Pronouns

[diaglo]

Although Madonna, George Michaels, and Tiffany were all lousy artists, each had his own fan club during the 1980s.

clearly with George involved it should read her own fan club

 

[lukelightning]

I reccommend that we the following should be included in the english language:

Ve (subject), ver (object), vis (possessive)

What, so you can make beeg trouble for Moose and Squirrel?

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Unfortunately the OP "brought" those topics with the way he introduced the question and his constant assertions that "he" is gender neutral. . . However, in respect for your mod-voice, I will accept that the OP has won by default simply by asserting "loudly" enough that his stance is correct and traditional grammar rather than political. :\

I'd guess the "his constant assertions" is probably referring to my posts, rather than to the original poster (I don't think the OP has added anything beyond his initial post). Just for clarification, I don't assert that "he" is always gender neutral, but that it can be gender-specific or gender neutral depending on context and intent. That's not a baseless assertion at all -- it's easily verifiable by looking up the word in a dictionary. Some dictionaries will add a "usage note" or "usage problem" annotation that describes the controversy over pronouns and gender, and may spin it one way or the other. Other dictionaries don't mention the controversy at all. But all of them list a gender-neutral or gender-unspecified meaning for "he."

As for characterizing my position (i.e. the traditional usage position) as merely being "loud," and thus having no substance, I disagree, obviously. Not much else I can say to something like that. I wouldn't say that the traditional position has "won," though. The poll numbers show a decisive majority preferring something other than the traditional usage.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I prefer the old fashioned and grammatically correct way of doing things. Though wikipedia says its fine to use they/them/etc - this is numerically incorrect. He/she/it states a person or thing with a singular value; Jim is a he, Joan is a she and the rock is it. Referred to as a group Jim, Joan and the rock become them, a pronoun denoting a plural number (i.e. more than one).

I didn't take and pass English in high School and college just so someone that didn't pay attention could tell me otherwise. If gender is an issue then the “he/she” tag is more correct than the random pronoun or the all inclusive "they"; but, then I'm a grammar-Nazi, so what do I know?

 

[Faraer]

The words we use for things shape our understanding of them far more deeply than we're consciously aware of. No one in linguistics seriously argues otherwise. To claim that 'he' for unknown gender doesn't, in practice, reify male as the default gender is just ignorant, like people who claim they're not affected by advertising.

But this thread is notably less male chauvinist and sexually insecure than the last one I read on the topic a few years ago. Yay!

 

[Pielorinho]

Yeah, I'd probably rephrase that one to avoid using "his." I don't find that "his" has that problem when the subject is truly ambiguous and gender-neutral, but the use of the specific people right there in the sentence muddies the context and pulls "his" towards a gender-specific meaning.

A slight clarification, I think: "he" is used, not for gender-neutral referents (e.g., when discussing egg timers), but for gender-nonspecified referents.

Consider the following sentence:

Although all the eighties musicians I can remember were awful, each of them had his own fan club.

Does that sentence twist your ear?

It doesn't twist mine. And the only difference between it and the previous sentence is that in this one, we don't know the genders of the musicians in question. This leads me to believe that I'm assuming the musicians in this sentence are male.

I don't want my readers to make that assumption when I'm talking about a gender-unspecified person, so I try to avoid using the masculine pronoun. It's all about clarity of communication.

Daniel

 

[king_ghidorah]

I prefer the old fashioned and grammatically correct way of doing things. Though wikipedia says its fine to use they/them/etc - this is numerically incorrect. He/she/it states a person or thing with a singular value; Jim is a he, Joan is a she and the rock is it. Referred to as a group Jim, Joan and the rock become them, a pronoun denoting a plural number (i.e. more than one).

I didn't take and pass English in high School and college just so someone that didn't pay attention could tell me otherwise. If gender is an issue then the “he/she” tag is more correct than the random pronoun or the all inclusive "they"; but, then I'm a grammar-Nazi, so what do I know?

The number agreement issue is a recent grammatical construction. They has been used as a way to deal with both number ambiguity and gender ambiguity (with great controversy) for a long time. Of course, a key problem is that many of our grammar rules are imposed latin rules rather than outgrowths of the germanic root language or applied usage, and tend not to come out of any real process for vetting the rules, so proscriptive grammar tends to lead to problems.

My old linguistics professor was making the case for the gender neutral back in the late 1980s. When someone told him he didn't know what he was talking about based on a high school education, his response (which was a little snotty) was "I think my Ph.D. in linguistic trumps you high school English teacher's training." The truth is, the rules on the neuter plural are a mess, have always been a mess, and always will be a mess, because they are an attempt to deal with the fact that English a largely ungendered set of nouns, except in the case of our personal pronouns, which does put a lot of weight on how they are perceived.

That said, ongoing discussion on how to use this is a healthy way to resolve issues of linguistic clarity and style, and is good for the language and literacy. And, since there is no external authority in the English language, is the only way we come to a social consensus.

 

[2WS-Steve]

When 3.5 came out we didn't ask whether WotC was violating the rules when the new ranger had 6 skill points per level. The rules are just what we make up. What we could ask is whether a ranger with 6 points per level worked better over all.

Likewise, there are no rules of language inscribed in metaphysical stone somewhere in Plato's heaven. We make the rules up as a cultural practice.

So I think it's a red herring to say that this or that feature of grammar is a rule as a defense of it when what people are precisely doing is asking whether or not that rule ought to be adjusted.

That'd be like defending d20 Modern's nonlethal damage system by saying "it's the rule" when we're in a debate over whether or not we want to houserule it, or include the system as written in d20 Modern Second Edition.

 

[Wayside]

I think it's sort of creepy how this blurs the distinction between the player and the character, though. I am most definitely not a wizard, and will not be casting any spells.

I don't find it creepy at all. I'm sure some people have difficulty distinguishing themselves from their characters, but I doubt that applies to any of us. The whole movement to strictly differentiate players from characters in every detail of game text, in fact, strikes me as being far sillier than any side of the pronoun debate.

I didn't take and pass English in high School and college just so someone that didn't pay attention could tell me otherwise. If gender is an issue then the “he/she” tag is more correct than the random pronoun or the all inclusive "they"; but, then I'm a grammar-Nazi, so what do I know?

Oi. I teach English (at university, not high school). You aren't a grammar nazi (which wouldn't, incidentally, be hyphenated), just misinformed on this issue. Languages aren't always logical--in fact, languages always aren't logical.

 

[SteveC]

The words we use for things shape our understanding of them far more deeply than we're consciously aware of. No one in linguistics seriously argues otherwise. To claim that 'he' for unknown gender doesn't, in practice, reify male as the default gender is just ignorant, like people who claim they're not affected by advertising.

But this thread is notably less male chauvinist and sexually insecure than the last one I read on the topic a few years ago. Yay!

I would be very careful about saying things like this. When I was in college, not that many years ago, I took classes in linguistics are part of my secondary education certification. Saying that no one in lingusitics argues otherwise is completely false. Arguing beyond this gets us into politics in a way that is not allowed by the rules of this forum.

Just because you have an opinion on an issue, even a very strong one, does not automatically make those who disagree with you ignorant.

In general, I find myself annoyed by the clumsy attempts at dealing with the issue of gender that WotC uses, but I'm also not opposed to the use of "they." I saw a shirt which read "They: if it was good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me." That makes some real sense to me.

--Steve