendered, the gender is embedded into the words". Sure, but I can speak whole normal sentences without referring to gender at all, something like "went to the supermarket and bought x y z, then did a, b and c and came back".

You can talk about someone at length without mentioning their gender once.

Re:Cameras and Lenses by baq on Thursday December 10, 2020 @02:17PM (#25377287)
This is absolutely true, but sooner or later you’ll have to pick a gender or you’ll just end up sounding funny at best.
Re:Cameras and Lenses by StavrosK on Thursday December 10, 2020 @02:19PM (#25377332)
Not really, that's just the way sentences are formed. The third person has no gender, the gender is only in the pronouns, which are optional. Adjectives will give it away, though.
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Re:Cameras and Lenses by dang on Friday December 11, 2020 @01:50PM (#25389195)
If you keep posting flamewar comments to HN we will have to ban you, so please don't do that. We're trying for something else here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Cameras and Lenses by antonfire on Thursday December 10, 2020 @12:11PM (#25375826)
If you think someone having a Slavic last name means their gender necessarily matches the gender suggested by the form of their name, you are just mistaken.

I have a Slavic last name. I also have female relatives whose last name is, quite officially, the male-suffixed version of mine. I invite you to guess how that might have happened.

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Re:Cameras and Lenses by Kye on Thursday December 10, 2020 @01:24PM (#25376675)
You opened this thread by lecturing others on the pronouns they used for the article author with no standing to do so. Who are you and why are you more authoritative on the author's pronouns than the person you attempted to correct?
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Re:Cameras and Lenses by Kye on Monday December 14, 2020 @07:00AM (#25416215)
I actually appreciate when people default to neutral when they otherwise don't know. They tend to use he/him if they don't, and that's incorrect.

This unasked for anti-activism is very unhelpful. You are indistinguishable from people who refuse to use correct pronouns even when they know. You do not speak for me.

Re:Cameras and Lenses by echelon on Thursday December 10, 2020 @01:38PM (#25376829)
To be clear, I never forced you to do anything. You just got angry at me.