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- "En tjock kvinna älskar en sm…
29 Comments
No, it's just a random sentence. But it's not hard to interpret it in a sexist manner. Unless we also have the reverse sentence (En tjock man älskar en smal kvinna) it probably should not be in the course. I'll make a note to follow up on that later.
Language is innocent. People's intentions aren't. A change in the language won't change people, at least not in the way we expect it. Just let it be , please. It's perfect as it is
The same argument could be made for much, much worse sentences. "A woman's place is in the kitchen", "Women shouldn't be allowed to vote", "Black people commit more crimes". We could make that even worse, but I don't want to. Language isn't as innocent as you think - it is tightly coupled to not only intention but expectation, and it does help shape people's thoughts about it. This sentence isn't perfect.
one of your example sentences doesn't belong to the same category as the others, but let's not get into even deeper waters.
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Well, it's a language course, not an ethics one. The whole point is to BE ABLE to understand and to build a similar sentence. And whoever is discriminated or offended by these sentences also need to know and to understand them first. This is also why you have e.g. insults and even racial slurs in dictionaries. You just need to mark them as such to prevent unintended usage.
You miss the point. I'm not saying the course shouldn't have such sentences. I'm saying that if every sentence in the course is sexist towards one gender, the course should make sure to spread usage of such sentences across genders. It's not like I'm advocating not teaching or understanding potentially offending words.
- 915
If someone is offended by the description of a woman being fat then IMO they have bigger problems that can't be fixed simply by fixing the sentence. I agree with merigor. This isn't an ethics course. I like the quirky sentences, helps you to remember. Like the girl as thin as a pen. :)
- 168
Jag håller med/fattar merigor. Ni kan inte hindra människor från att bli förolämpade. Det ligger i deras natur.
- 280
+1 to Will709432
People are way too sensitive these days. There's nothing sexist and nothing wrong with this sentence.
Sounds like the Sprats to me.
Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so betwixt them both, they licked the platter clean.
- 895
So “små” and “smal” both come from the same origin but mean slightly different things? Is the latter a German loanword?
No, they're not actually related - they're from different Proto-Germanic roots, much too old to be loanwords.
I wouldn't say "slightly different" either - små is the plural form of "little", and smal means "narrow". But I suppose that's a matter of definition. :)
In the English translation both "fat" and "thick" are accepted. For me (Brit Eng Native) "a thick person" only means a stupid person and means nothing about their size. Sooooo... if (a)"tjock" referring to a person in Swedish is only ever about physical size and not their intellect, and (b) a "thick person" in general English (not just mine) is only about intellect and not physical size, then maybe it should be altered.
"thick" as in "thickset" is common throughout large parts of the English-speaking world, so I think it should still be accepted. It would be preferential if the system hide it from users except for purposes of accepting translations, though.
- 1400
A thick woman loves a thin man:
Jack Spratt could eat no fat;
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.
At least this thick woman and this thin man had a working relationship. :-)
- 1400
This site has some interesting information about the historyical background to this Jack Spratt nursery rhyme:
As with many nursery rhymes, Jack Sprat may have originated as a satire on a public figure: history writer Linda Alchin suggests that Jack was King Charles I, who was left "lean" when parliament denied him taxation, but with his queen Henrietta Maria he was free to "lick the platter clean" after he dissolved parliament—Charles was a notably short man. An alternative explanation comes from the popular Robin Hood legend, applying it to the disliked King John and his greedy queen Isabella.
So why isnt this acceptable. "A fat women loves a small man" similar principal, small refers to his size in the same way and its closer
Well, a small man doesn't have to be thin, and vice versa. Plus it's one woman so it can't have the plural form "women".
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Hi! I don't get why "A big woman loves a slim man" is not accepted. I see the difference between big and fat, but in this sentence the meanings overlap. In French, I would use one word ("grosse") to describe both in this context, and my guess is that in Swedish to (and you wouldn't use "fet" (fr: gras) because it would sound very inappropriate right?).
Possibly because in English, referring to someone as 'big' does not inherently mean that they are fat. A 'big' person could just be really tall, or be particularly bulky but not fat (think like a professional bodybuilder, there's no world in which one of them would be called 'fat', but they are absolutely 'big'). It's technically valid to use 'big' to mean 'fat' in English, but it's rather euphemistic usage that most people (or at least, most Americans) would not pick up on without further context indicating that it meant 'fat' and not something else.
As far as I can tell though, 'tjock' in Swedish only means 'fat' when talking about a person.
