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Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

illinois.edu

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Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#21

Post by untothebreach »

jnevill wrote: post #11
untothebreach wrote: post #3

> turning either to invented pronouns like xe and zie This made me pause...aren't all pronouns (and for that matter, words in general) "invented?" Are they (see what I did there...) just making a distinction between words that are adapted or modified from other words, and ones that aren't?

Perhaps "Newly invented pronouns" would have been more clear. The distinction being Singular "They" has been around for a long time, and "Xe" can't be pronounced by the human mouth and confuses the older folk. Or something...

Ha, well as one of the "older folk," I will say that while "xe" doesn't confuse me, it is definitely a bit jarring when I see it used. I have no problem with it's use, I am just not used to seeing it. I recently read a book by a fantasy author whose stories I enjoy, but in this latest book she used "xe" quite often to describe some non-binary characters, and it always managed to pull me out of the story.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#23

Post by thescriptkiddie »

jnevill wrote: post #12
ryangittins wrote: post #9

I've had enough of this discussion! The new gender-neutral singular pronoun is thou ! That's right, thou was the answer we were looking for.

Is "thou" third-person though? I never use it, so it might be. I dunno.

It's second-person. The third person singular pronoun is "it".

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#24

Post by jnevill »

bradleyjg wrote: post #13
ryangittins wrote: post #9

I've had enough of this discussion! The new gender-neutral singular pronoun is thou ! That's right, thou was the answer we were looking for.

I think thou is second person ("you"), not third ("he" and "she"). We are in need of a second person plural though--at least outside of the South where they have "y'all" and NJ where they have "youse guys".

Let's not forget about the folk's from the "Show Me" state's second-person plural: "Ya'llsins"

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#25

Post by dang »

patrickfl wrote: post #7

Scanned the article, can someone give me a solid example of how this is used in a sentence?

Pretty much every great English writer uses it freely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9364411. Also, listen to how people really speak, and you'll find that everybody puts it in their sentences without noticing.

The funny thing is that in terms of actual usage, it's uncontroversial and has been for 600 years. The debate about it is a real-life version of the joke, "I can see it will work in practice, but will it work in theory?"

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#28

Post by panglott »

volaski wrote: post #20
patrickfl wrote: post #7

Scanned the article, can someone give me a solid example of how this is used in a sentence?

You see it in notifications from social apps. "Jenny has started following you. Follow them back", etc. Because a lot of apps don't ask people to enter their gender they just resort to "them" instead of "him" or "her". It's really as annoying as people just using "her" everywhere just to be safe.

Why is it annoying?

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#30

Post by dang »

Strilanc wrote: post #15

Using the post's title on hacker news is probably misleading. It sounds more official out of context, whereas in the post the "award" is just a tongue-in-cheek framing device: > -Truth in advertising: The Web of Language Distinguished Usage Panel, charged each year with picking the Word of the Year, consists entirely of me. The comments keep up the joke: > Kudos to the Distinguished Usage Panel! "They" chose wisely a…

I see your point, but all "word of the year" awards are made up anyhow. If anybody suggests a more accurate title we can change it.
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