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[Ari]

Fuck you trans-hate bathroom laws!

As a cis guy who looks a bit femme I can tell you, I've occasionally used women's restrooms, either single occupant (can we just get an *all* sign and be done with it) or when the guys room has been broken (for some strange, dipshit, reason), you know what happened. I didn't pee on your nice floor.

I have seen plenty of women use the guys room. You know what's happened, they didn't pee on your nice floor.

Now I know of multiple trans people who have used their 'gender assigned' bathroom and you know what's happened they've been beat up for it.

The reality is, everyone kinda wants you a few feet away, and to not pee on the nice floor. Stop giving trans people shit about this, or maybe they should just start peeing on your nice floor.

[Vivisectus]

We should just have unisex bathrooms, and trans-hate bathrooms for bigots. Only they wont be the nice clean ones.

[The Man]

I’m taking a course on professional writing right now and a module on avoiding biases in writing brought this back to the forefront of my attention, so I guess this is as good a place as any to discuss something that has become one of my linguistic bugaboos: opposition to the usage of singular they.

It’s long been obvious that anyone who accepts the usage of he as a generic pronoun to refer to individuals of indistinct or unknown gender is a raging sexist, but the usage of he or she is just as problematic for the obvious reason that some people do not in fact identify as either male or female. The usage of pronouns for specific non-binary individuals is a complex minefield and a number of invented pronouns have been proposed that mostly look to me like linguistic eyesores, but in general of course the only correct way to refer to specific non-binary individuals is to use whatever pronouns they want people to use, and if one is unsure then of course the only correct course of action is to ask. However, when referring to non-binary people in general and when referring to individuals whose gender is not known or indistinct, I feel the only appropriate pronoun to use is the singular they.

Misguided linguistic purists will object that they is a plural pronoun. However, first of all, usage can change over time, and a plural pronoun has become a singular pronoun at least once before in the history of the English language. The singular second person pronoun used to be thou/thee/thy/thine. It was replaced around the seventeenth century with you/you/your/yours, which before that point was exclusively a plural pronoun. (I’m oversimplifying slightly, because a complete history would both be irrelevant and very likely bore the living daylights out of anyone who isn’t a linguistics major, but my general point should be an adequate summary for the purposes of this post).

More importantly, this is beside the point. Singular they has in fact been correct usage in the contexts I have discussed dating back to the fourteenth century. It appears in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, W. H. Auden, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, Walt Whitman, Lewis Carroll, Sir Walter Scott, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lord Dunsany, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, the translators of the King James Bible (and quite a few other widely used translations), and a host of other authors. (At some point I am going to find the usage of singular they in each of these authors’ works and the works of even more I have not listed here and create a Web page quoting each and every one of them, but I probably should get back to school work today). Anyone who sincerely believes that they know more about the English language than these distinguished writers did is in fact a colossal misguided Dunning-Kruger poster child idiot. There is more on the history of singular they here, here, and here.

In any case, opponents of singular they also have to contend with the fact that a rather substantial number of non-binary individuals prefer to be referred to using this pronoun anyway, so even if it weren’t already correct usage in general, it is in fact incontrovertibly correct usage when referring to these people, because there is of course no better authority on what pronouns to use when referring to a specific non-binary individual than that individual.

(I will add that, if writing for formal settings such as businesses or academic journals, it may be more advisable to pluralise references to individuals of indisctinct or unknown gender where possible so one simply does not have to bother with the singular they argument at all, since bosses and editors may be fucking idiots who do not understand correct usage. However, for informal settings where one’s writings do not have to be subjected to the oversight of others, I will always tell anyone who objects to singular they to go pound sand).


Changing gears a bit, I mentioned above that the Matrix films were written and directed by a pair of transgender women. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is a bit behind the times, by which I mean that apparently the entire LGBT rights movement has passed it by.

On the page for at least The Matrix (I was too pissed off to even think about looking at the pages for the other films the sisters directed for the time being), it refers to “the Wachowski brothers” with the asinine reasoning that they were credited this way. The problem, of course, is that they are not brothers. They are sisters. I went in to edit the page to correct this only to find out that there is an explicit directive in comments not to change the credit until there is a consensus to do so.

I would have no problem if the article said something like “Lana and Lilly Wachowski (credited as ‘the Wachowski brothers’)” or “the Wachowski sisters (credited as ‘the Wachowski brothers’)” or even just “the Wachowskis (credited as ‘the Wachowski brothers’)”, but the way it stands now is not only incorrect, but also a blatant case of misgendering, which is one of the most offensive things a person can do in writing to transgender people.

Wikipedia fucking sucks.

Anyway, I would be extremely gratified if others here would add their feedback about this to the talk page, noting in particular how fucking offensive and incendiary this is. It’s probably worth taking a look at the pages for Lana and Lilly’s other films as well, because I expect many of the others are equally fucked up.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by The Man

Misguided linguistic purists will object that they is a plural pronoun. However, first of all, usage can change over time, and a plural pronoun has become a singular pronoun at least once before in the history of the English language. The singular second person pronoun used to be thou/thee/thy/thine. It was replaced around the seventeenth century with you/you/your/yours, which before that point was exclusively a plural pronoun. (I’m oversimplifying slightly, because a complete history would both be irrelevant and very likely bore the living daylights out of anyone who isn’t a linguistics major, but my general point should be an adequate summary for the purposes of this post).

They are not linguistic purists. They're prescriptivists, and prescriptive grammar is nothing more than a set of outdated and more often than not factually incorrect rules appropriate maybe as a tool for children to use for grade school level writing projects. Memorizing prescriptive grammar rules is almost like memorizing the times tables, except that the times tables aren't factually incorrect. Maybe it's like the rules for cootie shots or Bloody Mary or something.

It always boggles my mind that there are actual, functioning grownups out there who are so proud of their ability to memorize a bunch of silly fourth grade shit.

Just ask those garbage clowns who wrote the rules they follow, and under what authority. They kind of stumble and bluster around, but they never really have an answer because there isn't one, and they never stopped to even question the basis for the rules they hold so dear. It's completely indefensible.

