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In 1993, I joined an online email group that we called TS Lesbians. We wished to avoid patriarchal language, such as he, him, his, etc. being default pronouns (used where the gender of the person referred to by the pronoun is unknown).
Use of she/he, him/her, etc. seemed literally correct, but awkward and wordy. Using they, their, etc. for third person singular, although it has been done for centuries, brings problems of whether other parts of speech in the sentence should be singular or plural.
We became interested in using new words for gender neutral third person singular pronouns.
This is from Wikipedia; (part of an article). I hope this justification in columns stays intact. I looked at the preview. Spaces are not preserved, each line is jumbled together.
Nominative Accusative Possessive Possessive Reflexive
(subject) (object) (adjective) (pronoun)
He-- He laughed, I called him, His eyes gleam, That is his, He likes himself,
She-- She laughed, I called her, Her eyes gleam, That is hers, She likes herself,
It-- It laughed, I called it, Its eyes gleam, That is its, It likes itself,
One-- One laughed, I called one, One's eyes gleam, That is one's, One likes oneself,
Singular they-- They laughed, I called them, Their eyes gleam, That is theirs, They like themself/themselves,
Co-- Co laughed, I called co, Cos eyes gleam, That is cos, Co likes coself,
Spivak (new)-- Ey laughed, I called em, Eir eyes gleam, That is eirs, Ey likes emself,
Spivak (old)-- E laughed, I called em, Eir eyes gleam, That is eirs, E likes eirself,
S/he-- S/he laughed, I called him/her, His/her eyes gleam, That is his/hers, S/he likes him,
/herself
Sie and hir-- Sie laughed, I called hir, Hir eyes gleam, That is hirs, Sie likes hirself,
Xe[7]-- Xe laughed, I called xem, Xyr eyes gleam, That is xyrs, Xe likes xemself,
This table goes on.
For some reason, I liked: she, he, e\ her, him, er\ her, his, hir\ hers, his, hirs. I can't remember what anyone else liked. Note: New Spivak is the use of they, them, their, theirs, with the "th" removed.
I thought of posting this after reading Jengrl's comment on Edeyn H. B.'s blog "Talking about something important for a change" here is part of the comment. I'm not faulting Jengrl at all. That story she told was so sad. She was right when she urged her trans support group to add teen trans suicide prevention to their platform of causes they support. The problem is present day English (American, I guess) and it's inability to easily express neutral gender third person pronouns.
< One of the saddest stories here locally dealt with a 15 year old young person whose parents thought he was just Gay. They told their father at five years old that they were really a girl, played with Barbie dolls and designed dresses with a sketch pad. The mother rejected her child so he/she went to live with the father. They were so full of anger that they were lashing out against kids at school and becoming a real discipline problem. One night in 2006, the young girl got in an argument with her father and stormed off to her room. The father came into her bedroom a short time later and found her hanging from her closet rod. >
Third person pronouns used are: he, They, their, they, he/she, They, they, her, her, her, her, her. If gender neutral pronouns were in common use these might have been: e, e, eir, e, e, e, e, her, her, her, her, her. Still a sad story, it just might read a little more smoothly.
I'm not advocating use of these new words, just bringing forward the idea. I guess I'll try to use them more in the future. As some of you (or ya'll, or you all; another problem) have probably noticed, I use them (plural) occasionally.
Hugs and Blessings; Hang in there,
Renee
Comments
Artificial constructs
Always seemed so . . . artificial. Like "wyman", or whatever. Shakesphere is probably spinning in his grave. Difference for difference's sake.
They know they can survive
Irony
It's not difference for difference sake, it has a point. And invoking one of the great neologisers names to condemn neologism is, well, it's unintended irony. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Neologs
I wouldn't know what one of those was if I passed it on the freeway. My point is that Shakesphere made the language flow, a thing of beauty. These vocally and visually awkward words are feminist constructs to seperate sex from language to advance their agenda. As such, its difference for difference's sake.
They know they can survive
Exclusionary language
Yes, it is difference for the sake of the difference between men and women.
Don't mistake me; I haven't seen any of these neologistic solutions that appeal to me. They feel ugly and odd, sort of like when a Brit says 'whilst' instead of 'while' or that funny way they spell "colour". But as part of the invisible majority of the human race, I understand the purpose in these experiments.
Language changes, and Shakespeare changed the language probably more than any single person before or since, except maybe William the Conqueror. And he was derided for it in his time. Everyone who changes the language is derided for it.
