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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I don't want to comment on the neo-pronouns, but I have a question about this bit:

That one offends me more on grammatical grounds than any feelings I have about gender identities.

The singular they goes back to at least the 1300s, at least according to Merriam-Webster. What kind of pedigree are you looking for in your english words above and beyond a word usage that literally predates modern english? Is it just that the same word can refer to singular and plural? Does the word "deer" bother you in the same way?

The singular they goes back to at least the 1300s, at least according to Merriam-Webster. What kind of pedigree are you looking for in your english words above and beyond a word usage that literally predates modern english? Is it just that the same word can refer to singular and plural? Does the word "deer" bother you in the same way?

Trust me, I am familiar with the linguistic history of "they" and with this argument.

The problem with it is that in the past, "they" has been used (somewhat inconsistently) as an indefinite gender pronoun (such as when the gender of the person being referred to is unknown, or when you are talking about a generic person of either gender). And even in those cases, it sometimes leads to grammatical ambiguity.

The new usage, where it's used to refer to individuals even when their gender is known (see what I did there?) is both awkward and frequently unclear.

"They're waiting for me in the car."

"I called my friend and they were very upset."

"They told me I misgendered them."

It's becoming more common for me to be reading an article where people use a singular "they" and I have to backtrack to figure out if we're talking about one person or multiple people. I would almost prefer that we actually adopt some neopronoun like "xe/xir" just to disambiguate the grammar, but since I don't recognize that "xe/xirs" exist, I just mentally roll my eyes at people who identify as a singular-they.

The new usage, where it's used to refer to individuals even when their gender is known (see what I did there?) is both awkward and frequently unclear.

Could you expand a little on this? I'm not sure how, once you've accepted the singular they for a person of unknown gender or perhaps an abstract person without gender, applying it to different individuals causes more ambiguity.

Or is it just that this previously rage edge-case is becoming more common which is leading to problems?

I thought my examples above gave pretty good examples of the problem. What's still unclear?

I think the issue is that I'm still unsure of your position on the singular they for use with a person of unknown gender (old definition).

Specifically the paragraph that starts with:

The problem with it is that in the past...

"it" here seems to imply the new definition, otherwise contrasting with the past is odd (or I'm just parsing something wrong, always an option). I interpreted this as the old definition was fine (if not ideal), and the new version was a problem.

But later there's talk about ambiguity, and as far as I can tell, both definitions do that to roughly the same degree, so I'm not sure why contrasting the old and new definitions comes up beforehand.

I think the issue is that I'm still unsure of your position on the singular they for use with a person of unknown gender (old definition).

Between:

"A person should always look both ways before they cross the street."

and

"A person should always look both ways before he or she crosses the street."

I prefer:

"A person should always look both ways before crossing the street."

In other words, a third person singular "they" may be acceptable according Webster's and historical precedent, but it's still ambiguous and there are usually better grammatical constructs you can use to avoid it.

The historical claim to a "singular they" is a central example of a motte and bailey. There was the occasional usage of singular they to refer to a person of unknown or unspecified sex, where "he" would be more grammatically standard--this is the motte. Referring to a known and identified singular person as "they" was not a thing.

Did you think no one would actually click your link? Because Merriam-Webster lays out exactly what I said above, though with more sneering.

It was not immediately clear that the new definition was the point of contention. People railing against the "singular they" is much older than the current gender debate (including my 8th grade english teacher), and the OP specified that it was more on grammatical grounds than gender.

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