[The Man]

Originally Posted by lisarea

They are not linguistic purists. They're prescriptivists, and prescriptive grammar is nothing more than a set of outdated and more often than not factually incorrect rules appropriate maybe as a tool for children to use for grade school level writing projects.

Well, yes. That’s why I called them “misguided purists”, because they’re not in fact safeguarding the purity of the language at all; they simply think they are.

That said, there are some style guides that flat-out call the usage of singular they incorrect, which means that being a colossal misguided Dunning-Kruger poster child idiot actually extends to some authors of influential style guides. The Chicago Manual of Style’s Bryan A. Garner, who also co-wrote an idiotic law book with Antonin Scalia, is one such idiot. (The Chicago Manual actually got the singular they argument right in 1993, but reversed themselves more recently). The American Psychological Association also counts among these idiots, as do Strunk and White. (The latter also recommend the usage of he as a generic pronoun, so they are also sexist to boot).

This does seem to be a mostly American problem; very few Commonwealth style guides go so far as to flat-out call singular they incorrect (although some do recommend what I suggested above for formal settings, namely rewriting sentences to pluralise references to people of ambiguous gender).

[erimir]

First things first: I have no problem with singular they. I use it and I think it should be added to "standard English" (effectively meaning: dictionaries, style guides, language textbooks, etc.).

However, it's a little more complicated than simply a singular vs. plural distinction. Allow me to linguist-splain to you...

Originally Posted by The Man

It’s long become apparent that anyone who accepts the usage of he as a generic pronoun to refer to individuals of indistinct or unknown gender is a raging sexist

I disagree with that. It is true that generic he is not truly generic and it perpetuates sexism (and sometimes heterosexism). But it is not the case that everyone who uses it or thinks it should be used is a raging sexist.

Opposition to gender-neutral language is correlated with sexism, but I imagine there's a connection between the age and gender of the person in question as well. It was too much work finding the source where I read this, but women were more likely to interpret generic he as approximately generic compared to men.

The funny thing is that even the raging sexists and stickler prescriptivists will tend to use singular they in their casual speech.

but the usage of he or she is just as problematic for the obvious reason that some people do not in fact identify as either male or female.

"Just as"? I think excluding around half the population is more problematic than excluding a tiny minority, but ok.

More importantly, this is beside the point. Singular they has in fact been correct usage in the contexts I have discussed dating back to the fourteenth century.

This is not exactly true, for reasons I will explain below. It has been correct/common usage in most of the contexts you have been discussing, but not all.

I would go beyond saying that it is merely acceptable, and say that singular they is practically obligatory in certain contexts. For example, consider this sentence:

John greeted everyonei before Mary noticed ____ i

(Subscript i meaning that the phrases refer to the same entity/entities)

If you must fill in the blank with a pronoun that refers to everyone, it becomes obvious that singular they or simply repeating everyone are your only good options. Generic him is not up to the task; it will be misinterpreted as referring to John. "Him or her" sounds bizarre. It sounds perfectly natural, however, as:

John greeted everyone before Mary noticed them.

Aside from finding singular they superior to "he or she", I also prefer it to alternating generic he and generic she, which I find distracting. Neither is actually generic, and so it gives a feeling that there are distinct people being talked about (that is, that the person referred to with "he" is different from the one referred to with "she"). Singular they accomplishes the aim without that distraction.

Anyone who sincerely believes that they know more about the English language than these distinguished writers did is in fact a colossal misguided Dunning-Kruger poster child idiot.

To be fair, I would take a linguist as a stronger authority than those writers

In any case, opponents of singular they also have to contend with the fact that a rather substantial number of non-binary individuals prefer to be referred to using this pronoun anyway, so even if it weren’t already correct usage in general, it is in fact incontrovertibly correct usage when referring to these people, because there is of course no better authority on what pronouns to use when referring to a specific non-binary individual than that individual.

I dunno about that. There is always an interaction between both speaker and listener and the speech community.

A non-binary individual is certainly free to ask for certain pronouns and in many cases, there will be no issue there. But they do not have unlimited authority, and part of the reason they are given such free rein at the moment is that we both 1) have gendered pronouns and 2) do not have a conventional singular definite/non-generic animate/human/sentient gender neutral pronoun.

Consider, for example, the case of Finnish, which does not have grammatical gender (the third-person pronoun is hän, and translates to he or she in English). The choice of third-person pronoun has no bearing on the gender of the person, the only third-person pronouns to choose between are the animate/sentient hän and the inanimate/non-sentient se. I doubt there is much discussion among queer activists there over the need for new pronouns.

At the same time, we can suppose that if you were to ask to be referred to (in the third-person) with the pronouns we/us, you would have little success, even among the genderqueer community. There are limits. Although, obviously, that is a more absurd example. Someone asking to be called we/us in the third-person would likely just be trolling. But I have seen at least one instance where someone claimed to prefer it. That request risks making those around you appear to be using dehumanizing language to a third-party observer, which I would say is a good reason to refer to that person with singular they or the like in spite of their stated preference.

I also think there is also a limit in that we cannot expect people to know and use many different sets of gender-neutral and non-binary pronouns. Any set after the first would be pretty redundant. If ze/zir somehow became common usage, I think that 1) most non-binary people would accept those pronouns without much resistance and 2) most other people would refuse to use alternative pronoun schemes once that one became established.

Anyway, to expand on what I mentioned above about singular they not being correct in all the contexts that gender activists are asking it to be used, there are more pronoun distinctions than merely person and number.

Singular they, in common usage, tends to refer to antecedents of the following types (Wikipedia has a similar list, some of my examples are paraphrased from it):

• Indefinite/quantifier/distributive/etc. pronouns: nobody, everybody, somebody, anybody, each, many, etc.
• The interrogative pronoun, who
• Indefinite nouns: "A teacher should know their students." Note that this can even apply when the noun is gendered: "No mother should be forced to testify against their child!"
• Nouns used generically, to refer to a class, even if expressed with a definite article: "If the child has dual citizenship, they may lose it upon..." or "You may ask yourself, "Is this person right? And they may be."
• Antecedents of mixed gender, probably used with or since otherwise it would be plural: "Let me know if your father or your mother changes their mind."

