mlf@teddy.UUCP (Matt L. Fichtenbaum) (01/07/85)
... Aw, people... There have been a couple of notes proposing or condoning "their" as a singular possessive, to eliminate the gender inherent in "his" or "her." I'd like to vote for the other side... "Their" is _plural_! and sentences such as "everyone should sign their name" are _wrong_. If you don't believe that, then try using "they" instead of "he" or "she:" "Everyone should sit down when they arrives." since "arrives" has a singular subject (he/she, from "everyone"). Let's keep "they, them, their" for plurals and not corrupt them while attempting to fix he/she! -- Matt Fichtenbaum "Our job is to rescue fires, not put out your cat."
gary@arizona.UUCP (Gary Marc Levin) (01/08/85)
> "Their" is _plural_! > and sentences such as "everyone should sign their name" are _wrong_. > If you don't believe that, then try using "they" instead of "he" or "she:" > "Everyone should sit down when they arrives." > since "arrives" has a singular subject (he/she, from "everyone"). > -- > Matt Fichtenbaum Historically, ``they'' and ``their'' were used for universal singular nouns. See the OED under ``they'' definition 2 [Often used in reference to a singular noun made universal by ``every'', ``any'', ``no'', etc. or applicable to either sex (= `he or she').] As for agreement of number, ``you'' takes a plural verb even when it is used in its singular sense. [Ex: You are beating a dead horse.] Gary Levin / Dept of CS / U of AZ / Tucson, AZ 85721 / (602) 621-4231 -- Gary Levin / Dept of CS / U of AZ / Tucson, AZ 85721 / (602) 621-4231
gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam) (01/09/85)
> = Matt Fichtenbaum > There have been a couple of notes proposing or condoning "their" as > a singular possessive, to eliminate the gender inherent in "his" or "her." > I'd like to vote for the other side... > > "Their" is _plural_! > > and sentences such as "everyone should sign their name" are _wrong_. Aha! I _knew_ someone would bite! _You_, sir, are wrong. There is a long and distinguished history of using "their" preceded SINGULAR noun. > If you don't believe that, then try using "they" instead of "he" or "she:" > > "Everyone should sit down when they arrives." > > since "arrives" has a singular subject (he/she, from "everyone"). Now that doesn't sound natural at all, does it? No one I know would say that. But they WOULD say: "Everyone should sit down when they arrive." Still sound "funny" to you? You know very well that people use "they" like that in speech every day! > Let's keep "they, them, their" for plurals and not corrupt them while > attempting to fix he/she! You obviously missed my posting of the justification of "they" with singular antecedents. I can post it again or mail it to you if you like. -- Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam
ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) (01/09/85)
> I'd like to vote for the other side... > > "Their" is _plural_! > > and sentences such as "everyone should sign their name" are _wrong_. > > If you don't believe that, then try using "they" instead of "he" or "she:" > > "Everyone should sit down when they arrives." > > since "arrives" has a singular subject (he/she, from "everyone"). > > Let's keep "they, them, their" for plurals and not corrupt them while > attempting to fix he/she! > > -- > > Matt Fichtenbaum > "Our job is to rescue fires, > not put out your cat." Why? Defining "they" as *both* singular and plural solves the problem, is in moderately common colloquial use, and isn't hard to get used to once you start. I haven't seen another solution that is as easy to use or as elegant. English is a *living* language, after all. What's right is what people use. -- Ed Gould mt Xinu, 739 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94710 USA {ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed +1 415 644 0146 (I'd rather not be parochial.)
andyr@ihuxa.UUCP (Ronald R. Anderson) (01/09/85)
In response to: > gary@arizona.UUCP (Gary Marc Levin) > As for agreement of number, ``you'' takes a plural verb even when it > is used in its singular sense. [Ex: You are beating a dead horse.] This seems to be an anomaly of the language. Some languages (French and Russian that I know of) have different verb forms for the singular and plural second person. (Their second person pronouns also differentiate singular and plural.) Norwegian, however, uses the same form of the verb regardless of person or number. Back to the main topic: I personally find it difficult to read "s/he" (perhaps my social conditioning?). I do prefer consistency both in speech and writing when referring to an individual human being (i.e. consistently "he" or "she" or "one" or "they"). Note that I said PREFER. I can easily adapt. Discussion on this topic seems to get heated at times; please direct any flames to /dev/null. -- -- Ronald R. Anderson AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, Illinois [...ihnp4!]ihuxa!andyr
marcus@pyuxt.UUCP (M. G. Hand) (01/09/85)
In Message-ID: <1108@teddy.UUCP> mlf@teddy.UUCP (Matt L. Fichtenbaum) states:
> sentences such as "everyone should sign their name" are _wrong_.
yes! "everyone should sign their names... when they arrive." :-)
Actually, although its not strictly grammatically correct to mix these
singulars and plurals, it is accepted usage and has been so by all but
pernicketty (sp?) latin masters for over a hundred years. I think that
the sound or readiability of a sentence is important: often the ambiguities
are resolved by context and never arise. Unless you're writing a legal
document their and they are quite acceptable ways of avoiding he/she,
and the stilted one's.
