2 items.
1. Jets/Rubies
A story I'm unsure how many have heard:
Ultimately, what sunk "jets/rubies" wasn't so much "airplane" or
"black/red" (ships and planes are traditionally named after women, so, I
never got the whole "a jet is masculine" thing, but, I digress).
A dance I called in Brooklyn
Alan J. Rosenthal suggested: "In my opinion it's important that the
replacement terms don't resemble any gendered words"
I disagree.
The purpose of the replacement words is, in the long run, to leave as few
persons as possible (hopefully no one) uncomfortable.
Whether they sound like other
Unfortunately Jets/Rubies sounds gendered to a lot of people: while "Jet"
is a jemstone, it's also an engine, a plane, sports team, and a fictional
gang, all more male-ish than female-ish. And "Ruby" is a commonish female
name and gemstones are more associated with women than men.
There's also a
I LIKE THIS!
I hereby nominate "jets and rubies" as the likeliest contender, far
outshining my own personal fallback, suns-and-moons.
And btw, I'm absolutely seeing "jets" in my mind as black shiny beads,
not flying machines.
On 2/13/23, Michael Fuerst via Contra Callers
wrote:
> jets/rubies
jets/rubies might be the best solution several reasons:
(1) no relation to gender roles,
(2) sound like gents and ladies, satisfying those who cognitively have
difficulty associating larks and robins with the corresponding roles.
(3) easier and faster to say. Jets, unlike larks, has no hard
Happier days for some, but a lot of us, those "haylcon days" were really
not all that. Transgender people and gays and lesbians having to hide who
they were, or not able to dance with (let alone marry) their partners for
fear of retaliation, or having to go to their own separate dances to feel
