GC: Male pregnancy blurs the line between male and female. But do the males of other species really get pregnant? And how come gametes and sex organs are put into categories of male and female?

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[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Sorry, Mez, I didn't mean to jump on you! I usually respond to what's said in the comment, not to the poster - in fact, I often don't look at the user name. Which is my bad. Coz I should look. If I had in this case, it would have occurred to me that perhaps a translation issue was involved. Again, sorry for being so quick to kvetch.

That said, I'm quite sensitive about this topic of late because there's been so much in the news about the push to remove words like maternity, mother and breastfeeding from convos, literature and health care centered on pregnancy and childbirth and to call women such dehumanizing terms as gestators, carriers, birthing parents and birthing bodies. Just last week, a law about minister's maternity leave in the UK was proposed that spoke only of "pregnant people," not pregnant women - and an NHS trust came out with a new policy that changed the name of health care for pregnant women and new mothers from the commonly understood "maternity services" to the vague "perinatal services."

Yes, I'd call what these men are taking "extended parental leave" or "extended paternity leave."

BTW, the term you've translated as "afterbirth vacation" comes off as unintentionally humorous coz "afterbirth" in English means "the placenta and fetal membranes discharged from the uterus after the birth of offspring." Whilst expelling the placenta is not a pleasant experience, that one particular part of childbirth would not be the reason for a woman who's just given birth to take time off work, LOL, coz expelling the placenta is a breeze compared to going through labor and pushing a baby out of your body. And "vacation" in this context would likely cause offense. Coz as any new mother, and new father, can tell you, the period after the birth of a newborn is no vacation. It's a time of constantly being at the beck and call of the newborn baby - it's hard work, and a time of total exhaustion. A better translation would probably be "maternity leave." I'd go with that rather than something like "post-childbirth leave" coz rules around maternity leave usually allow the woman to take leave from work prior to the birth as well.

Again, sorry I was so quick to kvetch about the lingo.

[–]MezozoicGaygay male 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

About afterbirth - I textually translated our word, but I think it would sounds like "Aftergivingbirth" if to be very precise. We don't differentiate between leaves and vacations, there only one word for them all, so they are all just vacations to me, and it can be hard to understand the difference because of unspoken connotations sticked to words (there is word "leave" but it means the very last vacation, either before changing job or death). Many our words are just combined few words together, so sometimens it is hard to translate. Especially when translating words about female biology or what were typically female actions before - as nowadays there is such a mess even in online-dictionaries because of this post-modernistic ideology and women-related words erasure.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Vacation in English usually means time off work, school or life's ordinary routines for leisure, recreation and enjoyment. Whereas leave means time away from paid work or military service with permission. So for example, someone who needs to time off work due to extended illness or medical treatment, to serve on a jury for a lengthy trial, or to take care of a newborn, or a loved one who is seriously ill or dying will take leave. But the built-in annual breaks from work or school to allow people to do as they wish for rest, relaxation and pleasure are vacations.

I see how all the changes to words pertaining to sex and female biology would be very confounding! All these newfangled attempts to make the English language "more inclusive" actually just make English harder for people from other language traditions to understand.