The last days of a 350-year-old family farm • Hacker News Board

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#201

Post by klodolph » Wed, May 10, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #198

pmelendez wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is getting pretty old. Well the singular use of "They" is actually pretty old [1]. I don't think it is confusing readers as they did mention a name. > I just can't help rolling my eyes at this nonsense. I get the frustration if you are not used to the usage of the pronoun in its singular form, but it is actually sensible [1] https://www.scu.edu/media/offices/provost/writing-center/res...

The OED reference is very vague. We're not even sure in what context "they" was used 600 years ago. Care to elaborate?

Are you referring to this reference?

https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...

What part is vague?

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#202

Post by klodolph » Wed, May 10, 2023, 6:28 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #196

ghaff wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's much easier to get people to use an existing pronoun in a way that historically would have been considered a bit sloppy than it is to get them to adopt a new non-sex gendered but non-neutral coined pronoun. (It's actually been tried in the past.)

It worked pretty well with "Ms." back in the day. (I know, I know, it's not a pronoun.)

Honorifics are more of an “open class”…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech#Open_and_closed...

This really just a way of rephrasing what the parent comment says. By some reckonings, in English, pronouns are a closed class, and verbs are an open class. Some languages have it the other way around, where you can invent new pronouns but not new verbs (you have to take a noun X and say “do X” or something like that).

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#203

Post by sgt » Wed, May 10, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #201

sgt wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OED reference is very vague. We're not even sure in what context "they" was used 600 years ago. Care to elaborate?

Are you referring to this reference? https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... What part is vague?

Because it's grasping at straws. A singular case of a poem referring to an unnamed person? They are trying to make it seem like this was likely common and accepted 700 years ago up until today. I really doubt the author considered gender identity. In fact, up until quite recently, the use of "they" as gender neutral would cause blank stares.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#204

Post by ghaff » Wed, May 10, 2023, 7:17 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #196

ghaff wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's much easier to get people to use an existing pronoun in a way that historically would have been considered a bit sloppy than it is to get them to adopt a new non-sex gendered but non-neutral coined pronoun. (It's actually been tried in the past.)

It worked pretty well with "Ms." back in the day. (I know, I know, it's not a pronoun.)

Ms. did have its own political angle but but when it did finally become mainstream in the late 60s/early 70s, I'm not sure that there were too many people ready to go to the mat for public honorifics that distinguished whether a woman--and only a woman--was married or not. (And at least some people who probably reflexively opposed the change at first, changed their mind later on.)

But honorifics are tricky and some people feel very strongly about them--e.g. Dr. for someone with a PhD.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#205

Post by WorldMaker » Wed, May 10, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #191

ghaff wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a well-written paragraph because it deals with both Eleanor and the family and it's not immediately obvious what "they" is referring to in one or two spots. That said, singular-they is pretty much the best alternative to dealing with a number of issues that copy editors have struggled with for years.

Why can't we just make a new pronoun that is "they" but singular? Like "Theya". Theya is my friend. It's singular, non gendered, and then we can just get rid of every pronoun except "they" and "theya".

It's easier to do what happened to "you" (also previously the plural), form entirely new plurals akin to "you all". "They all" reads pretty well to me and I'm personally very curious if "th'all" works as well as "y'all" and have been subtly experimenting with it to see who notices.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#206

Post by SgtBastard » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #150

SgtBastard wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you’re replying to, but China over literally Millenia have effectively terraformed mountains into channels and channels of rice paddies for the cultivation of rice - areas that westerners would not typically consider farmland. Of course you can also plant rice on flat fields (and China does as well), but this does skew the comparative ratios of acres of land use : people fed.

I'm a westerner in agriculture (Australian, northern territory cattle stations -> mining - Geophysics -> large acre grains) and I consider that to be farmland. Maybe you're thinking of some specific subset of urban western non agricultural people. Of course in western culture the "typical" westerner lives in an urban environment so perhaps that explains the disconnect.

Friend, I’m Aussie as well and listing mining and geophysics as having anything to agriculture weakens your appeal to authority, making the subsequent snark even less appropriate for HN.

Do better.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#207

Post by klodolph » Wed, May 10, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #203

klodolph wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to this reference? https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... What part is vague?

Because it's grasping at straws. A singular case of a poem referring to an unnamed person? They are trying to make it seem like this was likely common and accepted 700 years ago up until today. I really doubt the author considered gender identity. In fact, up until quite recently, the use of "they" as gender neutral would cause blank stares.

Why would it be necessary for the author to consider gender identity? I don’t follow the logic of your argument.

The cited example is just the oldest known example of singular “they”. You’ll find more examples. You’d have to rip a lot of pages out of your history books in order to come up with a timeline where singular “they” wasn’t natural English. All that is happening now is that “they” is being used more often to refer to specific, known people, which is not much of a stretch.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#208

Post by defrost » Thu, May 11, 2023, 1:01 AM UTC

SgtBastard wrote: post #206

defrost wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a westerner in agriculture (Australian, northern territory cattle stations -> mining - Geophysics -> large acre grains) and I consider that to be farmland. Maybe you're thinking of some specific subset of urban western non agricultural people. Of course in western culture the "typical" westerner lives in an urban environment so perhaps that explains the disconnect.

Friend, I’m Aussie as well and listing mining and geophysics as having anything to agriculture weakens your appeal to authority, making the subsequent snark even less appropriate for HN. Do better.

"Friend" my actual life experience is no appeal to authority, it's two decades around cattle and stations, two decades travelling the world writing GIS code for exploration geophysics across more than half the existing countries of the globe and another two decades around agriculture.

Everybody I've met in 60+ years considers the land that rice farmers farm rice on to be farmland.

Perhaps you might do better policing others less and working more on making a point.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#209

Post by magicalhippo » Thu, May 11, 2023, 1:17 AM UTC

sholladay wrote: post #177

sgt wrote: post #163

> The question of what will become of the farm is a very complicated and painful one for Eleanor. They are an academic and a writer, and their family wants them to pursue their passions. Eleanor has no interest in farming themself, but they don’t want to see the farm disappear. They now live in New York State and miss home all the time. The family wants to hold on to the property, if at all possible, so they can live…

You couldn’t figure out it was singular after seeing “an academic and a writer” in reference to a single name? This doesn’t seem confusing at all. Granted, I’ve seen some sentences that are more ambiguous. But most of the time, context makes it plainly obvious, as it does here. The benefit is that by using “they”, the writer is making fewer guesses or assumptions. So it’s a trade off - more ambiguity, fewer mistakes.…

> This doesn’t seem confusing at all.

It was to me. Since I only read the quote I assumed "they" referred to Eleanor and Eleanor's partner or some other person that was mentioned before the quoted section.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#210

Post by SgtBastard » Thu, May 11, 2023, 5:01 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #208

SgtBastard wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend, I’m Aussie as well and listing mining and geophysics as having anything to agriculture weakens your appeal to authority, making the subsequent snark even less appropriate for HN. Do better.

"Friend" my actual life experience is no appeal to authority, it's two decades around cattle and stations, two decades travelling the world writing GIS code for exploration geophysics across more than half the existing countries of the globe and another two decades around agriculture. Everybody I've met in 60+ years considers the land that rice farmers farm rice on to be farmland. Perhaps you might do better policing…

Several cogent points have been made about why China might have unexpectedly high agriculture output per acre used to a lay person - all of which you seem to wish to curmudgeonly argue against strawmen variants of.