What is not currently common usage, however, is the use of singular they with an antecedent which is singular, definite and not generic.

It would be relatively unusual for someone to say "His* teacheri always brings theiri computer to class." Certainly, you would be unlikely to hear "Oh, that's my friend over there. They're wearing a red shirt."

That's not to say that this isn't changing. It seems that friend or boss is more likely to be referred to with singular they than teacher or doctor.

And this is not to say that we can't expand upon it to become a full-use gender neutral pronoun. It seems to be by far the best candidate for that. I don't expect ze/zir or any other such pronominal neologisms to ever get any traction. While it still feels a bit odd to me to refer to someone distinct and known with they it is certainly less of a stretch than using those neologisms. But it is still asking for a change to refer to someone only with they and never with he or she.

Finally, personally I think the best reason to rephrase sentences with plurals is to avoid ambiguous pronominal references. This is similar to the problem when you are referring to two men and your he references become ambiguous. Singular they might be more likely to cause ambiguity though, since it can also cause ambiguity with plural non-animate references, whereas he and she are not ambiguous with each other or it.

*Or some other possessive phrase. Possessive pronouns/phrases in English are determiners. The articles the and a/an are also determiners. They are grammatically definite since they refer to a specific instance of a noun. In order to form an indefinite possessive, you must use another construction, like "a friend of mine", "a friend of Mary's", "one of your friends", etc. But "my friend" is definite.

Since you can be generic, however, your teacher could be considered a generic in those instances. This seems to borne out by the fact that if I do Google searches for phrases with "[POSSESSIVE] teacher has their", you only get many hits for your.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by The Man

I’m taking a course on professional writing right now and a module on avoiding biases in writing brought this back to the forefront of my attention, so I guess this is as good a place as any to discuss something that has become one of my linguistic bugaboos: opposition to the usage of singular they.

It’s long been obvious that anyone who accepts the usage of he as a generic pronoun to refer to individuals of indistinct or unknown gender is a raging sexist,

Which is worse, thinking they often sounds like shit when used as a singular, or being considered a raging sexist? I will ponder that.

If someone wants to be referred to as "they", out of courtesy, I will attempt to do so, but it leaves me wishing there was a better non-gendered way of referring to a person.

[lisarea]

It's pretty normal to think the singular they sounds weird, because most of us have been taught not to use it.

And the gender neutral he has been shown to be confusing in natural speech, so while it also isn't wrong, there are plenty of good reasons not to use it. Even people who claim to use he as a strictly gender neutral pronoun tend to switch to she when they're talking about something traditionally associated with women. (Each person should decide which tampon is right for him, Will the person who left his purse in the ladies' room please report to the reception desk?)

But if you think that the singular they is wrong, you are wrong. It's perfectly correct and has been for a very long time, so it's probably worthwhile to try to unlearn that rule.

[SR71]

I have used they as a singular or plural neutral pronoun since as long as I can remember and it sounds and feels completely natural to me. Consequently, the controversy has always seemed like whuuuuhhh?

[The Man]

Apologies in advance for the incoming wall of text that probably won’t even be relevant to a lot of people here.

Originally Posted by erimir

I disagree with that. It is true that generic he is not truly generic and it perpetuates sexism (and sometimes heterosexism). But it is not the case that everyone who uses it or thinks it should be used is a raging sexist.

Opposition to gender-neutral language is correlated with sexism, but I imagine there's a connection between the age and gender of the person in question as well. It was too much work finding the source where I read this, but women were more likely to interpret generic he as approximately generic compared to men.

There was a time when I would have agreed that a person could insist on the usage of generic he and not be a raging sexist, but just a mere sexist. That time was, perhaps, the 1990s at the very latest. However, the study of the psychological effects of language on people’s thinking is advanced enough that I can no longer countenance giving such people the benefit of the doubt. It’s pretty well established by now just how much the language we use to express ourselves affects the way people think. Generic he is effectively excluding women from consideration as human beings. At best people who insist on its usage are inexcusably ignorant and at worst they are being outright malicious to over half of the human race.

I have a problem with he or she for the exact same reason, but thus far I would not go so far as to call anyone who uses it a raging transphobe yet. For starters, singular they contradicts the years and years of prescriptivist bullshit people had drilled into their heads in grade school, and I can’t expect everyone to have done research on every small linguistic debate in existence and figured out that prescriptivism is often completely wrong. Furthermore, many people still remain blissfully aware of the existence of non-binary people in the first place, so I can’t really accuse someone of being intentionally discriminatory against people they do not know exist. At most I will generally accuse these people of ignorance.

I do, however, still consider it problematic and for the exact same reasons I consider generic he problematic, just on a different scale.

The funny thing is that even the raging sexists and stickler prescriptivists will tend to use singular they in their casual speech.

This is true. I sometimes slip up and use he or she in casual speech as well, despite my own personal stake in the issue. The fact that I have no problem being referred to with male pronouns probably makes it more difficult for me to remember this sometimes.

"Just as"? I think excluding around half the population is more problematic than excluding a tiny minority, but ok.

Well, if you think that scale is important, then fair enough; I can see why a person would feel that way. However, to me the act of exclusion is one that doesn’t really get less problematic if less of the population is excluded. It’s still an act of exclusion, just as an act of genocide is an act of genocide if it kills ten members of a race or ten million. (I’m not saying exclusion is genocide, obviously).

To be fair, I would take a linguist as a stronger authority than those writers

Well, generally, I can accept this argument, just as I would generally accept a medical doctor as a higher authority than a nurse. However, if a medical doctor is arguing against incontrovertible scientific evidence on matters like, say, vaccines or germ theory, then I will probably disregard everything they have to say, on the subject of medicine or anything else. Similarly, if a linguist is arguing against centuries of established usage or the consensus of the linguistic profession, then they will have to provide a lot more evidence than their credentials. (Note: I am not accusing you of doing this).

I dunno about that. There is always an interaction between both speaker and listener and the speech community.

