

People of the Internet: we can fix the English language - zlotty
http://avisweblog.tumblr.com/post/14259913698/people-of-the-internet-we-can-fix-the-english-language

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jrmg
'They' is perfectly acceptable, and has been for hundreds of years.

From <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they> :

 _The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite
gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even
in literary and formal contexts. This gives you the option of using the plural
pronouns where you think they sound best, and of using the singular pronouns
(as he, she, he or she, and their inflected forms) where you think they sound
best._

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vasc
In Latin based languages there are no gender neutral pronouns, traditionally
the masculine pronoun should be used in gender neutral contexts. I've also
noticed lately that there is a trend to use the feminine pronoun, specially in
fields (like computer science) where the agent is likely to be a man.

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nickolai
>If you spend a lot of time writing copy for the web or answering support
emails, you know what I’m talking about. When you start a sentence, you can
feel the nausea coming on from a mile away: there’s no gender neutral third
person singular pronoun.

Technically, there is such a thing. "it" is a gender neutral third person
singular pronoun[1] and even more amusingly it is not part of the proposed
"replacement" list. It does sound very weird in most cases - and would
definitely look dehumanizing in a support reply, but technically speaking the
language is not broken.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_%28pronoun%29> . Example given: " _Is it a
boy or a girl?_ "

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GiraffeNecktie
I like the Mandarin Chinese approach:

he, she and it: ta

his, hers, and its: ta de

they and their: ta men and ta men de

Clean, simple and consistent (although the ambiguity is another problem).

~~~
jfruh
My college girlfriend's dad's first language was Chinese and he would often
refer to either her or her brother as "it." "Tell it to come down for dinner!"

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recursive
I just use "they". That has a better chance of adoption than any of the
proposals listed.

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sixbrx
I also don't understand the reluctance to use it. It's as versatile as "some"
in logic/mathematics. And its already common usage: "If a person walks into a
bar, and they order a drink..." - sounds fine to me. Maybe there are cases
where it sounds strange?

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drblast

      I was talking to a group of friends about this and he thought it was weird too.
    

Is that confusing? That's about how it sounds to me when anyone uses a plural
pronoun in place of a singular one. I know it's common usage but it's not a
particularly good solution.

~~~
sixbrx
Well "he" is never plural but "they" is sometimes singular (like the logical
"some").

Does the sentence: "I was talking to someone about this and they thought so
and so." really sound weird to you? It doesn't to me. Also I wouldn't call it
a "solution" because it wasn't just invented to solve this problem, it's just
already common usage.

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devmach
No we can't : English isn't the mother tongue of all the People of the
Internet/World !. If you want your customers, the people who pays your salary,
speak perfect English please stick with UK-Market and stop cry.

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saturn
The author claims using "they" is common, but grammatically incorrect - then
recommends some arbitrary (and currently unknown and incorrect) set of
replacement words to be adopted and thus become correct by weight of numbers.

Why not just continue using "they" until it is widely accepted enough to be
correct? Frankly, I don't think we're too far off that. The supposedly
erroneous example he quoted read fine to me.

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sbmassey
Yes. Treating 'they' as singular also has precedent in English with the
replacement of 'thou' with 'you' as second person singular. Perhaps future
Southerners will use 'they-all' as third person plural.

