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#1 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Suomi
Posts: 20,193
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'They' enters the English language as a singular pronoun
Not sure I approve of this.
Quote:
It offends the principle of differentiating between singular and plural. It jars to see a news report in which one person is described as 'they'. It is probably all right if the aim is to avoid revealing gender. I have never really liked Merriam-Webster for the way it readily discards convention and correctness. |
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#2 |
Nitpicking dilettante
Administrator Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Berkshire, mostly
Posts: 47,970
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Enters the language? That might have been news around 1300.
https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/austheir.html |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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#3 |
Trainee Pirate
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: An Uaimh
Posts: 3,033
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I think historic usage is generally with an indefinite antecedent ('If any attendee needs the bathroom, they can use the facilities on the ground floor'). The usage with a specified antecedent ( 'Sam Smith is an English singer, they were (was?) born in 1992') is a new usage.
I'm not an expert, so would be unsurprised to be proved wrong about that. |
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#4 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Suomi
Posts: 20,193
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Lay people, such as journalists and copywriters will get it wrong. Jane Austen was using dialogue; nota bene: it is in quotation marks reflecting a child's speech. Good novelists will capture exactly how people speak and local vernacular. People's speech is often very different from standard correct English.
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#5 |
No longer the 1
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 23,434
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Meh. Languages change.
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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#6 |
Nitpicking dilettante
Administrator Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Berkshire, mostly
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You may be correct that this is a new usage, when referring to a specific individual of known gender (no, I don't want to get into discussing the ramifications of that), but whilst that's what the quoted text in the OP talked about, that's not what the OP itself was complaining about. Use of 'they' and 'their' when referring to a single (possibly unspecified) person is pretty much as old as modern English.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.Bertrand Russell Zooterkin is correct Darat Nerd! Hokulele Join the JREF Folders ! Team 13232 Ezekiel 23:20 |
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#7 |
![]() Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Monkey
Posts: 58,863
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Is everyone clutching their pearls?
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#8 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#9 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Feb 2017
Posts: 3,353
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Pretty much this, and in this case it isn't even changing that much.
Certainly some are. I will editorialize. If you want me to call you they, sure, why would I care. If you want me to use some word that didn't exist 3 years ago, ok but I think you're a bit of a twit, I'll probably forgot on occasion, sorry about that. If you announce your pronoun when entering the room, I'll think you're a narcissist and a twit. |
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#10 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
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#11 |
Illuminator
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#12 |
Penultimate Amazing
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We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't -Frank A. Clark Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect -Mark Twain |
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#13 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#14 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#15 |
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#16 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#17 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#18 |
Penultimate Amazing
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We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't -Frank A. Clark Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect -Mark Twain |
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#19 |
Species traitor
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 2,636
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That's probably the most common usage today, but it's not strictly true historically.
Originally Posted by Shakespeare
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#20 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#21 |
Penultimate Amazing
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We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't -Frank A. Clark Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect -Mark Twain |
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#22 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
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I'm surely in the minority, but this irritates me to no end.
Why don't we just come up with a gender-neutral term instead? I have no issue with any sexual orientation/identity a person chooses, but I refuse to call a single person "they" unless there's a legitimate reason to suspect that "they" are multiple entities. I'll just use your name. Yes, it will be very awkward. I hope you hate it. |
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"I love the poorly educated" -- Donald Trump |
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#23 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#24 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Natural language doesn't work that way.
I mean, sooner or later, if a gender-neutral term is needed, one will emerge. Right now, it looks like it's going to emerge by expanding the usage of "they". But outside of technical jargon with obscure meanings and specific applications, simply coming up with a new term for everyone to use isn't really a thing. |
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#25 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#26 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#27 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#28 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Jane Austen used "they" in other than dialogue. I don't know where you were looking, but you should look again, and remember that at least some attributions will be in quotation marks because they are quoted from Austen, not because they are quotations in her work.