A non-binary individual is certainly free to ask for certain pronouns and in many cases, there will be no issue there. But they do not have unlimited authority, and part of the reason they are given such free rein at the moment is that we both 1) have gendered pronouns and 2) do not have a conventional singular definite/non-generic animate/human/sentient gender neutral pronoun.

Consider, for example, the case of Finnish, which does not have grammatical gender (the third-person pronoun is hän, and translates to he or she in English). The choice of third-person pronoun has no bearing on the gender of the person, the only third-person pronouns to choose between are the animate/sentient hän and the inanimate/non-sentient se. I doubt there is much discussion among queer activists there over the need for new pronouns.

At the same time, we can suppose that if you were to ask to be referred to (in the third-person) with the pronouns we/us, you would have little success, even among the genderqueer community. There are limits. Although, obviously, that is a more absurd example. Someone asking to be called we/us in the third-person would likely just be trolling. But I have seen at least one instance where someone claimed to prefer it. That request risks making those around you appear to be using dehumanizing language to a third-party observer, which I would say is a good reason to refer to that person with singular they or the like in spite of their stated preference.

I also think there is also a limit in that we cannot expect people to know and use many different sets of gender-neutral and non-binary pronouns. Any set after the first would be pretty redundant. If ze/zir somehow became common usage, I think that 1) most non-binary people would accept those pronouns without much resistance and 2) most other people would refuse to use alternative pronoun schemes once that one became established.

Note that I did say “in general”, not “always”. I can agree with most of this. I have not personally ever seen a case of anyone insisting on first-person pronouns be used to refer to them in the third person, and would probably assume they were trolling if I did. To be honest, it would also be my assumption that a person were trolling if they asked to be referred to using the dehumanising “it”, so I would probably have the same reaction you do.

However, in the absence of a generic non-binary third person singular pronoun, I will reiterate that in general, an individual is the highest authority on what pronouns are correct to refer to them, at least until such time as a consensus non-binary third-person singular pronoun is established. If they do something like the examples listed above, I think it’s safe to call Poe and just use they.

Anyway, to expand on what I mentioned above about singular they not being correct in all the contexts that gender activists are asking it to be used, there are more pronoun distinctions than merely person and number.

Singular they, in common usage, tends to refer to antecedents of the following types (Wikipedia has a similar list, some of my examples are paraphrased from it):

• Indefinite/quantifier/distributive/etc. pronouns: nobody, everybody, somebody, anybody, each, many, etc.
• The interrogative pronoun, who
• Indefinite nouns: "A teacher should know their students." Note that this can even apply when the noun is gendered: "No mother should be forced to testify against their child!"
• Nouns used generically, to refer to a class, even if expressed with a definite article: "If the child has dual citizenship, they may lose it upon..." or "You may ask yourself, "Is this person right? And they may be."
• Antecedents of mixed gender, probably used with or since otherwise it would be plural: "Let me know if your father or your mother changes their mind."

No argument so far, though to be honest, I can’t even say that I would ever thinking of asking anyone to use their in the mother example.

What is not currently common usage, however, is the use of singular they with an antecedent which is singular, definite and not generic.

It would be relatively unusual for someone to say "His* teacheri always brings theiri computer to class."

This looks wrong to me, but not because of the antecedent. It looks wrong to me because the pronoun is completely redundant. Why even specify who owns the computer? It’s obvious, and it violates the law of conservation of detail to even mention it. A person bringing a computer to class is generally assumed to own the computer. If it were someone else’s computer, that might be a relevant detail to mention, but the teacher’s ownership of the computer is completely unremarkable. For the most part, if I were an editor, I would probably ask a writer to cut the pronoun out of that sentence entirely.

I also find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which a person knows that another person’s teacher always brings a computer to class, but does not know the gender of the teacher. The former is a much more specific detail to know than the latter. However, I will accept that it is at least possible that such a scenario could arise.

Certainly, you would be unlikely to hear "Oh, that's my friend over there. They're wearing a red shirt."

The main reason you would be unlikely to hear this is because people are generally assumed to know their friends’ genders, I should imagine, and thus usage of a pronoun of ambiguous gender would generally be unnecessary. If a person used they in that context, I would in all probability assume it would be because the friend preferred usage of the pronoun they in reference to them, and would likely pick up the speaker’s usage of that pronoun even if the friend appeared to present as male or female, at least until instructed to stop doing so.

I also feel like bringing collective nouns into the mix, although I’m not certain I’ll be able to coherently elucidate why I think they’re relevant. Take the word group. In American English, standard usage is to refer to this as a singular noun. In Commonwealth English, standard usage is to refer to this as a plural noun if it is referring to the group as individuals and as a singular noun if it is referring to the team as an ensemble. In practice, I’ve noticed that people on both sides of the pond often alternate between referring to such words as plural and as singular, without much apparent rhyme or reason. While I’m sure most people here have probably noticed that I generally use Commonwealth spelling and grammar, I’m guilty of doing this myself. Sometimes it looks wrong to refer to collective nouns as plural, even when they’re referencing the individual members of the collective.

To compound the matter further, sports teams are usually referred to as plural nouns in American usage, even if the name of the team is singular. This means that there are cases in Commonwealth usage where a person would refer some nouns as singular that would nearly always be treated as plural in American usage, while there are cases in Commonwealth usage where a person would refer to some nouns as plural that would nearly always be treated as singular in American usage. I think. I feel like I’ve made myself slightly confused now.

As another example, the term the United States is almost always used as a singular noun in modern American usage. This was not always the case, however; earlier in the country’s history, it was more standard to treat the country’s name as a plural.

Anyway, this may seem an irrelevant tangent, but my point is that to a certain extent plurality can be quite subjective, varies between dialects, and, like many other aspects of our language, has often evolved with time, so I have absolutely no problem with saying that even if something does contradict established usage, it is worth overturning those rules if there is a valid reason for doing so, and I hope that in this case I have clearly established that there is.

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Which is worse, thinking they often sounds like shit when used as a singular, or being considered a raging sexist? I will ponder that.

