Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#31

Post by tomp »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #6

Usage of 'they' in English seems to be fairly common and it has only made the language better.

I'm not a native English spreaker, so I'm not really qualified to judge a language that is not mine, but anyways... this is not the English I've learnt. Now, I have nothing against new words or new meanings for old words, but I hate it when previously OK words suddenly get a negative status... It's natural for the (old) English language to use he for people in a general context, just as men can mean the same as people (at least that's how I've been taught). I don't find it very sensible to replace one ambiguity ("he" = he and person) with another ("they" = people or person), but I guess if you like speaking in that way, that's ok. Just don't force me do it, especially since "they" is objectively a worse word (longer, harder to say for foreigners).

In general, I think that people are focusing too much on words (actions matter), and that equallity is ok, but freedom shouldn't suffer because of that. Also, some people take equality too far - I have a penis, and if you have a vagina, we are different, phisically much more than any other human with a penis. There are some things we do different (I'm probably stronger and need to urinate less often. You can give birth and can better feed infants.). We might have different interests, and there's nothing wrong with that. We also get different roles in life; when you give birth, you're phisically damaged and the child needs you, so it's better if I go to work and earn money (if financially necesaary) (at least that's what a gentelman would do).

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#32

Post by jinushaun »

tomp wrote: post #31
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #6

Usage of 'they' in English seems to be fairly common and it has only made the language better.

I'm not a native English spreaker, so I'm not really qualified to judge a language that is not mine, but anyways... this is not the English I've learnt. Now, I have nothing against new words or new meanings for old words, but I hate it when previously OK words suddenly get a negative status... It's natural for the (old) English language to use he for people in a general context, just as men can mean the same as peopl…

What are you talking about? The use of the third person singular gender-neutral "they" is very specific. It's just convenient. In fact, I wish English had a different word instead of recycling "they", which is technically a third person plural pronoun. I don't stop using he or she.

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#33

Post by tomp »

jinushaun wrote: post #32
tomp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a native English spreaker, so I'm not really qualified to judge a language that is not mine, but anyways... this is not the English I've learnt. Now, I have nothing against new words or new meanings for old words, but I hate it when previously OK words suddenly get a negative status... It's natural for the (old) English language to use he for people in a general context, just as men can mean the same as peopl…

What are you talking about? The use of the third person singular gender-neutral "they" is very specific. It's just convenient. In fact, I wish English had a different word instead of recycling "they", which is technically a third person plural pronoun. I don't stop using he or she.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Making language worse/harder to use in the name of gender equality (or any political agenda, really) is inappropriate. I wish there was another word too, but some of the problems would remain the same. That is, I sometimes get the feeling that the use of "he" to refer to a non-specific (could be male or female) third person is frowned upon, and the only alternatives are "he/she", "(s)he", "he or she" or "they", all of which are longer.

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#34

Post by gruseom »

jcbrand wrote: post #17

I would be in favour of a gender neutral pronoun, but some of the things mentioned in the article just seem off to me. > One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. "gender-coded"? Is it because the boys said that only men/boys can drive/play with cars? If the adults allowed girls equal access to play with the cars, they could, eithe…

If the adults allowed girls equal access to play with the cars, they could, either explicitly or via the fact of girls playing with the cars, negate that notion.

My mother in law tells the story that when her kids were small she was determined to raise them free of sexist gender norms. One of the things she did was get some dolls for her son and, for a few hours a day, she would hide his cars to make sure the dolls got equal time. This lasted until one day she looked into a room where he was playing with the doll by running it along the floor yelling "vroom vroom!" She brought out the cars and that was the end of that.

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#35

Post by gruseom »

tomp wrote: post #31
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #6

Usage of 'they' in English seems to be fairly common and it has only made the language better.

I'm not a native English spreaker, so I'm not really qualified to judge a language that is not mine, but anyways... this is not the English I've learnt. Now, I have nothing against new words or new meanings for old words, but I hate it when previously OK words suddenly get a negative status... It's natural for the (old) English language to use he for people in a general context, just as men can mean the same as peopl…

Singular "they" is the old English language. Generic "he" was codified by grammarians in the 18th century who wanted to make English more like Latin. But singular "they" never went away, and now it's making a move for the top spot. The interesting thing is that all the best writers, from Chaucer thru Shakespeare thru basically everyone you'd care to name, used singular "they" liberally in their writing. The idea that it's an improper or incorrect usage is nonsense and always was.

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#36

Post by tomp »

gruseom wrote: post #35
tomp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a native English spreaker, so I'm not really qualified to judge a language that is not mine, but anyways... this is not the English I've learnt. Now, I have nothing against new words or new meanings for old words, but I hate it when previously OK words suddenly get a negative status... It's natural for the (old) English language to use he for people in a general context, just as men can mean the same as peopl…

Singular "they" is the old English language. Generic "he" was codified by grammarians in the 18th century who wanted to make English more like Latin. But singular "they" never went away, and now it's making a move for the top spot. The interesting thing is that all the best writers, from Chaucer thru Shakespeare thru basically everyone you'd care to name, used singular "they" liberally in their writing. The idea that…

Really? I didn't know that. By "old", I meant 15 years ago, when I first learned english.

What exactly did the singular "they" mean? Same as "it", just for people?

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#37

Post by michaelcampbell »

plq wrote: post #22
rmc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(for the ignorant: these two are otherwise wildly different languages) I believe Finnish is wildly different from just about every other language. Hindi and English are closerly related.

Finnish, (and Estonian), Hungarian, Japanese and Turkish (which includes the dialects spoken in Anatolia, Azerbaidjan (whose people speak almost the same language that the Persian Azeris speak), Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Urumqi region of China) are sister languages. To my knowledge, all of them have gender-neutral pronouns. (And actually I'm pretty sure about Anatolian Turki…

> (And actually I'm pretty sure about Anatolian Turkish :))

This is probably a sentence I will hear/see exactly once in my life; at least in a not-contrived manner. Thank you for that.

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#38

Post by gruseom »

tomp wrote: post #36
gruseom wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singular "they" is the old English language. Generic "he" was codified by grammarians in the 18th century who wanted to make English more like Latin. But singular "they" never went away, and now it's making a move for the top spot. The interesting thing is that all the best writers, from Chaucer thru Shakespeare thru basically everyone you'd care to name, used singular "they" liberally in their writing. The idea that…

Really? I didn't know that. By "old", I meant 15 years ago, when I first learned english. What exactly did the singular "they" mean? Same as "it", just for people?

Yep. There are some examples in a previous comment I wrote (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3688820), though I overstated the case about generic he there. Wikipedia has pre-18th century examples of that too, so it seems that both forms coexisted (in what proportion, I don't know). In any case, it's a mistake to imagine that singular they is an archaic form being revived now for political correctness. It has been in widespread use all along.

Re: Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun

#39

Post by skrebbel »

plq wrote: post #22
rmc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(for the ignorant: these two are otherwise wildly different languages) I believe Finnish is wildly different from just about every other language. Hindi and English are closerly related.

Finnish, (and Estonian), Hungarian, Japanese and Turkish (which includes the dialects spoken in Anatolia, Azerbaidjan (whose people speak almost the same language that the Persian Azeris speak), Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Urumqi region of China) are sister languages. To my knowledge, all of them have gender-neutral pronouns. (And actually I'm pretty sure about Anatolian Turki…

The Altaic languages eh? That's a very controversial theory you got there. Even those still supporting it today mostly exclude the Finno-Ugric languages from the list, btw.
Post reply on HN