(But, anyway, wouldn't one who assumed that "he" did not include the female
also assume that "they" applied to that same group? Ie. the reader makes an
assumption early in the document about whom the document refers)
--
Marcus Hand {ihnp4!}pyuxt!marcusmarcus@pyuxt.UUCP (M. G. Hand) (01/09/85)
Consider such languages as french where the 2nd person singular pronouns are
considered far too personal for all but the closest of friends
and familiars. One uses "vous" almost exclusively in preference to "tu".
While not strictly comparable to the he/she problem, it does indicate that
English is not alone in using plurals to refer to singular entities in
regular written and spoken language.
--
Marcus Hand {ihnp4!}pyuxt!marcusandyr@ihuxa.UUCP (Ronald R. Anderson) (01/11/85)
> From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam) > Aha! I _knew_ someone would bite! ... > "Everyone should sit down when they arrive." > Still sound "funny" to you? ... Yes. When who arrives? Their Majesty the Monarch of England? While the point that "they" is a genderless substitute for "she" or "he" is well taken, it appears (to me at least) to open the door to greater ambiguity. It is not apparent to me, based upon the limited context of the statement, to whom "they" refers. "Our guest speakers will arrive shortly. Everyone should sit down when they arrive." - and - "Standing in this room is forbidden. Everyone should sit down when they arrive." imply to me a plural and a singular (respectively) reference by "they". While "they" may be a valid singular-genderless pronoun, it retains the ability to be a plural pronoun. Clarity is important to understanding. -- -- Ronald R. Anderson AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, Illinois [...ihnp4!]ihuxa!andyr
joe@fluke.UUCP (Joe Kelsey) (01/11/85)
Did everyone miss the article <788@amdahl.UUCP>, in which gam cites the Oxford English Dictionary as explicitly condoning the use of they, them and their as singular generic pronouns? His article was very well written and I found it quit enlightening. I plan to save it to use whenever anyone challenges my use of they, them, or their as singualr generics. Also, I can't help but point this error out: _________________________________ From: mlf@teddy.UUCP (Matt L. Fichtenbaum) If you don't believe that, then try using "they" instead of "he" or "she:" "Everyone should sit down when they arrives." since "arrives" has a singular subject (he/she, from "everyone"). _________________________________ In this sentence, "arrive" has a plural subject, "they". "Everyone" is the subject of the verb "should sit". /Joe
gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam) (01/13/85)
> = Ronald R. Anderson [...ihnp4!]ihuxa!andyr > > From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam) > > Aha! I _knew_ someone would bite! ... > > "Everyone should sit down when they arrive." > > Still sound "funny" to you? ... > > Yes. When who arrives? Their Majesty the Monarch of England? > > While the point that "they" is a genderless substitute for "she" > or "he" is well taken, it appears (to me at least) to open the > door to greater ambiguity. It is not apparent to me, based upon > the limited context of the statement, to whom "they" refers. > "Our guest speakers will arrive shortly. Everyone should > sit down when they arrive." > "Standing in this room is forbidden. Everyone should sit > down when they arrive." > imply to me a plural and a singular (respectively) reference > by "they". While "they" may be a valid singular-genderless > pronoun, it retains the ability to be a plural pronoun. Clarity > is important to understanding. Your examples are not problems with "they", they are problems of abiguity of two possibly related statements. There are ways of removing the abiguity. In the written form, replace the period between the two statements with a semicolon. This makes the relationship between the two statements more binding. In speech, one could replace the period with the word "and". my rewritings: "Our guest speakers will arrive shortly, so please be seated as they arrive." "Standing in this room is forbidden; please be seated as you arrive." (note that "you" in our language often has an abiguity as to whether it refers to one person or many. In the case of the above statement it doesn't matter how "you" is interpreted). -- Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam
sra@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Scott Anderson) (01/14/85)
> While the point that "they" is a genderless substitute for "she" > or "he" is well taken, it appears (to me at least) to open the > door to greater ambiguity. It is not apparent to me, based upon > the limited context of the statement, to whom "they" refers. > "Our guest speakers will arrive shortly. Everyone should > sit down when they arrive." > - and - > "Standing in this room is forbidden. Everyone should sit > down when they arrive." If the second sentence is taken out of context, there may indeed be ambiguity, but I think that in the above two examples, it is apparent to everyone to whom the "they" refers. Contextual distinction of this sort is used extensively in some languages, e.g. Spanish, where pronouns are seldom used except when really necessary to avoid ambiguity, or to provide emphasis. Scott R. Anderson ihnp4!oddjob