I’m not sure if I made this clear; I accused people who insist on singular he of being sexist, not people who have issues with singular they. I think the latter are disregarding centuries of common usage and the feelings of a rather large number of non-binary people, but many of them are probably not aware of either. The former, on the other hand, may have been acceptable at one time, but is inexcusable in this day and age, for reasons I elucidated above.

If someone wants to be referred to as "they", out of courtesy, I will attempt to do so, but it leaves me wishing there was a better non-gendered way of referring to a person.

Unfortunately, there is not. The constructed pronouns that have been proposed all look to me like linguistic eyesores. (For example, xe? There is no conceivable way I would ever ask anyone to refer to me using such a pronoun, regardless of what my gender identity was). If someone were to invent a pronoun that actually made linguistic and historical sense, I could perhaps be persuaded to settle on it. Perhaps one can be imported from another language, if its linguistic roots are close enough to those of English, or perhaps a more imaginative person than I am can invent one that looks reasonable to most English speakers. However, it would honestly take a lot of effort for someone to invent one that looks better to me than singular they does, due to its long history of established usage in English.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by The Man

(snip)
More importantly, this is beside the point. Singular they has in fact been correct usage in the contexts I have discussed dating back to the fourteenth century. It appears in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, W. H. Auden, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, Walt Whitman, Lewis Carroll, Sir Walter Scott, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lord Dunsany, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, the translators of the King James Bible (and quite a few other widely used translations), and a host of other authors.
(snip)

I thanked this post because it mentioned Lord Dunsany, one of my favorite authors of fantasy fiction.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by The Man

There was a time when I would have agreed that a person could insist on the usage of generic he and not be a raging sexist, but just a mere sexist. That time was, perhaps, the 1990s at the very latest. However, the study of the psychological effects of language on people’s thinking is advanced enough that I can no longer countenance giving such people the benefit of the doubt. It’s pretty well established by now just how much the language we use to express ourselves affects the way people think. Generic he is effectively excluding women from consideration as human beings. At best people who insist on its usage are inexcusably ignorant and at worst they are being outright malicious to over half of the human race.

I think many of them are simply ignorant. I can tell you as a linguist that most people have simply not given much thought to many linguistic issues, and public education on these and other linguistic issues is not very good.

There are linguists working on such issues. For example, the head of the department where I got my MA in linguistics works on developing dialect awareness curricula for middle school students and getting it into schools. One of the main goals is for students to understand that non-standard dialects have their own rules and are not inferior to the standard dialect, merely different. But most people don't really hear anything to counter the idea that the way "rednecks" or black people talk reflects stupidity.

That said, I haven't been in (a normal) high school for 15 years. Maybe they're better now than they were then. Still, most adults are my age or older, and I had to take linguistics and women's studies courses before these things were really addressed much.

Well, if you think that scale is important, then fair enough; I can see why a person would feel that way. However, to me the act of exclusion is one that doesn’t really get less problematic if less of the population is excluded. It’s still an act of exclusion, just as an act of genocide is an act of genocide if it kills ten members of a race or ten million. (I’m not saying exclusion is genocide, obviously).

Well, there are all sorts of conditions or peculiarities that only a small minority of people will have. People won't always be included. If you find a guide on how to tie a necktie, it's almost certainly going to assume that you have two hands. But not every person has two hands, of course. I certainly wouldn't compare that to genocide*.

You can't account for every single permutation possible in your audience at all times. But obviously if you know someone is non-binary, use appropriate pronouns. But I don't see the use of he or she for a general audience as being as high stakes as you do. And anyhow, this is a situation that is likely to resolve itself, as singular they seems to be becoming more accepted at an accelerating rate, making its way into official style guides and government publications and such.

*I know you gave a disclaimer, but still... we're talking about pronoun usage.

To be honest, it would also be my assumption that a person were trolling if they asked to be referred to using the dehumanising “it”, so I would probably have the same reaction you do.

Well, I heard of this from reading Dan Savage's blog. He had been part of an event at the University of Chicago and was discussing why he no longer casually used the word "tranny", and as part of discussing the word "tranny" he was saying it. In other words, mentioning it but not using it. A student who was highly offended by this, claimed to prefer the pronoun it, as reported by one of the student newspapers there. That's not particularly important, of course, as this is the only instance I've heard of of someone wanting to be called it.

I can’t even say that I would ever thinking of asking anyone to use their in the mother example.

I wasn't saying anyone should do that (nor that you were saying they should), I'm saying that people do do that. People will sometimes use singular they with a gendered antecedent, if it is a generic or indefinite antecedent.

The example "No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify against their child." was said by the attorney of Monica Lewinsky's mother, allegedly.

Another example from Language Log:

"I challenge you to find a lesbian who doesn't want to see themselves portrayed on television."

(This can also occur with male gendered nouns.)

This looks wrong to me, but not because of the antecedent. It looks wrong to me because the pronoun is completely redundant.

We're talking about grammaticality here, not what you would say in edited text.

In with the scenario where you know the gender of the teacher, I think it sounds much better by contrast:

His teacheri always brings heri laptop to class.

If it helps, you could change it to:

His teacheri always brings theiri own laptop to class.

The addition of "own" should make that better, I think. In that case, there is an implied contrast to the teacher using, say, a school-provided computer instead.

Why even specify who owns the computer? It’s obvious, and it violates the law of conservation of detail to even mention it. A person bringing a computer to class is generally assumed to own the computer. If it were someone else’s computer, that might be a relevant detail to mention, but the teacher’s ownership of the computer is completely unremarkable. For the most part, if I were an editor, I would probably ask a writer to cut the pronoun out of that sentence entirely.

I don't really see what that would improve, aside from avoiding the issue of singular they. I guess it saves you a few letters, but it does not really make it much shorter.

If I said "I always bring a laptop" it is an open question whether it is always the same laptop, or if it suffices to bring any laptop. If I said "I always bring my laptop" you would assume that I was referring to a specific laptop - that I always brought the same laptop. I could also say "I always bring one of my laptops" to mean I bring a laptop, and it is always one that belongs to me, but not necessarily the same one. And, of course, "a laptop" could be one owned by me, owned by my employer or a friend or the like. It is, actually, a distinction with a difference.

