Word of the day

[mathhobbit]

Unisex

Yes this it the right word, but it sure looks funny! Also, have you noticed how gendered Lego has gotten?

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Which is a funny term when you think of it, because it isn't like the sweater/bathroom/whatever *has* a sex or even a gender, it is *for* humans of s specified gender (in this case, all/any). You wouldn't usually say "thus is a female bathroom."

[kelkyag]

Plenty of other languages think things have genders.

Unixex clothing, IME, means "does not allow for curves at all", which is all very well in hats and scarves, but rather unhelpful in pants .

Legos also increasingly seem to come in kits full of specialty parts that are meant to build one thing only, rather than big bins of generic pieces to do wahtever with. I can't say I'm enthusiastic.

[desireearmfeldt]

Yes, but what I mean is, in English, "unisex" doesn't really grammatically match its context, in that it sounds like it's describing the sex of the thing when that isn't what it actually means.

Lego seems to me to have decided to try to be Playmobil. That is, to be about making stories about characters in settings (the kind of okay Playmobil was always designed for) rather than about building things (the kind of okay Lego was originally designed for). Though Playmobil has also gotten more specific/less modular/interchangeable, I think.

[kelkyag]

Unisex is trying to describe the lack of gender (or sex) of the thing, perhaps? (But ... English. I don't actually expect words that describe, or seem to be trying to describe, the same space of thing to work in any sensible parallel way.)

It feels like legos are turning into 3D jigsaw puzzles. I imagine the kits do provide practice and ideas for people who want to design their own.