German 4 Dummies: Professx

Please call me Professx.

The spelling you are seeing is neither another minor episode of dyslexia nor sloppiness but the answer by a German gender studies professor when asked how to address her. Frau Professorin would be standard, Frau Professor another option.

Germans have been struggling for several decades with the he/she classifications that come with their language. Unsurprisingly, the generic plural for members of a group that comprised both males and females used to be the male form. For instance Studenten was the plural for a a group of all male students as well as a mixed gender group. Only an all female group would be said to be Studentinnen.  

The solution to the issue remained largely confined to academia and feminist media: StudentInnen. Capital I.

However, as the K-Landnews TheEditor often said: it is too unwieldy and doesn't do a thing when you are dealing with the singular.

Singular forms have proven singularly resistant to easily accepted gender neutral ways.

TheEditor has, we would like to stress, taken the pronoun it. Seriously, there is a trail of *s in this publication explaining TheEditors neutrality stance.

Professx goes a little further, pushing the envelope of the thang. The German language does have a grammatical "neutral" form, recognizable by the article "das". Your American Volkswagen commcercial "Das Auto" is an easy example.

Professx is bending the ending of neighboring words, too. She suggests that the German equivalent to "dear professor" should be Liebx Professx since "liebe/lieber" suffers from the same shortcoming as the noun it precedes.

That linguistic XX apparently symbolizes to old, conservative Germans** what 5XL represents to snotty, privileged size zero white kids in other countries.

Deliberate evil.

An onslaught on culture by people who lack self control and respect for the sore eyes of those around them.

When you look at a 5XL, that person takes up at least double the retina space of a size zero. Presumptuously occupying my valuable visual receptors. You know, those cells that have space for at least two naked size zero ladies at the same time - quashed by one 5XL.

Enough with feminism, is the battle cry of the marginalized and ridiculed teutonic males who have been suffering under the rise of the Valkyries, or so they say while loudly proclaiming they are not misogynists because they like Angela, and she's a lady, isn't she.

Teutonicus simplexis so blinded by her self confidence that he does not see the obvious. Pronouce Professx a wee bit lowly, and you get Professex. Which would be all any non-blind male ever needs to be happ.

We are wishing Professx luck, because she will need a lot of it in order to survive the hatred. Tabloid rag BILD Zeitung may have found a new love to hate figure, time will tell.


** Old, conservative Germans have also been called Nazis in German and foreign media. The K-Landnews coined the term Homo Teutonicus Simplex for them, which is more inclusive because it brings younger versions of same into the fold.