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point I'm trying to make is that it's commonplace usage
Oh completely. It’s 100% standard, and for that exact reason I don’t think it’s worth me getting that annoyed about, but the least I can do is provide the context for how it is used towards me, and how it comes off. The intention and reception are often totally different. I can’t really complain about it if I don’t try and explain what it’s like from my side.
I think we’re going round in circles tbh.
One of the major things that’s grated on me for the last decade is the constant surprise that I’m not thick as fuck because I have a semi-manual job.
I know that “they tidied up after themselves” is more in comparison to the norm of tradies leaving mess, but it feels like damning with faint praise and also infers how low the client’s expectation of me is in the first place (but I appreciate that the expectation is of me as a tradesperson rather than me as an individual). It’s pretty shit that people expect little of you because of your job though, and that’s kinda where these linguistic subtleties start to add up as yet another thing where it feels like you’re being looked down upon. Of course you could say “stop being so sensitive” about it, but the sensitivity is more about it being yet another thing, rather than being disproportionately annoyed by a linguistic quirk.
Nef-
is the constant surprise that I’m not thick as fuck because I have a semi-manual job.
I was a waiter for ten years, and may have just an inkling about that.
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Don’t let it get you down Nef, the last few years I’ve been working for a firm that lists me as a ‘hand worker’ (living in Germany). In Berlin you get that ‘looked down upon attitude’ but outside of the city they love it! Had to get a visa because of Brexit and was shocked how impressed they were that I was a manual labour worker. Most of the clients I deal with are folk that have bought apartments ranging from 1m to 4m€ and the crap and attitudes I have to deal with is sometimes ridiculous (often a tad rude). I always wear an old hi viz jacket, dirty overalls etc so they take me seriously 😂. It’s that whole judging a book by its cover type thing until they notice I’m wearing a Rolex Batgirl and drive a Rangey Autobiography as the company car.
Dammit
Jay75
Sure, it's all about the context - point I'm trying to make is that it's commonplace usage and whilst I'm aware of unconscious bias being A Thing, I doubt that the sub-conscious thought process is 'I must exert my ownership of Nef Electronics, but in a way that is deniable".
The theoretical speaker of the passage that I wrote is using "my" to indicate to the person they are speaking with their level of esteem for the person they're talking about.
If they'd used "the" it would change the character of what is being said, and in a negative way - putting the person referred to outside the group as it were.
There are plenty of unconscious things driving use of language in this way, but using 'my' in this way is to include the subject in the speakers group, rather than to assert ownership of them.