4 ms·
No more confusing that any other words that have two meanings. When you hammer a nail, you certainly don't want to hit your fingers. But if you miss the nail wi
by freehunter 7y ago
No more confusing that any other words that have two meanings. When you hammer a nail, you certainly don't want to hit your fingers. But if you miss the nail with the hammer, you might hit your nail, which would be painful. And you have to be really careful asking someone if they want a date. If you mean the fruit of a palm tree but they think you want to start a romantic relationship, things might get tricky.
And certainly less confusing than words that are spelled the same but have wildly different meanings depending on pronunciation (read, past tense meaning to have finished reading a section of text, or read, future/present tense meaning has not finished reading a section of text).
- throws_gender 7y agoI guess it's better if I give a concrete example of a conversation I recently observed. Bob is gender neutral. Uses the 'they' pronoun. In a conversation with people, instead of saying "Bob helped me out with this problem", someone says "They helped me out with this problem", referring to Bob, and no one, including Bob, has any idea who they are referring to.
- freehunter 7y agoEvery language has confusing pieces like this, which is why context is important. Your example could certainly be confusing, but if even Bob doesn't know who you're referring to, there would likely be confusion in "he helped me out with this problem". It would likely make more sense to say "I talked to Bob. They helped me out with this problem." Pronouns in any form will make a conversation more confusing if there's no context. If you want to be absolutely clear in your communications, you'd get rid of all pronouns completely. "I talked with Bob. Bob helped me out with this problem. I want to thank Bob for Bob's help. Bob can we talk after this meeting?"
- solidsnack9000 7y agoWith a definite person it is pretty unusual, yeah.