4 ms·

That's not really true is it? There are alternatives like "they", which has been perfectly good usage for longer than people think. It's not like Spanish, where

That's not really true is it? There are alternatives like "they", which has been perfectly good usage for longer than people think. It's not like Spanish, where a group of people are "chicas" if they're all women, "chicos" if they're all men and "chicos" again if they're a mixture of men and women.

makomk 5y ago
The thing about singular they is that it only really became "perfectly good usage for longer than people think" within the last few years, well after the heyday of Usenet. I don't think it was even a major contender for the English language gender-neutral singular pronoun before then.
- chimeracoder 5y ago
  > The thing about singular they is that it only really became "perfectly good usage for longer than people think" within the last few years, well after the heyday of Usenet. The singular "they" has been prescribed in manuals of style since the 1700s[0], continuously through the 20th century. That certainly predates the heyday of Usenet. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender
- M2Ys4U 5y ago
  TIL Usenet was in use in the 14th century. What newsgroups did Chaucer post to?
  - herewulf 5y ago
    Are you trying to claim that Chaucer used "they" as a gender neutral singular pronoun? That is extremely dubious considering that half of the Middle English speakers were still using <he> as the third person plural pronoun[1] (descended from Old English <híe> and unrelated to the third person masculine pronoun). Chaucer himself alternates between native Old English and Anglo-Norse forms depending on grammatical case and/or whim[2]. [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he#Middle_English-they https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he#Middle_English-they [2]: https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/gr.html#personal%20pronouns https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/gr.html...
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  That isn't at all true. It was absolutely standard (British) English when I was growing up in the '80s.
  - wahern 5y ago
    Epicene they has been common all along. That's why curmudgeonly grammarians could never shut up about it--because it was so common. The recent innovation is the use of singular they in situations where gender would normally be assumed. For example, "Jane went to the restroom to comb their hair." Until recently that was jarring for most people--some more than others--even when they weren't invested in the culture wars.
Macha 5y ago
> In the 18th century, it was suggested as a gender-neutral pronoun, and was thereafter often prescribed in manuals of style and school textbooks until around the 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender (Wikipedia sources https://web.archive.org/web/20120530024829/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20120530024829/http://www.nytime...) Of course: > More recently, this use of he has become less accepted, and singular they is becoming the dominant form But linguistic change isn't a binary process, nobody flips a switch and everyone across the world updates their habits, so it takes time. While gender neutral he was not encouraged when I was in school, singular they was very much discouraged, with "he or she" being the taught solution for a single person of unknown gender. Of course, in today's world that also is going out of favour.
- Lammy 5y ago
  In the 18th century do you think most women went to school or ever had a job outside the home? Easy assumption to make that anyone reading a textbook was a "he" lol
jiofih 5y ago
It is in the Bible at least? There a million verses with “He who does not xxx… is“ that are intended to be gender neutral.
- gbear605 5y ago
  That depends on your translation - some translations will translate those to “They who do not”. Many of the ones who translate it as “he” are maintaining the Hebrew lack of gender neutrality, but that’s arbitrary. If the ancient Israelites spoke Finnish instead, the sentences would be gender neutral.
- jannes 5y ago
  The bible wasn’t written in English. What exactly is your point?

makomk 5y ago

The thing about singular they is that it only really became "perfectly good usage for longer than people think" within the last few years, well after the heyday of Usenet. I don't think it was even a major contender for the English language gender-neutral singular pronoun before then.

chimeracoder 5y ago
> The thing about singular they is that it only really became "perfectly good usage for longer than people think" within the last few years, well after the heyday of Usenet. The singular "they" has been prescribed in manuals of style since the 1700s[0], continuously through the 20th century. That certainly predates the heyday of Usenet. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender
M2Ys4U 5y ago
TIL Usenet was in use in the 14th century. What newsgroups did Chaucer post to?
- herewulf 5y ago
  Are you trying to claim that Chaucer used "they" as a gender neutral singular pronoun? That is extremely dubious considering that half of the Middle English speakers were still using <he> as the third person plural pronoun[1] (descended from Old English <híe> and unrelated to the third person masculine pronoun). Chaucer himself alternates between native Old English and Anglo-Norse forms depending on grammatical case and/or whim[2]. [1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he#Middle_English-they https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he#Middle_English-they [2]: https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/gr.html#personal%20pronouns https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/gr.html...
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
That isn't at all true. It was absolutely standard (British) English when I was growing up in the '80s.
- wahern 5y ago
  Epicene they has been common all along. That's why curmudgeonly grammarians could never shut up about it--because it was so common. The recent innovation is the use of singular they in situations where gender would normally be assumed. For example, "Jane went to the restroom to comb their hair." Until recently that was jarring for most people--some more than others--even when they weren't invested in the culture wars.

Macha 5y ago

> In the 18th century, it was suggested as a gender-neutral pronoun, and was thereafter often prescribed in manuals of style and school textbooks until around the 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_(pronoun)#Gender (Wikipedia sources https://web.archive.org/web/20120530024829/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20120530024829/http://www.nytime...) Of course: > More recently, this use of he has become less accepted, and singular they is becoming the dominant form But linguistic change isn't a binary process, nobody flips a switch and everyone across the world updates their habits, so it takes time. While gender neutral he was not encouraged when I was in school, singular they was very much discouraged, with "he or she" being the taught solution for a single person of unknown gender. Of course, in today's world that also is going out of favour.

Lammy 5y ago
In the 18th century do you think most women went to school or ever had a job outside the home? Easy assumption to make that anyone reading a textbook was a "he" lol

jiofih 5y ago

It is in the Bible at least? There a million verses with “He who does not xxx… is“ that are intended to be gender neutral.

gbear605 5y ago
That depends on your translation - some translations will translate those to “They who do not”. Many of the ones who translate it as “he” are maintaining the Hebrew lack of gender neutrality, but that’s arbitrary. If the ancient Israelites spoke Finnish instead, the sentences would be gender neutral.
jannes 5y ago
The bible wasn’t written in English. What exactly is your point?