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> I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... they understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day they assert they were 'forced out' ...

by dctoedt 12y ago

> I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... they understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day they assert they were 'forced out' .... Off-topic rant: For the love of God, will everyone please STOP with the use of they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. History shows us a better way: Decades ago, feminists coined the term Ms., which has all but totally replaced the old-fashioned Miss and Mrs. Those concerned with gender neutrality should do likewise, instead of inflicting ambiguity and inaccuracy on the rest of us by (mis)using they. </rant>

ChuckMcM 12y ago
I understand your rant, and I've been around for a while, I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. Since that time, I've paid more attention to whether or not I can share an example at all given how easily the Internet allows one to deduce such things. Not surprisingly, the Internet doesn't like obviously fictionalized examples either so it limits my sharing to things about me and things which I can make reasonably opaque.
- dctoedt 12y ago
  > I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. That's certainly a valid concern. Another approach would be simply to keep repeating "the person" instead of they, as in: I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... the person understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day the person claims to have been 'forced out' .... That's a bit jarring, granted, but at least it doesn't promote linguistic abomination <g>. On a related note, I was recently at a church service where the prayers had been changed to eliminate any pronoun for God. EXAMPLE adapted from Psalm 103: Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless God's [vice His] holy name.
dreamfactory2 12y ago
no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and_prescriptive_guidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and...
- dctoedt 12y ago
  > no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries But disapproved by most style guides, school English teachers, etc., because it's inaccurate.
  - eru 12y ago
    If it's good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me.
    - dctoedt 12y ago
      > If it's good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me. Imagine that your doctor wanted to bleed you to cure an infection, on grounds that bloodletting was accepted medical practice in Jane Austen's day. [1] (This is also a reply to Thomas's up-thread shoot-at-the-king comment, which has no Reply link for me.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting
      - eru 12y ago
        My argument was, of course, rather flippant. To put flesh on the skeleton, but remove the wit of brevity: I cite Jane Austen here not so much because her English was seen as exemplary in her time, but because we widely hold her as a premier role model today.
  - dreamfactory2 12y ago
    > it's inaccurate Not according to Stephen Pinker, who I believe is considerably more authoritative than either of us when it comes to grammar and etymology.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Getting mad about singular 'they' is like getting mad about singular 'you'.
dang 12y ago
If it helps, the inaccuracy argument never really held water. 18th century grammarians (who wanted English to be more like Latin) argued that generic he was better because it agreed with its referent in number. But even if you accept that premise, all they did was trade an inconsistency in number for one in gender. That's certainly not a win and arguably a loss for accuracy. People may not have noticed that at the time, but we do now for obvious reasons, which is why singular they has made a comeback, not that it ever went away. It's just idiomatic English reasserting itself. Soon we'll forget it was controversial.
- dctoedt 12y ago
  > all they did was trade an inconsistency in number for one in gender. That's certainly not a win and arguably a loss for accuracy It's not progress to revert to a previously-fixed inaccuracy solely because of changing tastes. We wouldn't admire it in programming unless it were clearly necessary, or at least a useful kluge on balance. Here, it's neither. The better approach would be to coin another word, along the lines of Ms. vice Miss and Mrs., as I suggested above. Quoting Wikipedia: "For example, abbreviated pronouns have been proposed: 'e (for he or she) or 's (for his/hers); h' (for him/her in object case); "zhe" (also "ze"), "zher(s)" (also "zer" or "zir"), "shi"/"hir", and "zhim" (also "mer") for "he or she", "his or her(s)", and "him or her", respectively; 'self (for himself/herself); and hu, hus, hum, humself (for s/he, his/hers, him/her, himself/herself). [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns#Alternation_of_she_and_he http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neut...

by dctoedt 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I understand your rant, and I've been around for a while, I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. Since that time, I've paid more attention to whether or not I can share an example at all given how easily the Internet allows one to deduce such things. Not surprisingly, the Internet doesn't like obviously fictionalized examples either so it limits my sharing to things about me and things which I can make reasonably opaque.

dctoedt 12y ago
> I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. That's certainly a valid concern. Another approach would be simply to keep repeating "the person" instead of they, as in: I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... the person understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day the person claims to have been 'forced out' .... That's a bit jarring, granted, but at least it doesn't promote linguistic abomination <g>. On a related note, I was recently at a church service where the prayers had been changed to eliminate any pronoun for God. EXAMPLE adapted from Psalm 103: Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless God's [vice His] holy name.

dreamfactory2 12y ago

no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and_prescriptive_guidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and...

dctoedt 12y ago
> no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries But disapproved by most style guides, school English teachers, etc., because it's inaccurate.
- eru 12y ago
  If it's good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me.
  - dctoedt 12y ago
    > If it's good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me. Imagine that your doctor wanted to bleed you to cure an infection, on grounds that bloodletting was accepted medical practice in Jane Austen's day. [1] (This is also a reply to Thomas's up-thread shoot-at-the-king comment, which has no Reply link for me.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting
    - eru 12y ago
      My argument was, of course, rather flippant. To put flesh on the skeleton, but remove the wit of brevity: I cite Jane Austen here not so much because her English was seen as exemplary in her time, but because we widely hold her as a premier role model today.
- dreamfactory2 12y ago
  > it's inaccurate Not according to Stephen Pinker, who I believe is considerably more authoritative than either of us when it comes to grammar and etymology.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

Getting mad about singular 'they' is like getting mad about singular 'you'.

dang 12y ago

If it helps, the inaccuracy argument never really held water. 18th century grammarians (who wanted English to be more like Latin) argued that generic he was better because it agreed with its referent in number. But even if you accept that premise, all they did was trade an inconsistency in number for one in gender. That's certainly not a win and arguably a loss for accuracy. People may not have noticed that at the time, but we do now for obvious reasons, which is why singular they has made a comeback, not that it ever went away. It's just idiomatic English reasserting itself. Soon we'll forget it was controversial.

dctoedt 12y ago
> all they did was trade an inconsistency in number for one in gender. That's certainly not a win and arguably a loss for accuracy It's not progress to revert to a previously-fixed inaccuracy solely because of changing tastes. We wouldn't admire it in programming unless it were clearly necessary, or at least a useful kluge on balance. Here, it's neither. The better approach would be to coin another word, along the lines of Ms. vice Miss and Mrs., as I suggested above. Quoting Wikipedia: "For example, abbreviated pronouns have been proposed: 'e (for he or she) or 's (for his/hers); h' (for him/her in object case); "zhe" (also "ze"), "zher(s)" (also "zer" or "zir"), "shi"/"hir", and "zhim" (also "mer") for "he or she", "his or her(s)", and "him or her", respectively; 'self (for himself/herself); and hu, hus, hum, humself (for s/he, his/hers, him/her, himself/herself). [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns#Alternation_of_she_and_he http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neut...