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Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

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Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#101

Post by gyardley »

sampo wrote: post #87

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 potentiall…

This is pretty close to how I, as a native English speaker, feel about gendered inanimate objects. I have no idea why so many other languages force you to stick a gender on something without any genitals.

I would've preferred not to have to learn that something as simple as 'milk' is feminine in Spanish, masculine in Italian, and neuter in Russian - that hunk of my brain could surely be put to better use.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#102

Post by dragonwriter »

tosseraccount wrote: post #88
dang wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

> "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".

> So, it appears that "they" is the imposition, "he" is the widespread use.

I think you are confusing the word "proscribe" with the sounds-and-looks-very-similar-but-means-almost-exactly-the-opposite "prescribe".

proscribe: forbid, especially by law; denounce or condemn

prescribe: recommend (a substance or action) as something beneficial; state authoritatively or as a rule that (an action or procedure) should be carried out.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#103

Post by ctdonath »

sampo wrote: post #87

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 potentiall…

The perspective from someone who learned English as a first language is that it's just as annoying a linguistic issue as it is to those who learned English later. Those of us raised on English likewise have a bad time with ambiguous gender situations ("he/she"). Used to be just "he" when ambiguous/irrelevant, but sociopolitical outrage over possible misapplication of the pronoun discourages such use, so our choice is either the obnoxious "he/she" (raising the issue of alternate applicability in a context where it really doesn't matter) or the now-common but still irritating singular "they" (ignoring the plural definition, and implying attempted reconciliation for the originating sociopolitical angst).

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#104

Post by tosseraccount »

dragonwriter wrote: post #102
tosseraccount wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> "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". > So, it appears that "they" is the imposition, "he" is the widespread use. I think you are confusing the word "proscribe" with the sounds-and-looks-very-similar-but-means-almost-exactly-the-opposite "prescribe". proscribe: forbid, especially b…

dang. you're right. mea culpa.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #67

Tell CMOS then. You are in the same state after all. They said (tee hee hee) this: A. I’m afraid your gender-neutral pronoun (at least in the sense you need) does not exist in our lexicon. I agree that the plural pronoun with a singular noun seems inadequate; I would suggest that you recast the sentence altogether or at least make “mind” plural for agreement: their minds. Other writers alternate between using “his” a…

> Tell CMOS then.

The article specifically discusses the history of the CMOS with singular "they", which recommended singular they in the 14th Edition, and reversed for the following versions (15th and the current 16th.)

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#106

Post by mitchty »

gyardley wrote: post #101
sampo wrote: post #87

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 potentiall…

This is pretty close to how I, as a native English speaker, feel about gendered inanimate objects. I have no idea why so many other languages force you to stick a gender on something without any genitals. I would've preferred not to have to learn that something as simple as 'milk' is feminine in Spanish, masculine in Italian, and neuter in Russian - that hunk of my brain could surely be put to better use.

The first thing you need to do is realize that grammatical gender has nothing to do with actual gender or lack thereof.

Unless you really think a turnip is feminine, and a little girl has no gender like in German.

All they're doing is describing a category of like nouns. The term for the grouping happens to be the word gender. The word is overloaded in this case to mean multiple things and is at best a false cognate.

The fact that the same thing can have multiple genders or lack thereof as you noted should be the biggest clue that grammatical gender has nothing to do with genitals.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#107

Post by Renevith »

Language Log has posted for many years about singular they, often spotting examples of it in well-edited publications.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27

See also the wikipedia page on singular they, chock full of usage examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#108

Post by Afton »

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.

It's not right. There are linguistic restrictions on gender-neutral, singular 'they'.[1] When the referent is known, it can't be used (i.e. it's not about 'patrick' and 'he' matching up, it's about 'they' not being usable with a known person).[2]

My favourite real-life example of it's usage is one in which we know that the gender is female, and we know it's singular:

"If a mother wants to use the nursing room, they can just key in the code in their pamphlet".

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/3cgbyv/limitat... gives some good discussion

[2] I can't help but feel that these restrictions are related to nondefinite contexts for "(negative polarity items)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_item]", like 'no-one' and 'any', where you can't say e.g.

    *I ate any cake
but you can say:

    I didn't eat any cake
but you can also use it in questions:

    Did you eat any cake?
This seems related to usages like

    If someone comes, tell them to wait
vs

    *If John comes, tell them to wait.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#109

Post by cmdkeen »

ctdonath wrote: post #103
sampo wrote: post #87

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 potentiall…

The perspective from someone who learned English as a first language is that it's just as annoying a linguistic issue as it is to those who learned English later. Those of us raised on English likewise have a bad time with ambiguous gender situations ("he/she"). Used to be just "he" when ambiguous/irrelevant, but sociopolitical outrage over possible misapplication of the pronoun discourages such use, so our choice is…

"now common" - the singular they was used by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Thackery and Shaw. Traditional grammar types might not like it but that doesn't mean it is some new usage.

Re: Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

#110

Post by mitchty »

dragonwriter wrote: post #93
jacobolus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> In Old English, thou was the singular second person pronoun Not just Old English; it survived in active, everyday use well into Modern English.

Don't the Pennsylvania Dutch still use it? I vaguely recall there being a community out east that uses either thee or thou still with regularity.
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