To get very specifically on this possessive construction and drop the singular they aspect... Suppose we were talking about a class, and one of our classmates.

John always brings his book to class.

I would not say that the possessive pronoun is providing unnecessary detail there. "A book" would be more likely to be interpreted as just any book, like say a book he was reading for pleasure. Whereas "his book" would usually be taken to mean the textbook (or whatever book is currently assigned). It could potentially be a book that he has been reading, as that would also mean it was always the same book. But I don't see how replacing his with a would improve anything. You could say that maybe "the book" works just as well. But what's the point? It doesn't save any space or cognitive resources to use the instead of his or make it flow any better.

I guess part of the issue here is that, as I mentioned, possessive determiners are definite, not merely possessive, which is at root in the distinctions here with the "his book" example. "His book" refers to a specific book, while "a book" does not. The same is true of "their computer" vs. "a computer".

At any rate, that type of "unnecessary detail" is very common in speech. A lot of edited text with space requirements will cut out such redundancies, but some amount of unnecessary detail or redundancy is common, acceptable and often desirable in speech.

Anyway, this may seem an irrelevant tangent, but my point is that to a certain extent plurality can be quite subjective, varies between dialects, and, like many other aspects of our language, has often evolved with time

I have no problem with these statements, of course.

so I have absolutely no problem with saying that even if something does contradict established usage, it is worth overturning those rules if there is a valid reason for doing so, and I hope that in this case I have clearly established that there is.

Right, I was merely disputing the idea that singular they for definite, non-generic antecedents was already common usage.

For me, singular they sounds most natural with an indefinite or mixed gender ("mom or dad") antecedent, slightly worse with a definite, generic antecedent, and not very good with a definite, non-generic antecedent.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to these changes. And it does seem to be expanding into the latter categories.

But you brought up the historical examples in literature and such... and those mostly occur with indefinite antecedents.

I’m not sure if I made this clear; I accused people who insist on singular he of being sexist, not people who have issues with singular they.

Oh. Well, what I said above still pretty much applies.

The constructed pronouns that have been proposed all look to me like linguistic eyesores. (For example, xe? There is no conceivable way I would ever ask anyone to refer to me using such a pronoun, regardless of what my gender identity was). If someone were to invent a pronoun that actually made linguistic and historical sense, I could perhaps be persuaded to settle on it. Perhaps one can be imported from another language, if its linguistic roots are close enough to those of English, or perhaps a more imaginative person than I am can invent one that looks reasonable to most English speakers. However, it would honestly take a lot of effort for someone to invent one that looks better to me than singular they does, due to its long history of established usage in English.

Coincidentally, that Finnish pronoun I mentioned has been sort of adopted by some Swedish activists as hen/hen/hens and seems to be making some headway in being adopted.

The Swedish versions of he/him/his and she/her/her are han/honom/hans and hon/henne/hennes, so hen has the advantage of being about equally similar to both.

[Ari]

Whatever people's complaints are (In many cases, I'll just replace they with people, folks, human, squishy meatbags of mostly water, germ factory, asshole, etc.) as someone who deals with this in real life more than the average asshole I can say I'm so glad they are starting to take on They in comparison to other third gender pronouns like Zi/Ze/hir/zir as I have such a mental twitch over the spelling, look and prenouncing of those. I'm not against a third pronoun, just please not that one!

[The Man]

Originally Posted by erimir

I think many of them are simply ignorant. I can tell you as a linguist that most people have simply not given much thought to many linguistic issues, and public education on these and other linguistic issues is not very good.

Ignorance does not excuse a person from being sexist. It just means they are being unintentionally sexist, rather than intentionally so. If you think that makes a person just a sexist rather than a raging sexist, fair enough, but I’m not willing to extend that much courtesy. This is 2016. Anyone who hasn’t thought about the matter that carefully has to be intentionally attempting to shield themselves from careful self-examination – in other words, I consider them not just ignorant but wilfully ignorant.

There are linguists working on such issues. For example, the head of the department where I got my MA in linguistics works on developing dialect awareness curricula for middle school students and getting it into schools. One of the main goals is for students to understand that non-standard dialects have their own rules and are not inferior to the standard dialect, merely different. But most people don't really hear anything to counter the idea that the way "rednecks" or black people talk reflects stupidity.

It would be wonderful to see such curricula get adopted nationwide. Unfortunately, I don’t see much hope for such a thing being done with our current Congress.

Well, there are all sorts of conditions or peculiarities that only a small minority of people will have. People won't always be included. If you find a guide on how to tie a necktie, it's almost certainly going to assume that you have two hands. But not every person has two hands, of course. I certainly wouldn't compare that to genocide*.

Well, true, but in this case the processes are literally entirely different, so writing a guide for how to tie a tie with one hand (or none) would be describing an entirely different process. It’s not exactly an appropriate comparison to singular they, which is a simple word replacement for he or she. At worst you’ll also have to change some verb conjugations, but there are orders of magnitude of difference in difficulty here.

You can't account for every single permutation possible in your audience at all times. But obviously if you know someone is non-binary, use appropriate pronouns. But I don't see the use of he or she for a general audience as being as high stakes as you do.

I’m not saying it’s the most pressing issue in the world, but I am saying that any style guide that argues against it is wholly, unambiguously wrong, and directly contributing to the exclusion of non-binary people.

And anyhow, this is a situation that is likely to resolve itself, as singular they seems to be becoming more accepted at an accelerating rate, making its way into official style guides and government publications and such.

On the whole, I agree that it is resolving itself, but if people just start ignoring the issue, it might not keep getting better. It is worth noting that while the overall trend is to accept singular they more often, there have been outliers. As I mentioned above, the Chicago Manual of Style actually changed its position in the wrong direction.

*I know you gave a disclaimer, but still... we're talking about pronoun usage.

