
All-Purpose Pronoun - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?ref=magazine
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tokenadult
All linguists know that there are plenty of examples of languages in which
personal pronouns don't distinguish gender, including Chinese. I have a
visitor these days, a friend from Taiwan, and he can reliably confuse "he" and
"she" in English (for example, by talking about his wife but then saying "he"
or by talking about his son and then saying "she") because he, like most
native speakers of Sinitic languages, fundamentally doesn't see a need to
distinguish gender in personal pronouns.

I've been an editor enough years to know that "they" is not accepted as a
pronoun referring to an antecedent in the singular number in standard written
English, but I sure SPEAK English that way, and observe plenty of other native
speakers of English speaking that way or even writing that way. I've also been
around enough radical feminists to know that they think "he" is offensive as a
general reference to an unknown person, even though that is the typical
default in Indo-European languages (equivalents to "it" are disfavored because
they imply the antecedent is not animate). I often structure sentences so that
the sentences don't have personal pronouns, when I think my readership might
take offense at nonstandard grammar or at "sexist" language. An astute
observer of human society might notice that languages without gender in
personal pronouns don't seem particularly to occur in societies without
sexism, so perhaps an assumption that "sexist" language makes any kind of
difference in people's behavior is unwarranted. The strong version of the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis>

appears to be discredited, but research continues on the marginal effects on
people's thinking that may result from accidental grammatical features of
different native languages.

~~~
tjr
_I've been an editor enough years to know that "they" is not accepted as a
pronoun referring to an antecedent in the singular number in standard written
English_

Why not? As you pointed out, it's how you and many others speak. The only
reason it persists in being "incorrect" is because it is deemed so. None of
the alternatives I've seen seem particularly better, and indeed often worse.
Can't we let English grow in this direction?

~~~
tokenadult
I expect English will grow in that direction. Most professional editors
eventually follow established usage of the best writers, as evidenced by the
best dictionaries and usage guides.

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maalyex
My vote is for "Yo". It recently emerged at a couple Baltimore schools.

[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005298.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005298.html)

"It was clear from the results that students in these two schools use yo as a
gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, primarily in subject position

"Yo was tuckin' in his shirt! Yo threw a thumbtack at me. Yo been runnin' the
halls. Yo put his foot up.

~~~
gojomo
Two of the four examples still use the gendered possessive pronoun 'his', so
really don't illustrate the use of 'yo' for gender-indeterminate reference.

Really, the challenge isn't when a specific person of known gender is
referenced, but when a person/role of unspecified gender needs to be
referenced.

'Yo' is so close to the second-person pronoun 'you', and already used as a
call-to-attention 'Yo!', that using it for third-person singular would be
problematic.

"You should be detail-oriented, but your secretary must be detail-obsessed.
Still, yo should be able to overlook minor errors by others."

Does 'yo' refer to the 'you' this is spoken to, or to the secretary? (A 'he'
or 'she' or truly useful gender-indeterminate third-person-singular pronoun
would be clear in that position.)

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mrshoe
Maybe it's just my lazy desire not to have to think about such matters, but I
just defer to Strunk and White in these discussions. I love it when someone
else makes these coin-flip decisions for me and publishes a book about it. :)

Their take? Just use "he". Gender be damned.

~~~
mahmud
Not even S&W is immune. NPR did a segment on the book a few months back and
some English lit types where complaining about how vague, unoriginal and even
wrong it is.

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mainguy
"They" is best, but "he" is more terse. Perhaps we should coopt another vowel
and use "E". "I" is I, "U" is you, "E" is he/they. My work here is done...

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bbg
So 'they' was used for centuries as a singular pronoun?!

I've been objecting to that usage for a long time.

I learned something here.

~~~
grellas
It may be technically true but is quite misleading to say that English has
permitted the use of "they" for "he" or "she" for centuries, as if literate
authors in English have been using it in some consistent and recurring way
over the years.

Yes, Chaucer did use "they" in this manner. He also used thousands of other
forms of Middle English that have long since passed into oblivion. Remember
that Chaucer wrote in the _1300s_ , when, for example, the word "knave" meant,
simply, "young boy." A lot has changed since then. Relying on Chaucer as
authority, then, is a real stretch.

Setting aside Chaucer, only scattered evidence exists of "they" being used to
refer to a singular antecedent.

In Indo-European languages generally, the principle of _concord_ is thoroughly
ingrained - singular nouns, for example, need to be matched with singular verb
forms and plural with plural. This is a transcending principle that is central
to the grammar of all Indo-European languages.

For this reason, it _is_ jarring to our ears to hear, for example, "Sally went
to the store and, after shopping, they [instead of she] returned home". It is
like saying, "Sally are a liar." Both violate the rule of concord and plainly
sound jarring and illiterate.

In the strong pull to abandon the synechdoche of using "he" as a part
representing the whole (of any form of singular antecedent), modern
grammarians are really straining to find an alternative (as is the point of
this article), but using "they" to represent the singular is such a blatant
violation of the principle of concord that it will not fly as "good English"
unless one is prepared to undermine a principle that affects not only pronoun
usage but lies at the heart of grammar generally.

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alanthonyc
I see no problem in using "they" instead of "he" or "she."

After all, I use "we" instead of "I" all the time.

------
gojomo
I like the French word which serves as a sort of vague (in person and gender)
third-person pronoun: _on_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_personal_pronouns#On>

It's short and adjacent enough in meaning ( _one_ person) that I think English
could adopt it wihtout much trouble. "On who hesitates is lost." "Let on who
is without sin cast the first stone."

~~~
JimmyL
Aside from a few idiomatic expressions, _on_ is generally used in everyday
French as the third way suggested - as a casual replacement for _nous_ (we).

As for bringing it into English, would you propose to use the English or
French pronunciation? I like the French, but can't think of another example of
the nasal _o_ that it uses in English.

~~~
kierank
We have an equivalent of _On_ in British English (I'm not sure if it's used in
America) but it's considered posh.

E.g. One is not amused.

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Nogwater
I've seen ve/ver/vis ( <http://en.allexperts.com/e/v/ve/ve_%28pronoun%29.htm>
), but doubt it'll ever take off.

They/them/their seems the most likely.

~~~
jrockway
I like this idea better then "they".

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pmichaud
I heard of a movement to introduce hu/hum as in human, which makes sense, but
really the idea of using "he" to be gender neutral doesn't bother me. Maybe
it's because I'm a sexist, bourgeois pig?

~~~
smhinsey
Is hu pronounced hew?

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eel
What about "he or she" and "his or her"? This is what I was taught was proper,
though it does sound clumsy in speech.

~~~
randallsquared
Not only does it distract from the speaker's point, as you note, but it's
verbose in comparison.

