4 ms·
Yes, it's just ambiguous. Also, the post fails to understand the honorific form: honorific it is used only when you're talking to a person directly: "are they
by tacone 11y ago
Yes, it's just ambiguous. Also, the post fails to understand the honorific form: honorific it is used only when you're talking to a person directly:
"are they going to leave the house?" is correct only when you're asking it to the subject itself. Otherwise you would just use he/she or a title name (queen, king, lord etc)
If you're looking to replace he/she you should not use an honorific form. You should either use "it", or invent a fourth third person (es, ish, woot, you name it).
Still the problem stays: political correctness traded for ambiguity.
- arcb 11y agoYou're definitely on to something. Sweden's working on a neutral pronoun. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01/sweden-is-about-to-add-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-to-its-official-dictionary/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01... To respond to the point on recognizing when to use honorifics - various languages around the world conjugate singular third person honorifics to a plural verb, and that's what I was referring to. I wrote the article and will happily claim it's flawed - it tries to take on an old, deep problem with not too many clear outs. It also tries to focus on a specific problem many institutions around the world have with unnecessary bias invoking writing styles. It tries to provide options that can be used practically, while understanding trade-offs.
- arcb 11y agoAdditionally, this article does a good job of articulating the case for using 'they': http://www.copyediting.com/epicene-they-gaining-greater-acceptance http://www.copyediting.com/epicene-they-gaining-greater-acce...
- arcb 11y agoYou're definitely on to something. Sweden's working on a neutral pronoun. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01/sweden-is-about-to-add-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-to-its-official-dictionary/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01... To respond to the point on recognizing when to use honorifics - various languages around the world conjugate singular third person honorifics to a plural verb, and that's what I was referring to. I wrote the article and will happily claim it's flawed - it tries to take on an old, deep problem with not too many clear outs. It also tries to focus on a specific problem many institutions around the world have with unnecessary bias invoking writing styles. It tries to provide options that can be used practically, while understanding trade-offs.
- Nadya 11y agoAmbiguity is a problem in communication and is solved by using a singular pronoun. "They" being a plural pronoun provides ambiguity that is not always easily discerned by context, as the author claims. >Where they could refer to a single person or many people. The listener would resolve based on context. The listener would have trouble with my example and be unable to resolve based on context.
- tacone 11y agoYes I do agree with you. My previous comment was probably ambiguous as well.