Profile: Mel
You can call me… Mel
I identify as… I prefer “half gay” or “eine Madchens Madchen” (sorry for the lack of umlauts on the a’s!)
As far as third-person pronouns go, … I love the German language and it brightens my crayons to know the german language genders nouns into not two, but three categories; masculine, feminine, and neuter. And coolest of all, Madchen (meaning girl. Again, please excuse lack of an awesome umlaut over the ‘a’) is a neuter word as in das Madchen rather than die Madchen. As for english, I like whatever, he/she/it.
I’m attracted to… big, busty gals in red lipstick, glasses, who read David Sedaris and shoot guns. Super androgynous ladies with flat chests and aviator sunglasses. Marlene Dietrich in drag. Alan Rickman in anything. Christina Hendricks from Mad Men (swoon!). Nerdy, D&D-playing boys (or bois) with beards. Bears. Burly, Canadian lumberjacks. My tastes run the spectrum, it seems.
When people talk about me, I want them to… tell a hilarious story about how I did something awesome/embarrassed myself/made someone feel awkward. Anything that makes others smile and think “Damn, I want to know this person.”
I want people to understand… I may present myself as a heteronomative lady with an ample bosom, but my darlings, you’d be only 1/4 right. Look beyond surface.
About Mel
Mel is currently a student. Loves comic books, literature, queer theory, cheese, the German language, Mad Men, and her/ihrer boyfriend.
» Define yourself. «
Category: profiles 16 comments »
December 26th, 2010 at 4:43 pm |
That place, in photo, looks so familiar. Das tut mir leid, liebes Mädchen, aber haben wir uns vorher in einem vorhergehenden Leben getroffen? Love your hair…
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December 26th, 2010 at 5:13 pm |
Really you’re into the german language?I am german and don’t like it that much. I do like your profile.
Du scheinst ein cooles Mädchen zu sein ;-)
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December 26th, 2010 at 5:54 pm |
Hey. You know, I actually am not a huge fan of European languages with three genders. Mostly because (at least as far as I’m aware) you cannot really ever call people by a neuter gender and have it be grammatically be correct. This is because Proto-Indo-European at first only differentiated between animate and inanimate things (languages that do this are my favorite type). The inanimate things were the original neuter gender. Later on though, the language added the masculine and feminine and before you know it, though linguistic change, we started giving randomly assigned genders to nouns.
Anyway, I feel like a jerk. I’ve got nothing against German, don’t get my wrong, but at least English is fairly non-gendered as far as European languages go. If you want a really non-gendered language, try Mandarin! :)
Anyway, I didn’t mean to put you down. I hope this doesn’t read like that. You sound like an awesome person!
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Anonymous replied:
December 26th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I think its just a different view of the world.
It is important to point out that Madchen (girl in German) is neuter, so you can’t ever completely claim that neuter can’t refer to people. As a linguist wannabe, I firmly believe that this is originally due to cultural sexism in the IndoEuropean languages but that doesn’t mean it can’t be changed to reflect a girl who isn’t completely female. We are working language to fit our needs, so we might as well take advantage of the fact that German has a neuter.
Personally, I prefer Finnish, in which there is a pronoun for humans, and a pronoun for animals and inanimate objects, but its a matter of personal choice and worldview.
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Milo replied:
December 27th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Well you’ve got me there with ‘Madchen.’ Although the word for ‘person’ is feminine in both Spanish and Portuguese. (I don’t speak German, so I’ll admit, I’m not really qualified to argue about it). I definitely agree with you about Finnish. It sounds so pretty and is a really cool language. I know a lot about it structurally, but couldn’t really say anything unfortunately.
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December 26th, 2010 at 8:26 pm |
“I may present myself as a heteronomative lady with an ample bosom, but my darlings, you’d be only 1/4 right. Look beyond surface.”
I wish people like you came with a special blinking light or signal. It’s so difficult to find intelligent, beautiful, non-heteronormative (femme-female-bodied) individuals because they have few if any discerning markers. But keep on keepin’ on, m’lady. You seem quite awesome.
PS. I’m a linguist and anybody who gets remotely language-geeky is a pretty cool person.
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jennikins replied:
December 26th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
I’m not this person, but that quote hits very close to home for me, too, and I also wish we came with blinking lights! I hate being invisible when I’m trying to smile to say hi, be friendly, or flirt.
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Eli replied:
December 27th, 2010 at 5:50 am
I can’t imagine how hard it must be to not be recognized when you want to be. Maybe I oughta pay better attention to my interactions so I can see someone who wants to be seen.
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Jessica replied:
December 27th, 2010 at 11:25 am
The problem for many trans people of my acquaintance is walking that fine line between self-expression and invisibility — these are people who do not want to be seen.
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
December 26th, 2010 at 10:57 pm |
ooh, my cousin (a multi-language master) just yesterday told us that Indonesian also has pronouns with no gender differentiation… and that, in fact, it’s extremely impolite / poor form to use pronouns at all. you talk about yourself and others just by using your or their name.
so I would say, on leaving the house, “Jean is going to the store now, bye!”
amazing. it’s also not the native language of anybody, but a trade/unifying language that was adapted from Malay & imposed to help unify Indonesia as a country/group of islands, so everybody learns it as a second or third language… (nerdy digression) :)
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December 27th, 2010 at 11:14 am |
I don’t know much about language (though my significant other speaks Chinese rather well), but I will say the Alan Rickman comment made me laugh. I swear every single person I meet (even those not usually attracted to men) love him, except me, and I just don’t get it! Kudos to you though, you seem like an awesome person.
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Jessica replied:
December 27th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Mr. Rickman did an awesome job impersonating our maths teacher in his character of Professor Snape. But I will always remember him as the latter day pirate in Die Hard. Because I liked him in Dogma and loved him in Galaxy Quest, and I hated him in Love Actually, I think him therefore a very talented, professional actor.
By which I mean to say that I believe I know absolutely nothing about the person who operates under the professional name of Alan Rickman.
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December 29th, 2010 at 4:30 am |
looks like vancouver
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December 29th, 2010 at 5:34 am |
…Wouldn’t you be ein Mädchens Mädchen? As opposed to “eine”, since that would imply that Mächen is actually feminine. Meh, keine Ahnung. Was auch immer.
Anyways, cool profile. Wie lange hast du schon Deutsch studiert? Oder gelernt; du studierst noch nicht an der Uni, oder? Auf jedem Fall, cool dass dir Deutsch gefällst.
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December 30th, 2010 at 2:29 am |
Guten Tag. Ich liebe dich. Du bist super.
(Tut mir Leid. Ich bin nicht so gut mit Deutch, aber ich lerne!)
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December 31st, 2010 at 10:21 pm |
Granted, “Maedchen” is neuter because it’s a dimunitive form due to the -chen ending. It’s an issue of grammatical gender, not sex (or cultural understanding of sex). “Woman” is still definitely “die Frau” (feminine).
:) If you continue learning German and go abroad, I think you’d like it. There were lots of things, gender-wise, that I didn’t expect in Germany. Soooo many guys carrying their babies, pushing the strollers, etc. and very happy about it. And I witnessed the genderqueerest kiss ever between a slightly femme guy and a slightly masculine gal.
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