So many pronoun problems among GRADUATE students that I had to blog about it. I hope it'll save me time later.
They is also generally accepted as a gender-neutral singular, and is generally the preferred pronoun of many gender non-binary people. I have actually been taking it upon myself in the last few months to substitute they wherever possible when a gendered pronoun occurs, because I would like to break down the usage of assumption of gender or placing a gender on someone that may be incorrect.
I can't argue with you. There's a lot to be said for eliminating the binary. "They" is definitely becoming a pronoun of choice when you do not know the preferred pronoun, if any, of the subject. "They" is often used like this: If a worker is absent, have them send a doctor's report. I have no problem with that... It's usually easier than saying "him/her." Or "Each student should put their essay in the dropbox." As for eliminating gender when it is a single genderized person -- you have a point. I'll give my students an option to use "they" as an effort to demolish the binary. I suspect they'll have no idea what I'm talking about. Thanks - I'll address this in a future blog.
I don't quite understand why "they" works as a singular pronoun. Doesn't it, by nature, imply multiple people? Is it just acceptable because it has become so pervasive?
Long ago "he" was the acceptable singular pronoun for all of humanity. Then culture moved faster than language. No one wanted to say mankind anymore. Man and womankind was too awkward. The word "humanity" didn't seem as objectionable since "human" seems to originate in "humus" meaning earth. It became too awkward to say "Everyone should bring his or her spousal unit to the ball." "They" and "their" became popular as a generic singular pronouns to be used when people of any gender are involved. They is gradually becoming accepted in certain cases in formal writing. Where it is still questionable is in the examples in my blog. If the subject of your sentence has been clearly identified as being an individual with a gender, by birth or by choice, it sounds awkward to say, "The man got their inflatable doll." If I understand what Meriadoc is saying, he or she seems to want to end all uses of genderized pronouns. I'm not quite there yet.
I see. I guess I still use "he/she" instead, because I feel like I ought to use a singular pronoun, but that does obviously indicate an obsolete binary. I understand that it's "becoming accepted in certain cases of formal writing," I suppose I'm just resistant because it seems like technically it should be incorrect. I see where the problem is though. We lack a truly appropriate pronoun.
There's also a plethora of recent gender Neuter pronouns ("het", "Ze") that, history aside, are no less valid than He and She. In daily life I tend to use first person Singular "they", because i'm not comfortable with feminine pronouns yet.
the first is accurate, but I'm already in grad school (going for another post grad diploma next year though)! :)
It's a good point you raise for the way our language currently is, though. It feels strange to me, however, that English is so dedicated to having gender pronouns in the first place when it doesn't gender things like French or Spanish does. It's out of place. I don't really see any problems arising if English speakers eliminated the use of them overall. There are so few situations where they're truly useful or clarifiying.
I would not know, actually. But the difference lies in the fact that other romantic languages have gendered forms of the word "the" and such. Everything is gendered, despite its inherent meaninglessness. English doesn't have that. We only apply gendered terms to people and their possessions. "He/She went to His/her car", which has a function, but not an important one, really. "They went to their car" works just as well, and eliminating him/her generally adds to clarity because it's used as a crutch too often. People will be talking about three people and will say something like "he told her that they...", which isn't very clear of who's saying what to whom. But in general, without the gendered terms, you won't see "they told them that they...", because now it's mixing singular and plural, and is obvious to even the most oblivious writer or speaker that they're being repetitive or unclear. They'll end up writing "Steve told Taylor that they..." It just generally leads to better usage of language. You'll also notice, as I did while finishing writing this, that I used them or they as a singular here multiple times, and didn't use the gendered terms outside examples at all and it didn't interrupt flow or understanding; I also did things in some sentences such as: Where I simply eliminate the him/her/they, so I'll end up with what I wrote instead of without losing any clarity.People will be talking about three people and will say something like "he told her that they..."
People will be talking about three people and they will say something like "he told her that they..."
I've added this note to the blog. I admit it is not a wholehearted endorsement of the non-binary in formal written English. There's another discussion to be had about going off binary thinking altogether and embracing nuance. Note: There is considerable discussion about eliminating singular genderized pronouns and replacing those pronouns with the plural or with new pronouns like "ter," "het," or "ze." I suggest that in face-to-face speech anything is possible, since the listener can say, "What do you mean?" Writing is best when there is no ambiguity, when the reader can read smoothly from one sentence to the next. If you choose to move away from genderized pronouns, a note of explanation would help the reader.
I thought this little insight about the psychological benefits of choosing the right pronoun in self-directed speech should go here.
The sorry decline of 'one' as a suppositional pronoun saddens me. It also leads to people taking offence when a hypothetical argument appears to be addressed to ' you '. English used to be gendered, way back when. It used to have pronouns that distinguished between ' you singular ', ' you all ' and ' you two '. That it shed all those things, along with noun declensions and inflected verb endings, making it increasingly simple, may have been partially responsible for making it one of the most widely spoken languages on the planet. For the record I hate the ambiguity of 'they'.
I think it's interesting how your students switch the pronouns when discussing morals to address some mysterious party. I'm going to go pseudo-psychologist on this and say that it has something to do with parents speaking in these terms when trying to teach kids lessons, e.g. "You shouldn't eat a cookie before dinner, since it'll ruin your appetite!" Although it's directed at the child, the kid is obviously going to perceive it as a rule, and therefore an objective truth. (I have absolutely no idea if that's accurate.) As an aside, I haven't forgotten about your postcard! I'm still planning on sending that your way, but there have been a number of complications with family and school recently, so I haven't had much time for hubski. I'll try to send that very soon!
Hey King of the Mud, I still have 10 US stamps to use up. pm me your snail address if you want me to write you. No return card necessary. Your point about the use of "you" is a good one. That could be another reason why we revert to "you" so often when talking about ourselves.