@Andrew. Swedes are aware of most of the Swedish words English find amusing. Like "fagott" = bassoon. We make our own Swenglish wordplays like (about car collisions) "It's not the fart{speed} that kills, it's the smä(e)ll{impact}."
Yes Swedish has two forms, neutrum "ett" or gender (reale) "en". As in "en man" or "en kvinna" or "ett hus". Ombudsman is reale as in "hon är en ombudsman" but ombud is neutrum as in "han är ett ombud (för...)". The grammatical rules for what is en or ett is mostly a mystery for native speakers trying to explain it to foreigners. "It just sounds right that way." I had German classes in school and tried to memorize the rules for their die/der/das. I'm sure native Germans also can't explain why a word is female except by a rule about suffixes or that it sounds right. "(Das) Auto" in German is neutrum, but "bil(en)" in Swedish is reale. I'm not sure if there is any difference because of that in how we see a car, except German cars are often seen as objects of desire and Swedish cars are known for safety.
Gender specific titles are not reflecting gender as much today. A male nurse would be a "manlig sjuksköterska" but today he is just a sjuksköterska. Teachers are only "lärare" regardless of gender and no "lärarinna". "Polisman/-kvinna" are now "polis" but English lack such form and need to call them police officers. Women works as "brandman". But old language is hard to change. The huMAN is even called "MÄNniska". Other smilarities: "mantimmar" - man hours, "mandom" - manhood. Well, it used to be a man's world.
@Andrew: The du-reform was driven by the young people that already dropped the distinction during the growing hippie influence. Later the newspapers picked up on the trend and then the older generations too. Just like English at the same time dropped the sir/ma'm and mr./mrs./ms. in everyday language of young people, a reform that wasn't as successful.
(In recent news France only just dropped their unnecessary marriage status distinctions.) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/world/europe/france-drops-mademoiselle-from-official-use.html
Hen is a word first invented in the sixties by academics, then not used, and now revived by a few gender academics. The heated debate in Sweden is because the general public doesn't like this psychological experiment on their children in kindergarten, and think these gender fixated people are way down the wrong path of feminism. Also hen sounds like henne (3rd person possessive her), and the English word hen for female chicken as Swedes are very proficient in English, so it isn't really neutral to begin with. Feminism is also infected in Sweden where it is associated with extreme views, man-hate, and far left socialism, but also political correctness.
There are many languages that always have had gender neutral words for he/she. They aren't gender neutral societies. Soviet promoted the word comrade for everyone, had women working in factories, but in the end Soviet women were foremost child bearing housewives and men were the important gender doing politics and protecting the women (so they thought). Much like in any unequal country.
Words are just words if you don't put a meaning behind them. True equality in gender/race/... is not through language but through the state of mind.
@Daniel Kim From what I see the black car moves into left lane at 0:27 (3:06:25 timestamped) to overtake the silver car behind the bus, and perhaps also the bus, all in the right lane. Then suddenly (3:06:33 TS) the bus is in the left lane, the black car has hit the bike in the right lane and the silver car is a few lengths behind. Maybe the bus hid the bike from view when it changed lanes. The black car must have zig-zagged lanes. It looks like a plausible accident.
Crowley did no "evil doing". His drug abuse, mysticism, sex culting, and politically incorrect libertarian views are no worse than Madonna and Keith Richards put together.
Swedes are aware of most of the Swedish words English find amusing. Like "fagott" = bassoon. We make our own Swenglish wordplays like (about car collisions) "It's not the fart{speed} that kills, it's the smä(e)ll{impact}."
Yes Swedish has two forms, neutrum "ett" or gender (reale) "en". As in "en man" or "en kvinna" or "ett hus". Ombudsman is reale as in "hon är en ombudsman" but ombud is neutrum as in "han är ett ombud (för...)". The grammatical rules for what is en or ett is mostly a mystery for native speakers trying to explain it to foreigners. "It just sounds right that way." I had German classes in school and tried to memorize the rules for their die/der/das. I'm sure native Germans also can't explain why a word is female except by a rule about suffixes or that it sounds right. "(Das) Auto" in German is neutrum, but "bil(en)" in Swedish is reale. I'm not sure if there is any difference because of that in how we see a car, except German cars are often seen as objects of desire and Swedish cars are known for safety.
Gender specific titles are not reflecting gender as much today. A male nurse would be a "manlig sjuksköterska" but today he is just a sjuksköterska. Teachers are only "lärare" regardless of gender and no "lärarinna". "Polisman/-kvinna" are now "polis" but English lack such form and need to call them police officers. Women works as "brandman". But old language is hard to change. The huMAN is even called "MÄNniska". Other smilarities: "mantimmar" - man hours, "mandom" - manhood. Well, it used to be a man's world.
The du-reform was driven by the young people that already dropped the distinction during the growing hippie influence. Later the newspapers picked up on the trend and then the older generations too. Just like English at the same time dropped the sir/ma'm and mr./mrs./ms. in everyday language of young people, a reform that wasn't as successful.
(In recent news France only just dropped their unnecessary marriage status distinctions.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/world/europe/france-drops-mademoiselle-from-official-use.html
Hen is a word first invented in the sixties by academics, then not used, and now revived by a few gender academics. The heated debate in Sweden is because the general public doesn't like this psychological experiment on their children in kindergarten, and think these gender fixated people are way down the wrong path of feminism. Also hen sounds like henne (3rd person possessive her), and the English word hen for female chicken as Swedes are very proficient in English, so it isn't really neutral to begin with. Feminism is also infected in Sweden where it is associated with extreme views, man-hate, and far left socialism, but also political correctness.
There are many languages that always have had gender neutral words for he/she. They aren't gender neutral societies. Soviet promoted the word comrade for everyone, had women working in factories, but in the end Soviet women were foremost child bearing housewives and men were the important gender doing politics and protecting the women (so they thought). Much like in any unequal country.
Words are just words if you don't put a meaning behind them. True equality in gender/race/... is not through language but through the state of mind.
From what I see the black car moves into left lane at 0:27 (3:06:25 timestamped) to overtake the silver car behind the bus, and perhaps also the bus, all in the right lane. Then suddenly (3:06:33 TS) the bus is in the left lane, the black car has hit the bike in the right lane and the silver car is a few lengths behind. Maybe the bus hid the bike from view when it changed lanes. The black car must have zig-zagged lanes. It looks like a plausible accident.