[net.nlang] Gender-Specific Pronouns

bob@cadovax.UUCP (Bob "Kat" Kaplan) (01/09/85)

From sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) <1914@sun.uucp>

> Try using "their" whether referring to one generic person or many persons:
> it's easier to read than he/she or his/her, and is gender non-specific.
> 				Sunny

It's also grammatically incorrect and awkward.  To me, it's as bad as
using "Aren't I?" instead of "Am I not?"

My solution is to avoid using such constructs.

-- 

Bob Kaplan	{ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!bob

"If you tell the truth, you must smile.  Otherwise, people will kill you."

gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam) (01/10/85)

> From sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) <1914@sun.uucp>
> 
> > Try using "their" whether referring to one generic person or many persons:
> > it's easier to read than he/she or his/her, and is gender non-specific.
> > 				Sunny
> 
> It's also grammatically incorrect and awkward.  To me, it's as bad as
> using "Aren't I?" instead of "Am I not?"

It is NOT "grammatically incorrect."  That is a myth.  As someone
mentioned earlier, you can look it ("they") up in the OED.

William Safire wrote an interesting essay on the grammatical
appropriatness of "Ain't I?" (it came from a contraction
of "Am not I?", necessarily interrogative).  But "ain't" is such
a tainted word these days we will probably never bring it back.
(Unfortunately I don't have this particular article of Safire's).

The story with "ain't" was that people were using ungrammatically
("ain't she sweet?") so our fearless defenders of the language,
English teachers everywhere, eradicated its use by implying it
was "grammatically incorrect", even when used correctly as
"ain't I?".

The same fate might've become of "they" used with singular nouns
if Jim Quinn hadn't rallied to it's cause and enlightened people
of its HISTORIC use instead of letting self-appointed "defenders
of the language" eradicate yet another useful word from our
speech.

At some point you have to realize that grammar was a set of rules
that someone came up with by EXAMINING HOW THE LANGUAGE IS USED,
not by some abstract set of BNF charts that were logically
consistent.  Grammar is not logically consistent.

I actually use "Aren't I?".  I only use "Am I not?" when I want to
sound pompous.
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam

nap@druxo.UUCP (Parsons) (01/11/85)

>>From sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) <1914@sun.uucp>

>> Try using "their" whether referring to one generic person or many persons:
>> it's easier to read than he/she or his/her, and is gender non-specific.
>> 				Sunny

>It's also grammatically incorrect and awkward.  To me, it's as bad as
>using "Aren't I?" instead of "Am I not?"

>My solution is to avoid using such constructs.

>-- 

>Bob Kaplan	{ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!bob

Of course, *proper* grammar is of much greater importance than the
deleterious effect of sexist language on half of humanity! :-)

Is the proper role of grammarians to define what *proper* usage is or to
record what common usage is?  Probably some of both.  But I, for one, have
no intention of allowing grammarians to assume almighty powers and dictate
that I must use language that is damaging to me and my sisters (and
ultimately to my brothers, too).

Besides, the singular *they* has a lot of precedence is scholarly writing
as well as common usage by public figures:

       Shakespeare: Everyone to rest themselves.

              Shaw: It's enough to drive anyone out of their sense.

  Scott Fitzgerald: Nobody like a mind quicker than their own.

Dr. Mary Celderone: Everybody must develop their own standards of
                    sexual morality.

   The Phone Store: Give someone a phone of their own.

 Lord Chesterfield: If a person is born of a gloomy temper...they
		    cannot help it.

     J. F. Kennedy: If that person gets sick...they are in the hospital...

      Senator Hart: ...the person who goes for food stamps does it
		    because they are poor.

Besides, this kind of change is not new to our language.  *Ye* and *you*
were once plural pronouns only, the singular being *thou* and *thee*.  Now
*you* is both singular and plural.  I imagine a lot of people complained
back then about the new usage being grammatically incorrect and awkward.
(Or did they not have grammarians dictating to them then?)

As Casey Miller and Kate Swift state in their book *Words and Women,*:
*They* as a singular illustrates once again that in spite of studied
efforts to hold it back, our remarkably sensitive tongue is capable of
responding to its speakers' longing for equality.

By the way, I used the asterisk in place of quotation marks in some places
in this article and used nothing where there properly should have been
quotation marks in other places because I've seen others do it and cannot
recall seeing quotation marks on the net.  Do quotation marks create
problems when used in text on the net or what?  Can I safely use them in
the future?

