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

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.

You should try "The Crocodile Dundee" method of telling the sex when talking to someone!!!

[quote=mishau_]

Originally Posted by charlestonian

Originally Posted by "mishau_":2qi25ro8

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? [/quote:2qi25ro8]

Do you really need to know? Does it matter?

Originally Posted by mishau_

Well, from what Russian linguists say, as Russian language requires that each noun, each object has 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' gender 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 quite fine for English speakers. And I want to learn it.

Well, if you chat in Russian without using the past tense or describing yourself, you could get the same effect. But I see what you mean, I guess it does create a different cultural behavior pattern , and maybe explains some of the differences between Russia and the West?

Originally Posted by mishau_

Kalinka means small California (маленькая Калифорния)

Really? First I have heard of that!

Originally Posted by mishau_

Kalinka means small California (маленькая Калифорния)

That's a novel approach

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?

Did he mean his name is Seagull?

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Well, from what Russian linguists say, as Russian language requires that each noun, each object has 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' gender 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 quite fine for English speakers. And I want to learn it.

has? Спасибо. Хотя, я вообще-то случайно пропустил should. Не люблю модальные глаголы. - Russian requires that each noun, each object should have its own gender.

Ну, тебе, кашна, виднее.

За очепятки тоже спасибо, у меня Firefox только по-русски умеет спелл-чекать. Не получается 2 языка настроить.

Можно так и так:

Russian language requires that each object has a gender (лучше по-моему)
Russian language requires that each object should have a gender (можно)

Originally Posted by DDT

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.

You should try "The Crocodile Dundee" method of telling the sex when talking to someone!!!

This is the best way

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Можно так и так:

Russian language requires that each object has a gender (лучше по-моему)
Russian language requires that each object should have a gender (можно)

Я очень часто встречаю конструкцию типа "justice requires that he be allowed to present his defense"

be вместо is. очевидно could/should/would пропустили. Почему?

Потому что английский юридический - это не нормальный английский. Там ещё не такие ужасы встречаются.

[quote=mishau_]

Originally Posted by "kalinka_vinnie":27nlrffy

Можно так и так:

Russian language requires that each object has a gender (лучше по-моему)
Russian language requires that each object should have a gender (можно)

Я очень часто встречаю конструкцию типа "justice requires that he be allowed to present his defense"

be вместо is. очевидно could/should/would пропустили. Почему?[/quote:27nlrffy]

Потому что, это "future tense". он не сейчас защищается. А русский язык сейчас есть...

[quote=kalinka_vinnie][quote="mishau_":35rfd0p2]

Originally Posted by "kalinka_vinnie":35rfd0p2

Можно так и так:

Russian language requires that each object has a gender (лучше по-моему)
Russian language requires that each object should have a gender (можно)

Я очень часто встречаю конструкцию типа "justice requires that he be allowed to present his defense"

be вместо is. очевидно could/should/would пропустили. Почему?[/quote:35rfd0p2]

Потому что, это "future tense". он не сейчас защищается. А русский язык сейчас есть... [/quote:35rfd0p2]

I don't think it's future tense, rather some kind of subjunctive.

My advanced educational background requires that I beg to differ with ya. After some verbs like "require" we use the subjunctive. Therefore,

language requires that each object have a gender.

This is correct grammar. Of course, undereducated persons will tromple all over the subjunctive mood, and I am на всё сто certain that you will find gazillions of trompled subjunctives on the net. The fact that you can only identify the subj. in the 3rd pers. sg. where it lacks the S does wonders to make certain we lose this mood soon.
I have/I am
you have/you are
he/she/it has / is
we have /are
y'all have /are
they have /are

that I have /be
that you have /be
that he/she/it have /be
that we have /be
that y'all have /be
that they have /be

Unfortunately, even with all its irregularities, the first paradigm wins out in the ordinary speech of the lumpenproletariat.

Ну значит я был где-то прав. Я позаимствовал эту форму из произведений про Перри Мейсона (американского адвоката). Думаю, язык, на котором адвокаты и прокуроры отстаивают свои позиции в суде нельзя отнести к разряду "lumpenproletariat"

It is very common in English language internet forums for people to hide their sex. Many people think that only the words they type are important, not what sort of person they are.

It is not easy to tell in a forum in English if the person is a man or a woman unless they make it clear. Sometimes in chat people will say "a/s/l?" That means they want to know: Age, Sex, and Location. Sometimes people will not respond to that though.

Another reason why is because in America theres a larger crime and murder rate than in Russia.....thats why most people don't like telling people on the internet what their gender is because if your a girl and tell a guy that is a murder.......one wrong mistake and tell to much about yourself....your dead.......they track you down and kill you....it's so dangerous that you have to be very aware of the people around you when your walking even anywhere alone or with a friend...it's on the news everyday that someone neither goes missing or is found dead somewhere..it's very sad..that's one of the reasons why I want to learn Russian and travel to Russia so me and my family can be safe....

Originally Posted by <~A~>

Another reason why is because in America theres a larger crime and murder rate than in Russia.....thats why most people don't like telling people on the internet what their gender is because if your a girl and tell a guy that is a murder.......one wrong mistake and tell to much about yourself....your dead.......they track you down and kill you....it's so dangerous that you have to be very aware of the people around you when your walking even anywhere alone or with a friend...it's on the news everyday that someone neither goes missing or is found dead somewhere..it's very sad..that's one of the reasons why I want to learn Russian and travel to Russia so me and my family can be safe....

You're kidding, aren't you? What's up with all these murders? It feels like North America is the place of beyond where you are sentenced to get killed for no reason tomorrow.

I think you're mistaken about Russia. Here you can have a blade under your ribs more often than a bullet in your head, and it happens as often as in America too.

Originally Posted by chaika

After some verbs like "require" we use the subjunctive.

Chaika is right about this. The best version to my ear (if you actually want to use the word "require" and the conjunction "that") is

The Russian language requires that each noun have a gender.

That's what an educated native speaker might write. But the subjunctive is dying out, and I expect most people would avoid it by rephrasing it somehow:

In Russian each noun is required to have a gender
In Russian each noun has to to have a gender
In Russian each noun has a gender

The "has to have" form is the one that sounds most ordinary.

Originally Posted by mishau_

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?

An interesting point.
Personally I find you can generally guess, but most of the time I will simply ask. It's nice to get the idea of a persons gender and general age and location, something humans have been used to knowing only since the advent of the WWW.
By the way, I'm female, 35, Wales.

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?

Ah, is it an english trait then? It used to be common to ask a/s/l? Ie, age/sex/location. But for some reason this quickly fell out of fashion and no one uses it anymore. personally i have no problem being asked and no desire to hide behind an opposite persona to retain annonimity. I really dont think anyone is out to get me.