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UK - Train firm apologise for "ladies and gentlemen" announcement

Darat said:
Any good company should be pleased to be informed staff aren’t following company policy.
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I wonder how quickly the 'who cares about being inclusive in messages' set would have angered had the announcement simply said 'Good morning gentlemen' ?
 
Elaedith said:
The idea is: first separate gender from sex, then make gender trump sex where they conflict, then remove the distinction again (but now sex is determined by gender).

After all, if sex and gender are separate, then an announcement like 'Ladies and Gentlemen' does not exclude anyone because nonbinary people still have a biological sex and these terms can refer to that distinction. It is ideologically necessary to say that gender identity essentially overrides biological sex.

It will never happen because you cannot replace material reality with subjective constructs, regardless of the fantasies of postmodernists. No attempts to do so will end well.
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If you want to talk about subjective constructs trumping reality then perhaps you might want to reflect on why you insist that 'ladies and gentlemen' doesn't exclude anyone despite overwhelming evidence that it does?

I vote for 'gentlemen and others' - that objectively includes everyone. Nobody could be in the least bit upset about that unless they have a postmodernist agenda, right?
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
If you want to talk about subjective constructs trumping reality then perhaps you might want to reflect on why you insist that 'ladies and gentlemen' doesn't exclude anyone despite overwhelming evidence that it does?
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The problem is that there's a linguistic bait-and-switch going on.

If you use the more historically common usage of "man" and "woman" to be directly tied to "male" and "female", and that "gentlemen" and "ladies" to refer to these, respectively, then nobody is excluded.

The issue is that we're being asked to change those terms, and that's what creates the inclusion issue. So the purported solution to another problem is creating this issue. So, see, it's not a matter of evidence. It depends on how you want to define your terms. It's after you define your terms that you can look at the evidence and tell what fits where.

This whole kerfuffle is a series of definitional changes creating a cascade of issues that are solved by further definitional changes. But the truth is, there was no issue with the original definitions. You could easily have included and supported trans people without changing the existing words.
 
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Belz... said:
The problem is that there's a linguistic bait-and-switch going on.

If you use the more historically common usage of "man" and "woman" to be directly tied to "male" and "female", and that "gentlemen" and "ladies" to refer to these, respectively, then nobody is excluded.

The issue is that we're being asked to change those terms, and that's what creates the inclusion issue. So the purported solution to another problem is creating this issue. So, see, it's not a matter of evidence. It depends on how you want to define your terms. It's after you define your terms that you can look at the evidence and tell what fits where.

This whole kerfuffle is a series of definitional changes creating a cascade of issues that are solved by further definitional changes. But the truth is, there was no issue with the original definitions. You could easily have included and supported trans people without changing the existing words.
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“GBR welcomes all passengers who boarded the train at Euston, this service is on time and our scheduled arrival time at Birmingham New Station is 16:23”
 
Darat said:
“GBR welcomes all passengers who boarded the train at Euston, this service is on time and our scheduled arrival time at Birmingham New Station is 16:23”
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Obviously fake.

Trains to New Street are NEVER on time.;)
 
Seems like working very hard to keep the "ladies and gentlemen", when "welcome passengers" would cover everybody. In my experience, people tend to want the conductor's announcements to last as short a time as possible.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Seems like working very hard to keep the "ladies and gentlemen", when "welcome passengers" would cover everybody. In my experience, people tend to want the conductor's announcements to last as short a time as possible.
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Sure, but the point is that it's not remotely reasonable to be upset about "Ladies and Gentlemen", which is perfectly polite.

Constantly worrying about giving offence is harming communications and damaging social solidarity in order to benefit the type of people who will never be appeased anyway.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Seems like working very hard to keep the "ladies and gentlemen", when "welcome passengers" would cover everybody. In my experience, people tend to want the conductor's announcements to last as short a time as possible.
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Especially since (apparently) the company already had a policy in place and the announcement did not meet that policy.
 
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