Nancy Parsons
(Previously grammatically scrupulous, but no longer idolizing grammar)
AT&T ISL
Denver, CO
druxo!nap

nap@druxo.UUCP (Parsons) (01/11/85)

< I actually use "Aren't I?".  I only use "Am I not?" when I want to
< sound pompous.
< -- 
< Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam

We could try the construction my two-year-old developed (quite logically,
if not *properly*)--amn't I.  :-)

Nancy Parsons
AT&T ISL
Denver, CO
druxo!nap

crs@lanl.ARPA (01/14/85)

> > From sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) <1914@sun.uucp>
> > 
> > > Try using "their" whether referring to one generic person or many persons:
> > > it's easier to read than he/she or his/her, and is gender non-specific.
> > > 				Sunny
> > 
> > It's also grammatically incorrect and awkward.  To me, it's as bad as
> > using "Aren't I?" instead of "Am I not?"
> 
> It is NOT "grammatically incorrect."  That is a myth.  As someone
> mentioned earlier, you can look it ("they") up in the OED.
> 
> William Safire wrote an interesting essay on the grammatical
> appropriatness of "Ain't I?" (it came from a contraction
> of "Am not I?", necessarily interrogative).  But "ain't" is such
> a tainted word these days we will probably never bring it back.
> (Unfortunately I don't have this particular article of Safire's).
> 
> The story with "ain't" was that people were using ungrammatically
> ("ain't she sweet?") so our fearless defenders of the language,
> English teachers everywhere, eradicated its use by implying it
> was "grammatically incorrect", even when used correctly as
> "ain't I?".
> 
> The same fate might've become of "they" used with singular nouns
> if Jim Quinn hadn't rallied to it's cause and enlightened people
> of its HISTORIC use instead of letting self-appointed "defenders
> of the language" eradicate yet another useful word from our
> speech.
> 
> At some point you have to realize that grammar was a set of rules
> that someone came up with by EXAMINING HOW THE LANGUAGE IS USED,
> not by some abstract set of BNF charts that were logically
> consistent.  Grammar is not logically consistent.
> 
> I actually use "Aren't I?".  I only use "Am I not?" when I want to
> sound pompous.
> -- 
> Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam

Let's all start using "ain't I" and revive this useful and
persecuted phrase.  Maybe we can start a *movement*...

Seriously, "ain't I" *works* better than anything the english
teachers would have us use.  Let's do it!

Charlie

jlg@lanl.ARPA (01/15/85)

> Of course, *proper* grammar is of much greater importance than the
> deleterious effect of sexist language on half of humanity! :-)
> 
> Is the proper role of grammarians to define what *proper* usage is or to
> record what common usage is?  Probably some of both.  But I, for one, have
> no intention of allowing grammarians to assume almighty powers and dictate
> that I must use language that is damaging to me and my sisters (and
> ultimately to my brothers, too).

Damn right - The language has been unfair to MEN long enough.  We are people
too.  We deserve our own pronouns.  (You must have a large family, I only
have one brother and one sister.)

> Besides, the singular *they* has a lot of precedence is scholarly writing
> as well as common usage by public figures:
> 
>        Shakespeare: Everyone to rest themselves.
> 
>               Shaw: It's enough to drive anyone out of their sense.
> 
>   Scott Fitzgerald: Nobody like a mind quicker than their own.
> 
> Dr. Mary Celderone: Everybody must develop their own standards of
>                     sexual morality.
> 
>    The Phone Store: Give someone a phone of their own.
> 
>  Lord Chesterfield: If a person is born of a gloomy temper...they
> 		    cannot help it.
> 
>      J. F. Kennedy: If that person gets sick...they are in the hospital...
> 
>       Senator Hart: ...the person who goes for food stamps does it
> 		    because they are poor.

I note that, once again, all of these examples are of the use of a plural
pronoun in reference to an original subject which was semantically plural.
In all the above cases, the original subject implied the inclusion or
exclusion of a large class of people - in fact, often the plural pronoun
was used to emphasize that fact.

        "That is the only person to ever set foot on Mars.  They loved it!"

Even if the examples given above sounded natural (which they would for most
people), the preceeding line would confuse you.  This is because the referent
of the plural is semantically singular and was explicitly reenforced as
singular.