You say that Shakespeare made the language flow, a thing of beauty. Well, he was a poet, that was his job. Try slipping a few of his thees and thous into common speech today and see how well it goes over. What's the difference between ye and you? The language changed and made those distinctions obsolete. They sang then because it was everyday speech; they sing now because we have been taught to believe that they sing.
When one of these new pronomial systems becomes popular, then future listeners will hear the music too.
These neological experiments are just that, experiments. One day, one of these will catch on and it will sweep the language or some portion of the English language community. It will happen because it does happen and has happened.
When someone talks about someone else's agenda, my first reaction is to ask, "So, what's your agenda? Come on, I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Accusing someone of having an agenda is flagellating your own in public. It's propagandistic, just like the neologisms the admittedly feminist writers are trying to promote. It's an argument that contains its own nullity.
Myself, I have little problem with this. I write sentences all the time that avoid assigning a gender to unknown persons. English has several standard ways of doing this.
That doesn't mean that what I'm doing with the language doesn't have a political agenda. :)
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Pronouns
Grammar Nazis get their panties in a bunch about it, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with using "they" and "their" for indeterminate-gender personal pronouns. It's a usage with a long attested and respectable history. There's also no confusion about plural/singular in the rest of the sentence, or at least no more so than there is with "he" and "she;" in the context of a singular personal pronoun, "they" and "their" are singular.
English is plenty adaptable to non-patriarchal language if you just let it be, without need for superfluous neologisms.
My two cents anyway.
You say that the usage is
You say that the usage is long attested. It is not.
What is long attested is the usage of they or them as a pronoun when the antecedent could be either singular or plural, for example someone, anyone etc. and occasionally person.
What is not attested is the use of they or them when the antecedent is unambiguously singular. That's only come into use since the 1960s, and it's use is definitely political. Shakespeare as well as the King James Bible are not good references since they are Early Modern English,not Modern English. There are definite grammar differences which is one of several reasons why many people find Shakespeare difficult, and the third edition of the KJV sounds archaic. Modern English is English since 1776, and I have no idea why that date was picked.
I tend to use it because it does serve a useful purpose, although the cure, in this case, may well be worse than the disease. It risks going down the same road as "you" leaving no way of telling whether one person or a group is meant except in non-standard dialects.
Could it have been different? I suspect so. After all, Ms. was adopted rather easily because it served a useful purpose for lots of people. If the leaders of the early feminist movement had gotten together and coined a single set of words for 3rd person pronouns for persons or groups with unknown or mixed gender, and then used them consistently in their own work, I think it would have eventually caught on. Maybe not as quickly as Ms., but filling a gap rather than creating a mess usually is an easier sell. As it is, there were a half dozen or more different proposals, and none of them gained traction.
So it goes. Language change is a messy process, and not all changes meet with universal approval. There's a common quip that the "standard dialect" of a language is the one with an army.
Xaltatun
Singular they
Lots of writers over the centuries and millions of speakers before 1960 and since have used "they" and "them" to refer to singular antecedents. It's not new. Someone, anyone and person are singular, not plural but have taken "they" as a pronomial form since before English became middle English.
I offer a quotation from the American Heritage Book of English Usage:
Other references to centuries old examples of such usage are easy to find on the web.
This is the generic they, singular in function but taking plural verbs. The singular they that takes singular verbs is either new or aberrational.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Singular/plural "they"
Or to look at it another way, the singular "they" takes singular verbs in the same form that the singular "I" and "you" do:
singular pronouns:
I go, you go, they go, he goes, she goes, it goes
I have gone, you have gone, they have gone, he has gone, she has gone, it has gone
plural pronouns:
we go, they go, you (or y'all in some dialects) go
we have gone, they have gone, you/y'all have gone
The singular and plural forms of a verb depend on the type of pronoun, and there's no linguistic necessity for logic, say, for all nth-person pronouns to take the same verb forms (e.g. German "Sie" vs. "du").
I do think using the "he/she/it" forms of verbs with the singular "they" would be considered "aberrational," at least in most current dialects of English.
All that said, I have nothing against neologisms, as long as using them is entirely voluntary; if they catch on, great; if not, oh well. That's how language evolves.
Logic and Language
Logic and language use are only acquaintances, not roommates. :) And English usage is about par for logic in this. German is hideous and even nice regular languages like Spanish have inconsistencies and goofiness. French is on a par with English, slightly more complex but mostly because of verb complications. Non-IE languages like Vietnamese add complexities in dimensions no English speaker thought of, like pronouns that vary depending on if your father is older or younger than your aunt. :) Hungarian and Finnish go off on their own path, too.
