Actor
- Thread starter Firegod
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Looks like someone's been spending to much time with the secret Santa recent pics!
Caporegime
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ehhh, no idea what you mean but you don't know what I am referencing and where that came from?
( I meant to say Princess Consuela Banana Hammock )
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I was going to correct you earlier but forgot. I like Phoebe.
Because gender in languages has very little to do with the social construct applied to humans, nor sex.
It is largely an arbitrary labeling, which can help clarity in complex sentences with many subjects and objects. Some languages have 5 or more genders. In some languages genders refer to animate vs inanimate objects, or to countable vs uncountable nouns, or plants vs animals vs non-living objects.
Gender referring to human gender is relatively recent. so das Mädchen is perfectly reasonable neural.
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
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Brian Blessed is an actor and so is Charlize Theron because they both act and are actors. THis should not be difficult unless we're looking for ~outrage~
Further reading: here
Further reading: here
Don
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Surely when it comes to doctor/engineer/etc not having a feminine version, it's mainly due to it being an earned title? Both male and female become doctors and engineers by being given the same title in recognition of a required level of competence.
Actor/actress is not a protected title, is it?
Anyone can call themselves an actor/actress, it does not affect anyone, but Doctor/Professor/Engineers/Lawyer/Nurse, etc are assigned to people with a job where that title matters, not the gender of the person who attained it.
Don
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Why should it cause outrage? I don't think any less of actresses vs actors. It's someone who pretends to be other people for a living, which is something they have chosen to do and may well be good at.
It seems more like an "offense is taken, not given" situation to me.
At face value that’s an a pretty odd way of looking at it… but tbh it is similarly odd as why ‘actor / actress’ is the exception. Maybe there is something in this… more along the lines of these words being used before they were considered ‘professional statuses’. Children can be ‘actors/actresses’ for example.
The outrage maggy mag mags ( @[FnG]magnolia ) is referring to is not outrage from people saying “I am known as an actress because I’m female but really, professionally I consider myself as an ‘actor’.”
It’s outrage from people saying “NO - you’re an ACTRESS and should always be considered as such.”
It’s more a thing for ‘actresses’ to decide for themselves tbh - I have no idea why anyone who isn’t an ‘actress’ would be concerned.
IMO there is a very, very slight whiff of people transferring their views on modern woke-y woke-y “what is a woman?” / ‘you are whatever gender you want’ topics onto this ‘actor/actress’ issue, without properly considering that this doesn’t really have the same set of considerations and outcomes.
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Also (apologies for the double post but think it’s best to split out the points)… I was thinking about other examples where this sort of language split comes up and the most common ones I can think of is in the animal kingdom… which is totally unrelated but interesting (to me 
) and can be used to demonstrate a few points.
There are lions. A female lion is a lioness. But it’s still a lion.
Sometimes it goes the other way: there are cows. A female cow is a cow. A male cow is a bull. But it’s still a cow.
Depending on the context, it can be more useful or appropriate to use one phrase or the other. In some cases, it doesn’t really make sense to highlight (or ignore) the reference to sex):
“This cow doesn’t produce milk” - this sentence has different implications depending on whether you are referring to a female cow or a male bull.
^^^ I think that’s what’s at the heart of the actor/actress issue. Whether a person is male or female has no bearing on their ability to act… so why does their title today need to reflect whether they are male or female? It doesn’t.
Ditto, if you were to say “she is one of the greatest actresses of all time” this has a more limited meaning than saying “she is one of the greatest actors of all time”.
Either actor or actress is appropriate / fine, depending on the circumstances, for the above reasons.
) and can be used to demonstrate a few points.There are lions. A female lion is a lioness. But it’s still a lion.
Sometimes it goes the other way: there are cows. A female cow is a cow. A male cow is a bull. But it’s still a cow.
Depending on the context, it can be more useful or appropriate to use one phrase or the other. In some cases, it doesn’t really make sense to highlight (or ignore) the reference to sex):
“This cow doesn’t produce milk” - this sentence has different implications depending on whether you are referring to a female cow or a male bull.
^^^ I think that’s what’s at the heart of the actor/actress issue. Whether a person is male or female has no bearing on their ability to act… so why does their title today need to reflect whether they are male or female? It doesn’t.
Ditto, if you were to say “she is one of the greatest actresses of all time” this has a more limited meaning than saying “she is one of the greatest actors of all time”.
Either actor or actress is appropriate / fine, depending on the circumstances, for the above reasons.
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Don
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Whaaat? Couple of things with this specific point, which I think highlights the duplicity of all of this.
To say that greatest actress of all time is more limited than actor suggests more about the individual saying it to be honest
This would only be the case if
A - You believed actors are inherently better than actresses (which I am sure is not the case for you!)
OR
B - We decided to arbitrarily change the meaning of actor to be more than just men, which has inherently made the statement true....
Don
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The bottom line (like with everything today) is we call them whatever they want to be called, we just have to try not to get it wrong despite not knowing inherently and not wanting to cause offence, and hope they don't take too much offence over an honest mistake.
The minefield of a modern non-deterministic society
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Whaaat? Couple of things with this specific point, which I think highlights the duplicity of all of this.
To say that greatest actress of all time is more limited than actor suggests more about the individual saying it to be honest
This would only be the case if
A - You believed actors are inherently better than actresses (which I am sure if not the case for you!)
OR
B - We decided to arbitrarily change the meaning of actor to be more than just men, which has inherently made the statement true....
It might be worth re-reading what I said.
If you say someone is “one of the greatest actresses of all time”, the inference is that there is a comparison of all actresses only, which excludes (male) actors.
This point comes up in the article I previously linked to (which has a range of opinions) here:
Putting it as simply as I can, if you are writing down a list of ‘the best actresses’ of all time, you are not going to be considering the likes of Marlon Brando, Daniel Day Lewis, etc.
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Don
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@Nitefly
No need to re-read, I understand what you are saying completely (refer to my point B), and surely you see how by lumping (some?) actresses into the actors category has caused this?
Its just an example of set theory!!
Previously Actors and Actresses were discreet sets, where there was no intersection. Meaning the discussed statement had no more of less meaning for actresses over actors (unless if one is prejudiced!)
Now if we start moving the definitions, and saying that they are no longer discreet sets, but Actors now contains some of the previously defined Actresses set, the Actresses set is by definition now diminished. It's maths.
No need to re-read, I understand what you are saying completely (refer to my point B), and surely you see how by lumping (some?) actresses into the actors category has caused this?
Its just an example of set theory!!
Previously Actors and Actresses were discreet sets, where there was no intersection. Meaning the discussed statement had no more of less meaning for actresses over actors (unless if one is prejudiced!)
Now if we start moving the definitions, and saying that they are no longer discreet sets, but Actors now contains some of the previously defined Actresses set, the Actresses set is by definition now diminished. It's maths.
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Actor is gender-neutral tho, the same as baker or shoemaker, there's only the assumption that actor meant male by default because the term actress existed and was in common usage.
For the term the greatest actress to be diminished, it would mean you thought in the Venn diagram of the neutral term Actor, actresses somehow fell outside of it. All actors (who by common language we assume are male) are actors, all actresses are actors.
Again, it's not that deep unless you want to make it.
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Yes, but I’m not saying that everyone ‘must be lumped together’ - I’m saying that the best word to use depends on the context of the statement and intended meaning. Actress still has a useful meaning.
Either is ‘fine’ - it just depends on the context and clearly there are examples where the different words have different implications.
What about those that wish to remain Actresses when it comes to things like awards?