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I realize this question is likely not to be appreciated by many, but do you not know whether your dog is male or female?

• amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  I must be stupid. Try as I might, I can’t figure out what prompted this question. What am I missing?
  • mhb 2y ago
    The use of the gender-neutral plural pronoun to refer to the dog instead of he/she/him/her. ...my dog is getting agitated because they're on leash...
    • amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      Ahhh. I’m so used to that construction I didn’t even see it. If you have had the same experience with multiple dogs of both genders, how would you put it?
      • mhb 2y ago
        I would use "he/him" because the convention of using he/him for singular, indeterminate gender is no more difficult to understand than that "they/them" is being used as singular, indeterminate. Ideally, I would like the people for whom this is important to use a new unambiguous word. Though this ship seems to have sailed despite there apparently being a number of possible candidates. That aside, the author of the post to which we are referring must know the sex of his dog so why be ambiguous?
        • amanaplanacanal 2y ago
          Language changes. Trying to make it stop is like trying to sweep back the tide. Could go back to old English I guess, or proto-germanic, or proto-indo-European. Or whatever came before that. And the singular usage of they/them has been going on since at least the 14th century.
          • mhb 2y ago
            I know the argument about its historical usage which isn't a great one if you're also going to argue that language changes. In any case, I'd prefer that it change for the better. An optimist might even hope that it is discussions such as this one which influence how it changes. Are you suggesting that we dispense with he/his/she/her in all cases? Like in this one to refer to a male or female dog?
            • amanaplanacanal 2y ago
              No, I’m not suggesting that. Languages are gonna do whatever they are gonna do.