I was too lazy to think of a less extreme example, because my post was already a wall of text. Sue me. If you prefer, I don’t think stealing $300 is any less an act of theft than stealing $300,000 is. One definition of the word problematic is contributing (usually implicitly or subtly) to systemic discrimination (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia), which both generic he and he and she unambiguously do.

Well, I heard of this from reading Dan Savage's blog. He had been part of an event at the University of Chicago and was discussing why he no longer casually used the word "tranny", and as part of discussing the word "tranny" he was saying it. In other words, mentioning it but not using it. A student who was highly offended by this, claimed to prefer the pronoun it, as reported by one of the student newspapers there. That's not particularly important, of course, as this is the only instance I've heard of of someone wanting to be called it.

Are we sure that this isn’t a case of Poe’s Law?

I wasn't saying anyone should do that (nor that you were saying they should), I'm saying that people do do that. People will sometimes use singular they with a gendered antecedent, if it is a generic or indefinite antecedent.

The example "No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify against their child." was said by the attorney of Monica Lewinsky's mother, allegedly.

Another example from Language Log:

"I challenge you to find a lesbian who doesn't want to see themselves portrayed on television."

(This can also occur with male gendered nouns.)

Fair enough.

We're talking about grammaticality here, not what you would say in edited text.

Again, fair enough, but to be honest I probably still wouldn’t think to use a possessive there in everyday speech.

In with the scenario where you know the gender of the teacher, I think it sounds much better by contrast:

His teacheri always brings heri laptop to class.

If it helps, you could change it to:

His teacheri always brings theiri own laptop to class.

The addition of "own" should make that better, I think. In that case, there is an implied contrast to the teacher using, say, a school-provided computer instead.

I’m not entirely sure I follow your final sentence here. If they were using a school-provided computer, they wouldn’t be bringing a computer at all, so the construction of the sentence would be entirely different.

I don't really see what that would improve, aside from avoiding the issue of singular they. I guess it saves you a few letters, but it does not really make it much shorter.

If I said "I always bring a laptop" it is an open question whether it is always the same laptop, or if it suffices to bring any laptop. If I said "I always bring my laptop" you would assume that I was referring to a specific laptop - that I always brought the same laptop. I could also say "I always bring one of my laptops" to mean I bring a laptop, and it is always one that belongs to me, but not necessarily the same one. And, of course, "a laptop" could be one owned by me, owned by my employer or a friend or the like. It is, actually, a distinction with a difference.

To get very specifically on this possessive construction and drop the singular they aspect... Suppose we were talking about a class, and one of our classmates.

John always brings his book to class.

I would not say that the possessive pronoun is providing unnecessary detail there. "A book" would be more likely to be interpreted as just any book, like say a book he was reading for pleasure. Whereas "his book" would usually be taken to mean the textbook (or whatever book is currently assigned). It could potentially be a book that he has been reading, as that would also mean it was always the same book. But I don't see how replacing his with a would improve anything. You could say that maybe "the book" works just as well. But what's the point? It doesn't save any space or cognitive resources to use the instead of his or make it flow any better.

I guess part of the issue here is that, as I mentioned, possessive determiners are definite, not merely possessive, which is at root in the distinctions here with the "his book" example. "His book" refers to a specific book, while "a book" does not. The same is true of "their computer" vs. "a computer".

At any rate, that type of "unnecessary detail" is very common in speech. A lot of edited text with space requirements will cut out such redundancies, but some amount of unnecessary detail or redundancy is common, acceptable and often desirable in speech.

I can’t necessarily say that I interpret these sentences the same way you do. “I always bring a laptop” to me implies that the speaker always brings the same laptop, because, well, how many people actually own more than one? The percentage of the population that owns or has access to multiple laptops is very small, and so if they bring different laptops to class depending on the day, that would seem to me a relevant detail to mention. With the “book” example, I can see your point. But to be honest, unless a person specified that they bring more than one laptop to class depending on circumstances, I would assume that it was always the same one.

I also would generally assume the laptop in said sentence belonged to the speaker unless otherwise specified, because non-ownership of the laptop would again seem to be a relevant detail to mention. Not many people would be willing to lend a laptop to another person on a regular basis (unless they were a nuclear family member or spouse, perhaps).

(Edit: After thinking about it a bit, the “his book” construction seems off to me too. Most people, I would assume, own way more than one book, and the construction makes it sound like he only owns one. If he owned more than one and always brought a specific book, the possessive form would only parse correctly for me in such a sentence if you specified which book. That said, if you say “his textbook” that would parse without any problems, because it presumably means the specific textbook for that class and presumably the class has only one assigned textbook. But “his book” sounds bad. “The same book” I could live with; “his copy of Principia Discordia” I could also live with. I realise that in everyday speech “his book” would be a perfectly unremarkable construction, but as an editor I very well might want it changed).

I have no problem with these statements, of course.

Right, I was merely disputing the idea that singular they for definite, non-generic antecedents was already common usage.

Fair enough, though anecdotally, I’ve heard singular they used that way fairly often. Not, perhaps, more often than in the other circumstances you specified above, but often enough that I wouldn’t call it wrong.

For me, singular they sounds most natural with an indefinite or mixed gender ("mom or dad") antecedent, slightly worse with a definite, generic antecedent, and not very good with a definite, non-generic antecedent.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to these changes. And it does seem to be expanding into the latter categories.

But you brought up the historical examples in literature and such... and those mostly occur with indefinite antecedents.

Mostly, but not exclusively. For example, Samuel Richardson, in Virtue, or Pamela Rewarded, wrote, “Little did I think… to make a… complaint against a Person very dear to you,… but dont let them be so proud… as to make them not care how they affront everybody else”. Person, in this case, is a very clear definite antecedent as it is clearly referring to a specific person, and yet Richardson still used the singular they. I could surely find more examples, but it’s almost 3am.

It may have been rarer than usage with indefinite antecedents, is my point, but it was far from completely unheard of.

Coincidentally, that Finnish pronoun I mentioned has been sort of adopted by some Swedish activists as hen/hen/hens and seems to be making some headway in being adopted.

The Swedish versions of he/him/his and she/her/her are han/honom/hans and hon/henne/hennes, so hen has the advantage of being about equally similar to both.

