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As a non-native English speaker, I still find it difficult to read texts where a singular person is referred to by a plural pronoun. Every "they" becomes ambigu
by bad_username 3y ago
As a non-native English speaker, I still find it difficult to read texts where a singular person is referred to by a plural pronoun. Every "they" becomes ambiguous and requires more mental cycles to unpack. Is it about Morgan, or some unrelated group of people, or Morgan plus the group?
I understand the cultural reasons, but I regret the loss of linguistic clarity.
- p_l 3y agoI'd blame modern teaching material, because "they" is both singular and plural pronoun - just somewhat recently avoided in style guides.
- smeagull 3y agoloss? It's been English usage since Chaucer. The "rule" that it shouldn't be singular came from the same people that changed English spellings because they wanted to show off their knowledge of Latin and Greek. All those difficult words that are irregular and don't make sense? Those people.
- namaria 3y ago> As a non-native English speaker, > I understand the cultural reasons, but I regret the loss of linguistic clarity. Have you thought about the fact that you're using ignorance of English to complain about a very specific anglophone piece of politics?
- bestest 3y agoI just think this is written by an AI. It just feels off somehow, yet I can't pinpoint it exactly.
- kefabean 3y agoI agree, the ‘punchline’ is also an anti-climax and doesn’t seem to offer anything novel.
- Makhini 3y agoAnd rightly so, because noone writes prose like that. It sounds unnatural.
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoIt's not the pronoun confusion about whether it's a devops team or an individual doing the various actions, it's the writing itself that's jarring, rambling and slightly disjointed.
- _shadi 3y agonon native speaker too, I was taught that "they" is the more formal/neutral pronoun to use, or preferred in passive case, isn't that the case here?
- eadmund 3y agoNo, ‘they’ is never correctly used for a known single human being. In some styles of English it is acceptable for an unknown human being, for example ‘if someone enters here, ask them what they are doing.’
- mrsuprawsm 3y agoThe cultural reasons are not relevant, this is simply normal English being used naturally as it has been for centuries. For example, consider the following. "I saw someone get hit by a bus this morning." "Oh, were they okay afterwards?". "They" is clearly a singular pronoun here.
- Archelaos 3y agoThe Wikipedia article on "Singular they" provides some background (the matter is more complex than the short remarks of others here suggest -- and quite interesting): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they