She habitually uses "they" where a statement tends to be general rather than specific to a single person, and might refer to either sex. She assiduously avoids "his or her" and similar constructions, and inserts "their" instead, generally to the advantage of her style. It is because this is such a frequent occurrence in her writing that Austen is often brought into such arguments. e.t.a. while I'm at it, I'll address the prestige here: while it's true these days that the rule is for dictionaries to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, this has not always been presumed. The introduction of Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary was, at the time, accompanied by a storm of controversy when this change was made official. Up until that point, MW at least considered dictionaries to be at least in part prescriptive, following changes in language with some reluctance, and noting when usage was substandard, vernacular, and the like. |
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I love this world, but not for its answers. (Mary Oliver) Quand il dit "cuic" le moineau croit tout dire. (When he's tweeted the sparrow thinks he's said it all. (Jules Renard) |
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#29 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Central City, Colorado, USA
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It's been a fairly common usage for some time. It does fulfill the need for something that English lacks: A non-gender-specific singular personal pronoun, which is often needed, whether for non-binary people, or just when the gender is unknown or all-encompasing. The downside is that it introduces some ambiguity in the meaning of "they", which may or may not be resolvable by context.
An older convention was to use "he" for the non-specific gender. This can also be ambiguous, and some would say that it's sexist. "It" could work, but that word is typically used for inanimate objects, or sometimes for animals. It would, IMO be better to introduce a new word, but efforts to do that have failed to gain much traction. Using "they" as a singular does seem wrong to me, but complaining about it would likely be about as useful as shouting at clouds. As others in the thread have pointed out, langauges change. It doesn't annoy me nearly as much as misuse of the word "literal". |
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#30 |
Fiend God
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#31 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Blott en dag, ett ögonblick i sänder, vilken tröst, vad än som kommer på! |
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#32 |
Species traitor
Join Date: Apr 2004
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A friend in high school tried teaching me a bit of Hungarian. I remember remarking that it was nice that Hungarian didn't have gendered pronouns, and his response: "Yeah. Don't worry, we make up for it by being sexist in about a million different ways."
I tend to think people invest far too much power in this stuff. |
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#33 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
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Think about it. It is rare you need to know a person's gender.
Don't forget, subject pronouns (he, she, it, they) are usually preceded by a noun or proper noun. For example: The boy kicked the ball. He then ran down the wing. Nine times out of ten you already know to whom you are referring when you start using the term, 'he' or 'she'. And nine times out of ten it is not information needed. Think of German with der, die and das. Who needs that stuff? |
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#34 |
Not a doctor.
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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#35 |
Not a doctor.
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Texas
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A language that only works well nine times out of ten is like a bridge that only gets you nine tenths of the way across a river.
You are wrong about this issue, and your inability to seek out the facts and truth about the common usage of "they" as a singular pronoun in English for quite sometime is borderline weird for someone who espouses to have some strong feelings about the issue. |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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#36 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Blott en dag, ett ögonblick i sänder, vilken tröst, vad än som kommer på! |
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#37 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Blott en dag, ett ögonblick i sänder, vilken tröst, vad än som kommer på! |
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#38 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#39 |
Not a doctor.
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Yes, but her usage stood out at the time. There is no evidence that it was 'house rules' for her publisher. Unless you can find some evidence to support your claim I would prefer that you retract it as wild speculation.
I don't really know. My education emphasized researching issues that were important to me or my concerns. If I care about something I dig into it and do the research necessary to develop an informed position about that thing. I don't just assume that what I was taught in school is right and plow forward without question. If I did I would have not made it very far at all in this world. What did your education emphasize? |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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#40 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
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To be frank, it is expected that literary novelists can do whatever they like. Look at James Joyce with Ulysses or Thomas Pynchon with V. It seems pretty silly to me to seek these out as guardians of correct English grammar usage. IMV if you are an English/Creative Writing graduate and you thoroughly understand the rules then you have poetic licence to break them. Ditto music and art. However, to come out with a new rule that music can be any old thing you want it to be and point to the Sex Pistols as an example of the 'new music' then real musicians who have studied the art for years might be offended even if they themselves add a few twinkly flourishes to their renditions. Rules are made to be broken. But first you should know them. |
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