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"Moreover, anyone who has sampled Chinese, or Persian, or Finnish, knows that a language can get along just fine with the same word for “he” and “she.”" Englis

"Moreover, anyone who has sampled Chinese, or Persian, or Finnish, knows that a language can get along just fine with the same word for “he” and “she.”" English (at least in en_GB) can coerce they into a gender neutral form of he or she. Sometimes it will need a bit of sentence re-arrangement and other tricks but will still be natural. I was chatting to my aunt and they said: "Ooh, you are awful." My dad looked at me and said "crack on". In the first sentence they is substituted directly for she and in the second sentence he is dropped entirely from: "and he said". I'm sure other languages have similar tricks. In this case I don't think it is even breaking the rules.

zapzupnz 8y ago
Depends on whose rules and to what extent those rules are being enforced. I think 'they' as a gender-neutral pronoun is widely accepted in speech and may have greater acceptance in writing than once it had thanks to modern conceptions about inclusiveness in language, especially by those who challenge/have challenged the notion of gender as a binary. For me, that use of 'they' shall remain incorrect in writing (by virtue of introducing ambiguity relating to number) except in reported speech and prose that intends to invoke a casual, perhaps intimate, feeling in the reader; but perfectly acceptable in speech itself. That makes it different to the other languages where gendered pronouns don't exist at all, or are so limited in actual use that they might as well not exist.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  "It is unclear which of the generals passed intelligence to the enemy, but their action had grave consequences for the war effort." How would you rewrite this sentence to be grammatically correct?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I think 'they' as a gender-neutral pronoun is widely accepted in speech and may have greater acceptance in writing than once it had Well, less than it had before the Victorian effort to forcibly re-engineer English in the image of Latin, but more than it had at the height of influence of that effort, whose influence is still waning. > For me, that use of 'they' shall remain incorrect in writing (by virtue of introducing ambiguity relating to number) The ambiguity of number ship pretty much sailed with “thou”.

zapzupnz 8y ago

Depends on whose rules and to what extent those rules are being enforced. I think 'they' as a gender-neutral pronoun is widely accepted in speech and may have greater acceptance in writing than once it had thanks to modern conceptions about inclusiveness in language, especially by those who challenge/have challenged the notion of gender as a binary. For me, that use of 'they' shall remain incorrect in writing (by virtue of introducing ambiguity relating to number) except in reported speech and prose that intends to invoke a casual, perhaps intimate, feeling in the reader; but perfectly acceptable in speech itself. That makes it different to the other languages where gendered pronouns don't exist at all, or are so limited in actual use that they might as well not exist.

leetcrew 8y ago
"It is unclear which of the generals passed intelligence to the enemy, but their action had grave consequences for the war effort." How would you rewrite this sentence to be grammatically correct?
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I think 'they' as a gender-neutral pronoun is widely accepted in speech and may have greater acceptance in writing than once it had Well, less than it had before the Victorian effort to forcibly re-engineer English in the image of Latin, but more than it had at the height of influence of that effort, whose influence is still waning. > For me, that use of 'they' shall remain incorrect in writing (by virtue of introducing ambiguity relating to number) The ambiguity of number ship pretty much sailed with “thou”.