The plural pronoun has been used with singular referents in the past, NOT
in order to resolve some sexist bias, but in order to emphasize the inherent
plurality of the words which are syntactically singular but are semantically
plural.

(*8  Why don't we introduce some pronouns which refer specifically (and ONLY)
to men.  This would have several advantages.  For one thing, the existing
masculine pronouns would then be freed up for use as neutral pronouns (ONLY).
The advantage is that all laws, regulations, rules, company charters, etc.
would automatically become gender neutral without rewrite.  The only
disadvantage would be that literature written before the change would seem
increasingly archaic since the neutral pronoun would be consistantly used
in reference to characters who are KNOWN to be male.  This option will not
be taken however because feminists will refuse any solution (no matter how
good or fair it really is) if it appears to 'give' men anything - and this
idea would 'give' men their own pronoun. 8*)

steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (01/15/85)

> 
> Is the proper role of grammarians to define what *proper* usage is or to
> record what common usage is?  
> 
	That depends.   In most schools we are given books called
"grammar books" with rules of "correct grammar" that must be memorized.
This is called "perscriptive grammar".  A linguist seeks to describe
a language.  That description is called "a grammar of the language."
A linguist's grammar *describes* the language and makes no value
judgements about what is "correct."
-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382
109 Torrey Pine Terr.
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
ihnp4!pesnta  -\
fortune!idsvax -> scc!steiny
ucbvax!twg    -/

emjej@uokvax.UUCP (01/16/85)

/***** uokvax:net.nlang / druxo!nap / 10:05 am  Jan 11, 1985 */
>Of course, *proper* grammar is of much greater importance than the
>deleterious effect of sexist language on half of humanity! :-)

Please, PLEASE, can *ANYONE* provide non-anecdotal evidence that using
"he" as the generic third person singular pronoun does horrible damage
to women and encourages nasty, sexist behavior and thought patterns?
What is valid about said claim, as opposed to my saying "Well, gee, I'm
male, so I guess I'm just generic--not like women, they're special. Oh,
God, I'm so depressed..." (apologies to Rich Rosen and Douglas Adams :-)
Do feminists who speak Romance languages worry about all those words with
the wrong "gender," or using the masculine ending for plural nouns describing
sets with at least one masculine element no matter what their cardinality?

>Besides, the singular *they* has a lot of precedence is scholarly writing
>as well as common usage by public figures:

>       Shakespeare: Everyone to rest themselves.
>              Shaw: It's enough to drive anyone out of their sense.
>  Scott Fitzgerald: Nobody like a mind quicker than their own.
>Dr. Mary Celderone: Everybody must develop their own standards of
>                    sexual morality.
>   The Phone Store: Give someone a phone of their own.
> Lord Chesterfield: If a person is born of a gloomy temper...they
>		    cannot help it.
>     J. F. Kennedy: If that person gets sick...they are in the hospital...
>      Senator Hart: ...the person who goes for food stamps does it
>		    because they are poor.

Yes, and it sounds just as ignorant when the famous do it as when you
and I do it. This is not a question of the Lords (or Ladies) of Grammar
thundering forth, it is the point of view mentioned by Mario Pei, where
the native speaker, asked by a person learning a language why one says
X instead of Y, has to eventually say, "look, buddy, everyone I know says
X, and if you don't want to be laughed at, you'll say X too."

						James Jones
/* ---------- */

jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (01/17/85)

> >        Shakespeare: Everyone to rest themselves.
> > 
> >               Shaw: It's enough to drive anyone out of their sense.
> > 
> >   Scott Fitzgerald: Nobody like a mind quicker than their own.
> > 
> > Dr. Mary Celderone: Everybody must develop their own standards of
> >                     sexual morality.
> > 
> >    The Phone Store: Give someone a phone of their own.
> > 
> >  Lord Chesterfield: If a person is born of a gloomy temper...they
> > 		    cannot help it.
> > 
> >      J. F. Kennedy: If that person gets sick...they are in the hospital...
> > 
> >       Senator Hart: ...the person who goes for food stamps does it
> > 		    because they are poor.
> 
> I note that, once again, all of these examples are of the use of a plural
> pronoun in reference to an original subject which was semantically plural.
> In all the above cases, the original subject implied the inclusion or
> exclusion of a large class of people - in fact, often the plural pronoun
> was used to emphasize that fact.
  