That’s pretty cool. I kind of wish we had something like that here, but I don’t see a way to come up with a pronoun halfway between he and she.

Incidentally, singular they as a gender-neutral pronoun (more specifically, being used to refer to non-binary individuals) was declared the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year last year, and the vote wasn’t even close, so maybe it’s closer to being universally accepted than I thought.

[Ari]

This makes me think we should have a thread on linguistics.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by erimir

eye-straining wall of text

Originally Posted by The Man

eye-straining wall of text

Linguistics is the continuation of gender politics by other means. - Carly von Clauswitz.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by erimir

Consider, for example, the case of Finnish, which does not have grammatical gender (the third-person pronoun is hän, and translates to he or she in English). The choice of third-person pronoun has no bearing on the gender of the person, the only third-person pronouns to choose between are the animate/sentient hän and the inanimate/non-sentient se. I doubt there is much discussion among queer activists there over the need for new pronouns.

This fact alone is sufficient to support my belief that Finnish should be the de facto world language.

I mean, no one will have any issues learning all the inflections, right?


nominatiivi hän
genetiivi hänen
partitiivi häntä
akkusatiivi hänet
inessiivi hänessä
elatiivi hänestä
illatiivi häneen
adessiivi hänellä
ablatiivi häneltä
allatiivi hänelle
essiivi hänenä
translatiivi häneksi
abessiivi (hänettä)
instruktiivi –
komitatiivi –

[Ymir's blood]

Dunsany and Poe?

I would prefer if Poe's Law was that, 'any tomb sealed in the story will be reopened in the story.'

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

Dunsany and Poe?

I would prefer if Poe's Law was that, 'any tomb sealed in the story will be reopened in the story.'

omg ... did Poe write the original version of the Christian gospel?

[Crumb]

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by JoeP

omg ... did Poe write the original version of the Christian gospel?

Yes but the Marys were looking for their black cat with one blue eye.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by The Man

I can’t necessarily say that I interpret these sentences the same way you do.

That much seems obvious.

“I always bring a laptop” to me implies that the speaker always brings the same laptop, because, well, how many people actually own more than one?

Well, I'm just trying to demonstrate a grammatical idea and you're getting hung up on details of the semantics. It's not about laptops, so substitute some other noun or some other verb or a different possessor, it doesn't matter!

After thinking about it a bit, the “his book” construction seems off to me too. Most people, I would assume, own way more than one book, and the construction makes it sound like he only owns one.

And yet "a book" makes it sound like it could be a different book each time.

It does not sound at all off to me, and that particular construction sounds perfectly natural to me.

I probably would never say "I always have a wallet on me when I go out!" or "I always have a cell phone on me when I go out!"

In those instances, I would only ever say "I always have my wallet/cell phone on me!" and I would find it strange if someone said it another way. That fits with the implication that you only have one... but that was the case with the laptop, and you still didn't like it. "I always have my laptop with me!" sounds fine to me as well.

I also always say I "brush my teeth", I don't "brush teeth" or "brush the teeth" in spite of the fact that it can be assumed that, absent specification, I would be brushing my own teeth and not someone else's or teeth removed from a mouth or something.

It happens that in some languages, you don't use a possessive in that instance. In Swedish, you say "I'm brushing the teeth" and it is understood that they are your teeth. Language classes (such as my Swedish course) will sometimes advise English speakers not to make excessive use of possessives, even though you apparently think this is an unusual thing to do?

Honestly, I find it strange that you find this use of possessives strange. I think this may be an idiosyncratic rule for you.

Mostly, but not exclusively. For example, Samuel Richardson, in Virtue, or Pamela Rewarded, wrote, “Little did I think… to make a… complaint against a Person very dear to you,… but dont let them be so proud… as to make them not care how they affront everybody else”. Person, in this case, is a very clear definite antecedent as it is clearly referring to a specific person, and yet Richardson still used the singular they.

I'm using definite in the grammatical/linguistic sense. Whether you can work out who someone is referring to specifically does not make it definite.

A is the indefinite article, and hence the phrase "a person" is indefinite.

If I say "SOMEbody left their laundry on the floor!" it might be very clear who I'm talking about. Nonetheless, somebody remains an indefinite pronoun.

[Ari]

Not to interrupt our cunting lickquists (hmm... maybe that wasn't the right play on words).
A good article on how to defend a rapist (so they can continue to promote their woo parties of woo consent).
10 Lines You Can Use to Defend Rape Culture — Medium

(Woo consent: Oow your energy/chakra/insert stolen term here said yes even while you verbally said no, and I'll just play it off as an accident, and not half the reason this seminar/party/retreat/insert stolen term here was created in the first place.)

[SR71]

Originally Posted by JoeP

This fact alone is sufficient to support my belief that Finnish should be the de facto world language.

I mean, no one will have any issues learning all the inflections, right?


nominatiivi hän
genetiivi hänen
partitiivi häntä
akkusatiivi hänet
inessiivi hänessä
elatiivi hänestä
illatiivi häneen
adessiivi hänellä
ablatiivi häneltä
allatiivi hänelle
essiivi hänenä
translatiivi häneksi
abessiivi (hänettä)
instruktiivi –
komitatiivi –

Perkele.

[JoeP]

sijamuoto - yksikkö - monikko
(case - singular - plural)
nominatiivi - perkele - perkeleet
genetiivi - perkeleen - perkeleiden; perkeleitten
partitiivi - perkelettä - perkeleitä
akkusatiivi - perkele; perkeleen - perkeleet
Sisäpaikallissijat
inessiivi - perkeleessä - perkeleissä
elatiivi - perkeleestä - perkeleistä
illatiivi - perkeleeseen - perkeleisiin
Ulkopaikallissijat
adessiivi - perkeleellä - perkeleillä
ablatiivi - perkeleeltä - perkeleiltä
allatiivi - perkeleelle - perkeleille
Muut
essiivi - perkeleenä - perkeleinä
translatiivi - perkeleeksi - perkeleiksi
abessiivi - perkeleettä - perkeleittä