5 ms·
> The construct has been used incorrectly for many years, to the point that most people hear it and don't shudder over it anymore even though it's incorrect. Y
by saosebastiao 8y ago
> The construct has been used incorrectly for many years, to the point that most people hear it and don't shudder over it anymore even though it's incorrect.
You're contradicting yourself. If most people don't shudder over it, and people understand what is being communicated when it is used, then it is correct. Any opinion stating that it is incorrect would have to rely on authoritative sources, which do not exist in the English language.
- jki275 8y agoNo, I'm not. Just the fact that some group of people regularly uses language incorrectly does not change my opinion of it, nor does it change how I use it. I simply recognize that those people use it incorrectly. That doesn't make it correct.
- saosebastiao 8y agoYour opinion is not a language authority. It's fine that you believe it to be incorrect but you are no more authorized in dictating correctness than someone who disagrees with you.
- jki275 8y agoIt's not me dictating anything. It's simply fact.
- saosebastiao 8y agoAccording to the non-existent authority of the English language?
- jki275 8y agoAccording to common usage among the 1.5 billion people who speak English. You fall into the trap of confusing your tiny enclave of English speaking cliques as being representative of the rest of the planet where English is spoken regularly.
- saosebastiao 8y agoPlease provide proof of this claim. I find it hard to believe, seeing how singular they has been in common use since the 14th century.
- jki275 8y agoYou could argue that it's been in debated use, but not common use. Otherwise there wouldn't be a debate...
- saosebastiao 8y agohttps://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... > Former Chief Editor of the OED Robert Burchfield, in The New Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1996), dismisses objections to singular they as unsupported by the historical record. Burchfield observes that the construction is ‘passing unnoticed’ by speakers of standard English as well as by copy editors, and he concludes that this trend is ‘irreversible’. People who want to be inclusive, or respectful of other people’s preferences, use singular they. And people who don’t want to be inclusive, or who don’t respect other people’s pronoun choices, use singular they as well. Even people who object to singular they as a grammatical error use it themselves when they’re not looking, a sure sign that anyone who objects to singular they is, if not a fool or an idiot, at least hopelessly out of date. Just for the record, it's not me calling you a fool or an idiot or hopelessly out of date, it's the former Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. The only debate here is the politically charged one with fake grammar authority that you have made up in your head.
- jki275 8y agoThat entire article is a left wing puff piece, not an editorial on language.
- saosebastiao 8y agoSingular they was in common use long before Left or Right has been to describe political factions. It is the right wing that politicized it, not the left.