Right! And those are *exactly* the cases where the use of generic "he" is
considered to be the most conducive to the formation of stereotypes. So let's
stop advancing silly artificial pronouns which no one with a P.A.Q. 
(political acceptability quotient) of less than 180 will use and use the
words we have - namely "they" and "their". That's what they're (sic) for.

Of course, to reference a person whose sex is known, "he" or "she" should
be used as appropriate. I really have to wonder when people are squeamish
about even this.
					Jeff Winslow

ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) (01/18/85)

> We could try the construction my two-year-old developed (quite logically,
> if not *properly*)--amn't I.  :-)

Smart kid!  That's actually an obsolete form.  "Am't" is one, too.

-- 
Ed Gould		    mt Xinu, 739 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
{ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed   +1 415 644 0146

rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) (01/19/85)

>         "That is the only person to ever set foot on Mars.  They loved it!"

The discussion of gender-free third person singular pronouns is missing
an important distinction between two contexts.

In one context, the writer/speaker has a specific person in mind
and knows the gender of that person. In this case, the use of 'they'
sounds awkward:

         John was the only person to ever set foot on Mars.  They loved it!

SOME people who are arguing against the use of 'they' are using examples
like this to show how awkward this sounds. This is an unfair example
since I have not seen anyone on the net argue for this sort of use of 'they'.

In the other context, reference is being made to a hypothetical person,
or any one of several people, whose gender is therefore unknown.
In this case, the use of 'they'/'their'/etc. sounds quite acceptable to me,
especially when the antecedent is made plural.

	Everyone needs to post their hours on time sheets starting Jan 1.

-- 


Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell, San Francisco, California
{ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob

chabot@amber.DEC (l s chabot) (01/21/85)

James Jones  ==  >
> Please, PLEASE, can *ANYONE* provide non-anecdotal evidence that using "he"
> as the generic third person singular pronoun does horrible damage to women and
> encourages nasty, sexist behavior and thought patterns? What is valid about
> said claim, as opposed to my saying "Well, gee, I'm male, so I guess I'm just
> generic--not like women, they're special. 
...
> Yes, and it sounds just as ignorant when the famous do it as when you and I do
> it. This is not a question of the Lords (or Ladies) of Grammar thundering
> forth, ... 

How nice, Mr Jones, of you to put "Ladies" in parenthesis! where of course they
belong, as it is terribly unlikely to find women in the public life, including
the profession of grammarian or the hobby of usenet-thunderer.

Yes, women treasure their "special" status--special because they're entitled to
equal work for up to 90% of equal pay in so many places, because they're
entitled to have a credit rating dependent upon that of a relevant spouse, ...
ah! the "special" life.

L S Chabot
UUCP:	...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot
ARPA:	...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA

jlg@lanl.ARPA (01/21/85)

> >         "That is the only person to ever set foot on Mars.  They loved it!"
> 
> The discussion of gender-free third person singular pronouns is missing
> an important distinction between two contexts.
> 
> In one context, the writer/speaker has a specific person in mind
> and knows the gender of that person. In this case, the use of 'they'
> sounds awkward:
> 
>          John was the only person to ever set foot on Mars.  They loved it!


What nonsense!  If I don't know the person who went to Mars (I just came back
for Venus myself), but I know that SOMEONE went, then how can I possibly
know the gender of that person.  There are a lot of cases where you don't
have a particular person in mind but you know that the person is unique
(only one of them).  Since the gender of this unique person is unknown the
people on this net would have me use 'THEY/THEIR' as the pronoun for this
person.  BUT THERE'S ONLY ONE!!!!  This is the case of the use of 'they'
that sounds awkward - because it IS awkward.  I wont use it.

J. Giles

doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (01/22/85)

> > William Safire wrote an interesting essay on the grammatical
> > appropriatness of "Ain't I?" (it came from a contraction
> > of "Am not I?", necessarily interrogative).  But "ain't" is such
> > a tainted word these days we will probably never bring it back.
> > (Unfortunately I don't have this particular article of Safire's).
> > 
> > The story with "ain't" was that people were using ungrammatically
> > ("ain't she sweet?") so our fearless defenders of the language,
> > English teachers everywhere, eradicated its use by implying it
> > was "grammatically incorrect", even when used correctly as
> > "ain't I?".

Gee, I was always told that "ain't" was a word used by "colored folk"
and should never be used by a "proper white boy".  

At the time there were a lot of things that "proper white boys"
mustn't say and mustn't do because those things were said and done
by "coloreds".

