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Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

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Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#81

Post by jacobolus »

wces wrote: post #61
DennisP wrote: post #6

I've never liked this, but I have to admit that logically, a mismatch in number is no worse than the mismatch in gender we get by using "he," which has the disadvantage of being annoying to many people. And I don't think efforts to make up a new pronoun are likely to succeed. Singular "they" might well be the future. But if I could have my pick I'd go with "um."

South Asian languages routinely employ plurals to refer to/call a person with added respect. Even when speaking English many South Asians won't find anything amiss when he/she is replaced by they.

In Old English, thou was the singular second person pronoun and ye the plural, but would be used when talking to someone of higher status. From what I understand, the ye evolved into you while thou mostly disappeared, so now we all get to be plural. I’m not sure about third person pronouns though.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#82

Post by untog »

g4k wrote: post #35
untog wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"patrickfl didn't bother to read the article, as a result they were uninformed."

This may be right, but it does not sound right.

Why not? This is not new at all, I've used it whenever I'm not sure of the gender of a subject for as long as I can remember.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#83

Post by warfangle »

colept wrote: post #51

When writing "he or she" - they does seem like a viable substitute when gender is irrelevant. But I cannot stand this new trend of making gender irrelevant for the sake of pushing gender lines. We use gendered pronouns for context clues, metadata, and comedy. It's a natural construct and universal to many languages.

'They' isn't a viable substitute just when gender is irrelevant.

There isn't really a label for what I identify as, but it is not 'she' or 'he,' it's somewhere in-between and neither at the same time. So even 'he or she' wouldn't apply to me: I'm not one or the other.

I _prefer_ xe/etc; but I'm absolutely 100% fine with they/them. Just don't call me he (because I'm not) or she (because I'm not). ;)

Does that make sense?

> It's a natural construct and universal to many languages.

I think this ignores too much how language imposes itself on a culture - and a culture on a language. The gender neutral pronoun is a natural construct and universal to many languages, too. We just don't have an "official" one in English.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #77
volaski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 using "her" everywhere worse than using "him" everywhere?

> Why is using "her" everywhere worse than using "him" everywhere?

Because its just as gendered and conflicts with standard usage (which, in English, accepts the use of the masculine linguistic gender for subjects of unknown sex or gender identity, so it is not better from either a "gender neutrality, regardless of accepted usage" standpoint or from a "clarity of communication through conforming to accepted usage" standpoint.)

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#85

Post by nailer »

dkarapetyan wrote: post #17

I use this all the time. Easier than worrying about gendered nonsense.

+1. Reading Ben Horowitz's book, every fictional CEO is 'he' or 'she' which makes you think you've missed something and they're not fictional. 'They' could have sufficed perfectly.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#86

Post by Florin_Andrei »

wces wrote: post #61
DennisP wrote: post #6

I've never liked this, but I have to admit that logically, a mismatch in number is no worse than the mismatch in gender we get by using "he," which has the disadvantage of being annoying to many people. And I don't think efforts to make up a new pronoun are likely to succeed. Singular "they" might well be the future. But if I could have my pick I'd go with "um."

South Asian languages routinely employ plurals to refer to/call a person with added respect. Even when speaking English many South Asians won't find anything amiss when he/she is replaced by they.

> South Asian languages routinely employ plurals to refer to/call a person with added respect.

Fairly common for some Eastern European languages, too.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#87

Post by sampo »

My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, and it is surprisingly difficult to learn to fluently and effortlessly use 'he' (or 'she') in English in situations when there is no need to specify the gender, or when the gender is not known ("After the user clicks the button, he/she receives ..."). My brain is just not wired that way, I feel like I am forced to create information when there is none, and potentially incorrect information, lies.

Almost as if a language didn't have a construct to talk about cars without specifying their color at the same time, so you all the time have to create random colors in order to talk about cars in the abstract.

I was very happy when I learned that 'they' is a mostly acceptable solution.

I understand gendered nouns can also be a politically loaded topic, but I only meant this as a perspective from someone who learned English as a second language.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#88

Post by tosseraccount »

dang wrote: post #72
tosseraccount wrote: post #33

They be utterly pretentious. Germanic languages have gender. Language change should be natural, not forced based on some nebulous social engineering goal. Speakers of Old English considered each noun to have a grammatical gender. If anyone has a serious citation for "he" was imposed by "meddling grammarians", please let us know. Don't we already have a neutral pronoun: "it"?

> If anyone has a serious citation for "he" was imposed by "meddling grammarians" There are lots of citations about this on the web and even a whole bunch in past HN threads. This is one of the more fascinating articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-...

Sorry. I removed the complaint. Thanks for the link. I'll note this ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Trend_to_prescri... reports that

"In spite of continuous attempts on the part of educationalists to proscribe singular they in favour of he, its use remained widespread, and the advice was largely ignored".

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#89

Post by warfangle »

dang wrote: post #65
g4k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be right, but it does not sound right.

It doesn't sound right because the username includes "patrick", which implies a "he". Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It sounds a bit more natural if you say "That user didn't read the article, so they were uninformed."

> Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known.

It does when the gender identity of the subject is known to be neither he nor she!

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#90

Post by warfangle »

dang wrote: post #65
g4k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be right, but it does not sound right.

It doesn't sound right because the username includes "patrick", which implies a "he". Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It sounds a bit more natural if you say "That user didn't read the article, so they were uninformed."

> Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known.

It does when the gender identity of the subject is known to be neither he nor she!

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