Usage is the bear to which this sleigh ride is hitched. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Epicene "They"
>> You say that the usage is long attested. It is not.
Well, yes, it is, but it doesn't matter. The word is used right now to mean exactly generic he or she, and it's no more shocking to use it than it is to talk about the Internet, which word has had a very brief lifespan. The fact that it may *sound* the same as another, similar, word matters not at all, as we have a mort of these in English.
The word "rap" had a meaning long before it referred to a style of music. Is Rap Music *different* from "rap on the door"? Are either of these different from "Wrap it up"?
Language is a art, not a science, and is more like a dance than a pasta machine. One *performs* language; one doesn't crank it out to order, based upon which cutters are installed.
Just as we perform language, understanding language requires us to perform the same dance, based upon our observation of the dancer, and we're all quite good at this.
People *want* to use gender neutral language these days, and our collective brains have created a paintbrush to impart that colour to our words.
So what?
Everyone knows what is meant by the epicene "they," so pretending that it's "illogical" like the actor who played Mr Spock archly commenting on the inscrutable nature of humanity in the Star Trek series, is only a pose. No one's head will actually explode. Horses will not run wild in the street. Pitchforks will not fall from the sky.
Arguing about whether Shakespeare said it, or Caxton, or Shaw only begs the question. If these uses are unrelated, and each writer "invented" the term independently of the then complete corpus of the English language, then why can't *we* invent them again?
Cheers,
Puddin'
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`...There's glory for you!'
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
My own favorite to win this derby
If I could make one such neo-construction standard, I would choose a modified version of the new Spivak.
'Ey, 'eir, 'eirs, 'em, 'eirself. The addition of the apostrophe makes the meaning clearer for people unfamiliar with the construct because it marks the missing "th".
At the moment, these are all jargon and are derided as being politically motivated -- as if political motivations were inherently immoral. A better phrase is social motivation, which avoids the hint of sleaze that politics conveys. Eusocial would be better still except that that word has acquired its own reek.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
New Spivak
I agree, I like that version best out of the choices offered, because it seems the most natural adaptation of current usage--with or without the leading apostrophes.
Gender neutral
I love these! It's really hard to know what to call people who usually don't identify as either male or female, like my one genderqueer friend who ze only likes when I call hir by gender neutral pronouns ^^ It's awesome mew ^^
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Womyn, Wimyn
Using terms like womyn, wimyn, persyn, etc. is a feminist idea. These words are a way to talk about people or female people without having to use a masculine root or base word. The existing English language gives a patriarchal message, not surprising since it evolved to it's present state during patriarchal times. IMHO much of society is still patriarchal. It's better to have a boy than a girl. It's better to be a boy than a girl. Men are the bosses and the leaders (mostly). New men gain respect with their (enlightened) male peers, what they say in meetings is given more weight. New wimyn lose respect and are treated as badly or worse than natal wimyn. Men average a higher pay than wimyn. The husband should have the final say in a marriage, ad nauseum.
The word "woman" is not pronounced w(short o)-man. It's pronounced w(short o)-m*n with the * symbol used for a shwah (sp?) an unaccented vowel sound, often denoted by an upside-down e. "Women" is not pronounced w(short o)-m (short e)n. It's pronounced w(short i)-m*n. Since these words are already not spelled as they are pronounced, the spelling womyn and wimyn is more like the pronunciation and it does not subtly infer that wimyn are some offshoot or subclass of men.
As for language changing, language alway is changing. New words enter the language and are recognized by major dictionaries every year.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Woman
Actually, woman is gender neutral, since the word is descended from wyfman, which *also* doesn't mean what it sounds like.
*Man* originally meant adult human being, like "ren" in Mandarin Chinese.
Wyf meant woman, nothing more nor less, so wyfman, and by extension, woman, meant nothing more than "adult female".
It's only later than these words developed other meanings, with male adults capturing "man" somehow, possibly having something to do with the development of a theory of perpetal female infancy, which insists that a female can never be an autonomous adult, and therefore not a "man".
Instead of elaborated false etymologies, why don't we begin to insist on the proper ancient term for adult male, a wyrman, using wyr, the male equivlent of wyf. With this one bold stroke, we eliminate thousands of awkward neologisms, restore the office of chairman as a gender neutral term, and allow the male men to assume their proper place as vermen, allowing for modern habits of spelling.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
--- Mark Twain
Let the world, that heap of vermin as ridiculous as they are feeble-minded, believe the most absurd tales about the mighty!
--- Pope Alexander VI, in a letter to Lucrezia Borgia, his purported daughter and lover.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style