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Theirself or Themself?

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Re: Theirself or Themself?

#31

Post by gr3yh47 »

normloman wrote: post #29
gr3yh47 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you're not getting it. While the use of 'them' and 'themselves' is increasingly acceptable informally, it still violates basic rules of plurality that most people agree upon, and is thus formally incorrect.

No. you're still not getting it. Violating basic rules that everyone agrees on happens all the time. It's called irregularity, and English is full of it. Irregular plurals are common, and correct, because they have fallen into common usage.

You are incorrectly equivocating informally acceptable with formally correct.

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#32

Post by normloman »

normloman wrote: post #29
gr3yh47 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you're not getting it. While the use of 'them' and 'themselves' is increasingly acceptable informally, it still violates basic rules of plurality that most people agree upon, and is thus formally incorrect.

No. you're still not getting it. Violating basic rules that everyone agrees on happens all the time. It's called irregularity, and English is full of it. Irregular plurals are common, and correct, because they have fallen into common usage.

What I'm trying to tell you is there's no formally correct in English. There's no Academy of English that tells people how to speak. What's right is what most people say. Most people say "themselves."

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#33

Post by normloman »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #14
70forty wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what authority is this the technically correct word? Some dictionary or grammar book? Where did they get their authority to determine this? Really the only way to decide what is "correct" where language usage is concerned is to see how people actually speak/write, AKA a descriptive approach. Do a corpus study and then you'll have some basis to make a claim about what is and isn't standard usage.

Saying I can only make a claim if I have done a certain study is somewhat absurd, especially when you are, with that suggestion, claiming to be the authority on how to determine what is correct.

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

^^^

Read it for your own good.

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#34

Post by autodidakto »

spellboots wrote: post #19
gr3yh47 wrote: post #3

"himself" is the technically correct word for singular reflexive when the gender is unknown

It used to be technically correct. Today, it is technically incorrect, because society today acknowledges that women are full, living, breathing human beings and may in fact be referred to as such in polite conversation.

What is this "women" creature that so many men speak so passionately of?

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#35

Post by jonnathanson »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #30
jonnathanson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Them" is a plural word in the first place, so attempting to hybridize it with the singular and form "themself" is incorrect and awkward. There is no singular "them." In the case where one uses "them" to refer to a singular subject of indeterminate gender, "them" doesn't actually become singular; rather, it's simply being used as a free variable. It's increasingly acceptable to use "them" to refer to a singular subje…

> There is no singular "them." exactly why it is incorrect to use in the singular. and this is the difference between formal and informal. there are rules that are widely accepted (formal) and then there are actual usages that are widely accepted (informal)

This is the view commonly understood and immediately sensible. It's the view I was taught and grew up with, and it's the view to which I still adhere when writing (fwiw, I'm an adamant user of "himself" or "herself" for the singular). In this view, "them" is acceptable on an informal, common-usage basis.

That said, linguists in recent years have been working out formal methods of acceptance for "themselves" as a singular-referring pronoun when the gender of the subject is unknown. See my previous comments about "them" as a free variable; this is the formalist's argument for the acceptability of "them." It is an argument advanced by some of the more influential logicians of the mid to late 20th century, such as W.V.O. Quine. It's an argument based more in symbolic logic than in traditional linguistics, but it's gained a fair amount of currency in the high-nerddom of syntax. It's by no means an established or generally accepted stance, however. The general, traditionally formal rule is that "them" is always plural, and the construction "singular subject = them" is a bit like saying "1 = >1," i.e., illogical.

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#36

Post by gr3yh47 »

normloman wrote: post #33
gr3yh47 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying I can only make a claim if I have done a certain study is somewhat absurd, especially when you are, with that suggestion, claiming to be the authority on how to determine what is correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description ^^^ Read it for your own good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_written_English

^^^

Read it for your own good

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#37

Post by gr3yh47 »

normloman wrote: post #32
normloman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. you're still not getting it. Violating basic rules that everyone agrees on happens all the time. It's called irregularity, and English is full of it. Irregular plurals are common, and correct, because they have fallen into common usage.

What I'm trying to tell you is there's no formally correct in English. There's no Academy of English that tells people how to speak. What's right is what most people say. Most people say "themselves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_written_English

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#38

Post by DArcMattr »

losvedir wrote: post #10
gr3yh47 wrote: post #3

"himself" is the technically correct word for singular reflexive when the gender is unknown

I downvoted this comment because I don't think it brings anything to the discussion. I'm pretty sure it's obvious to every HN reader (and the post author themself) that "he" is the "correct" gender-unknown pronoun, along with "himself". The submitted post is interesting because a lot of us prefer they/them for the gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun[0], and it raises an interesting corner case. I had to think…

I got a lot of pushback from my thesis advisor when I was going with the gender-neutral approach. This was over 10 years ago, and not much has changed since then by the looks of it.

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#39

Post by tlb »

normloman wrote: post #18

Writer here. The author is a programmer. An expert in formal languages. Formal languages have to be logically consistent. Not English. "Themselves" is correct, even if it's inconsistent, because it's what most people say and understand. That's the point of a natural language. Not to be neat and orderly, but to be understood.

English speaker here. I can't bring myself to say, "Pat climbed the mountain by themselves."

Re: Theirself or Themself?

#40

Post by 70forty »

gr3yh47 wrote: post #20
Symmetry wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you consulting to find that the correct replacement for 'them' in formal writing is 'him' here? There isn't any College of the English Language to make authoritative prescriptive statements, and the Chicago Manual of Style at least has been against the use of 'him' here for several editions.

I am not claiming that 'him' is a replacement for 'them' 'them' is plural and flatly incorrect when used as a singular pronoun. edit: Again, 'them' is formally incorrect but informally acceptable in the singular usage.

'them' is plural and flatly incorrect when used as a singular pronoun.

Why? How do you know this?

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