Thread: How do English natives recognize sex of Inet participants?

In Russian we can recognize sexes of internet forum visitors by names and nicks and also by the proper endings of verbs in the past tense and by the proper endings of ajectives. As for English forums, what bothers me a lot is that very often I can't recognize who I'm talking to, a woman or a man. So in what way do they usually find out wether they're talking to a girl or a guy?

That's the best thing about internet - anonymity. Sometimes I wish it was the same in runet.

Originally Posted by mishau_

So in what way do they usually find out wether they're talking to a girl or a guy?

"So, by the way, are you a guy or a girl?"

Simple.

A direct question? That's a bit hard to understand.

Originally Posted by mishau_

A direct question? That's a bit hard to understand.

It's better to know from the beginning before it goes too far, esp. in chats.

Verbal behavior of men and women is always different.

Originally Posted by charlestonian

Originally Posted by mishau_

A direct question? That's a bit hard to understand.

It's better to know from the beginning before it goes too far, esp. in chats.

So I should ask all of the members, thats's kinda odd or?

В русском тоже может быть такая проблема, тут вот моя любимая писательница рассказывает у себя на дайри - она играет в линейку, общается там в чате, и ей там сказали: "эх, жалко, что ты парень, а то бы я на тебе женился" при этом она никого сознательно в заблуждение не вводила

Originally Posted by charlestonian

It's better to know from the beginning before it goes too far, esp. in chats.

Are you sure people will answer? I've seen quite a few English-speakers, who were very touchy about gender questions (who knows why). Can the asked user see it as a sexism?

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

Originally Posted by charlestonian

It's better to know from the beginning before it goes too far, esp. in chats.

Are you sure people will answer? I've seen quite a few English-speakers, who were very touchy about gender questions (who knows why). Can the asked user see it as a sexism?

Nope. Most people are pretty open about it. They don't want to be misled either.

Sorry, couldn't resist:

Originally Posted by Ramil

Sorry, couldn't resist:

A good one!

I have that problem until I switch to Russian and say something about myself in the past tense.

У меня та же самая проблема пока не перехожу на русский и пишу что-то о себе в прошлом времени.

Originally Posted by chaika

I have that problem until I switch to Russian and say something about myself in the past tense.

У меня та же самая проблема пока не перехожу на русский и пишу что-то о себе в прошлом времени.

You must have picked your nick before you had learnt that chaika is feminine in Russian

I won't tell Юрий Чайка you said that.

Как бедный Юрий, Чайка - моя фамилия.

Why do you need to know the person's gender? If you need to say "him/her", just explain that you don't know the person's gender or make a guess. If they feel a need to correct you, then they will. Since it is a universal problem, they rarely get offended. Iamjames, for example doesn't seem offended that we mistake her for a guy all the time, does she?

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Why do you need to know the person's gender? If you need to say "him/her", just explain that you don't know the person's gender or make a guess. If they feel a need to correct you, then they will. Since it is a universal problem, they rarely get offended. Iamjames, for example doesn't seem offended that we mistake her for a guy all the time, does she?

Your nick btw is also confusing to strangers

Yeah, and for some reason people think that Vinnie can be a female name too... But I don't see the importance of knowing my gender... if one is confused and needs to know, a simple question will suffice

Originally Posted by chaika

I won't tell Юрий Чайка you said that.

Как бедный Юрий, Чайка - моя фамилия.

You ain't no Russian, are you?

Well, from what Russian linguists say, as Russian language requiters that each noun, each object have its own gender, we, Russian speakers, feel rather uncomfotable if we can't detect the gender or sex. Especially while speaking to a person. For English speakers, however, such a problem apparently matters less. Therefore, they communicate in a way that is different from ours. They start to chat with a preset idea that they do not know their new counterparts' sexes like we do not know about ages of new people who we start to chat with. So there's a behaviour pattern that can seem weird for us, but might be guite fine for English speakers. And I want to learn it.

Originally Posted by charlestonian

Originally Posted by chaika

I won't tell Юрий Чайка you said that.

Как бедный Юрий, Чайка - моя фамилия.

You ain't no Russian, are you?

Used to be?

Originally Posted by Ramil

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Why do you need to know the person's gender? If you need to say "him/her", just explain that you don't know the person's gender or make a guess. If they feel a need to correct you, then they will. Since it is a universal problem, they rarely get offended. Iamjames, for example doesn't seem offended that we mistake her for a guy all the time, does she?

Your nick btw is also confusing to strangers

Kalinka means small California (маленькая Калифорния)