**** Please no flames ****
I do not approve of the above attitude; I am only reporting what I
was told, not what I believe to be right-thinking.
**** Please no flames ****

-- 
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug

jfh@browngr.UUCP (John "Spike" Hughes) (01/23/85)

E.B. White in one of his essays (I think it is to be found in "The Second
Tree From the Corner") says that the word "ain't" is invaluable, and is sometimes
the only correct word. His example: "Say it ain't so!"

nap@druxo.UUCP (Parsons) (01/26/85)

>                                   This is the case of the use of 'they'
>that sounds awkward - because it IS awkward.  I wont use it.

So don't...you won't be the first person to resist change.

jlg@lanl.ARPA (01/28/85)

> >                                   This is the case of the use of 'they'
> >that sounds awkward - because it IS awkward.  I wont use it.
> 
> So don't...you won't be the first person to resist change.

Languages change in response to the needs of people to communicate with
each other in an efficient way.  Changes occur because, by growing
convention, the new structure conveys the intended meaning more clearly.
The use of 'they' with a singular referent does not improve the clarity
of the sentence it is in, in fact it degrades the clarity.  As such, I will
not be the only person to resist its use.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A:  Ms. Johnson's secretary says that they will come by tomorrow.

B:  Are both Ms. Johnson and her secretary coming?

A:  No, only one person is coming.  I just said 'they' because I don't know
    the gender of Ms. Johnson's secretary.

B:  Then why didn't you say 'he' as standard English convention requires.
    We would have saved ourselves a confusing exchange.

A:  To say 'he' would have been sexist, it would have implied that the
    secretary was male.

B:  Nonsense!  To say 'she' would have been sexist since it would assume
    outright that the secretary was female.  By convention 'he' means
    either a male or a person of undetermined sex depending upon context.
    In this case the context clearly implied the sex was undetermined.
    It's clumbsy, men should really have their own pronouns, but it works
    the way it is.  To use 'they' is really confusing since it ALWAYS
    refers to more than one person.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J. Giles

rgh@inmet.UUCP (02/02/85)

J. Giles writes:
> Languages change in response to the needs of people to communicate with
> each other in an efficient way.  Changes occur because, by growing
> convention, the new structure conveys the intended meaning more clearly.

Languages change in response to the desire to say new things,
or say old things in new ways.   "Efficiency" doesn't necessarily have
much to do with it.

> The use of 'they' with a singular referent does not improve the clarity
> of the sentence it is in, in fact it degrades the clarity. 

The construct can improve clarity, if what you are trying to
make clear is that you don't wish to specify the sex of your
referent -- either because you don't know, because the
referent is polyvalent (like "everyone"), or because you're
being coy.  ("A friend came over last night, and they stayed
till 3".) One of the "new things" many English speakers wish
to say is that using "he" in these cases bothers them, in
part because of its sexist connotation.  My observation is
that this construct is quite common in speech (among the well
educated, too), and that it isn't quite acceptable in
contemporary writing.  Sure it sounds awkward in places --
but so, increasingly, does generic "he". 

> A:  Ms. Johnson's secretary says that they will come by tomorrow.
> B:  Are both Ms. Johnson and her secretary coming?

Good point, but
  A: Mr. Johnson's secretary says that he will come by tomorrow.
  B: Which one is coming?

[Or even better:
  A: Dr. Who's assistant says that he will come by tomorrow.
  B: Who's coming?
  A: No.
]

	Randy Hudson
	{ihnp4,harpo,ima}!inmet!rgh

jlg@lanl.ARPA (02/05/85)

> > A:  Ms. Johnson's secretary says that they will come by tomorrow.
> > B:  Are both Ms. Johnson and her secretary coming?
> 
> Good point, but
>   A: Mr. Johnson's secretary says that he will come by tomorrow.
>   B: Which one is coming?
> 
> [Or even better:
>   A: Dr. Who's assistant says that he will come by tomorrow.
>   B: Who's coming?
>   A: No.
> ]

Very good. But there is no way to salvage the first sentence, the ambiguity
of the second is easy.

    A: Mr. Johnson's secretary is coming by.  He will come tomorrow.
    B: That's good.

The third is equally easy.

    A: Dr. Who's assistant is coming by.  He will come by tomorrow.
    B: Dr. Who usually has a female assistant.  What's the gender of this one.


  J. Giles