[LuisMondragon]

I remember a discussion on Twitter about abolishing possesive pronouns, because they allegedly express a relation of power and, well, possession. Like, you shouldn't say "my wife" because she doesn't belong to you.

The thing is this: for a lot of things we have experts, and we listen to them. We know we should listen to medical doctors instead of improvising uneducated opinions.

In the case of language, there are also experts: linguists. They can educate us about the various uses of possesive pronouns, which express more than just a naive idea of possession.

But somehow in this kind of heated discussions nobody consults linguists for guidance.

[yongjik]

> Like, you shouldn't say "my wife" because she doesn't belong to you.

Random fun fact: in Korean you'd frequently say "our wife" even though you're her only husband. Also our son, our mom, or our house (even when you're the only one living in it).

Maybe bring it up next time, and see their brains trying to process the info. :D

[LuisMondragon]

I watched Joe Rogan's interview with defector Yeonmi Park and, if I understood correctly, she said that this is the case in North Korea only, because the government banned the word "I"!

You can't say "I like this", only "we like this".

In South Korea people do use the first person singular. I hope a Korean person could correct me if I'm wrong.

[yongjik]

Wasn't Park Yeonmi the person who said American universities are worse than North Korea? I wouldn't take anything she said too seriously ... :)

The Korean language does have "I/my" vs. "we/our" distinction, but for some inexplicable reason, it uses "our" when it comes to family, people, or houses. So, people say "my book" but "our dad". Even if you're the only child.