All-Purpose Pronoun | Hacker News Reader

All-Purpose Pronoun

nytimes.com

26 pointsrobg26 comments

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.

Sapir-Whorf has recently had a resurgence, with the most prominent being the work of Lera Boroditsky:

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/

"...because he, like most native speakers of Sinitic languages, fundamentally doesn't see a need to distinguish gender in personal pronouns."

I'm not sure that's correct. In Mandarin the word for he, she and it is "ta" but the written characters in all three cases are different. There is a distinction; your friends mixture of using he and she is more likely to be similar to the confusion felt by English speakers learning French for example and having to distinguish between using la and le.

In frequent interaction with native Mandarin speakers, I'll vouch for the first statement: mistaking 'he' and 'she', 'him' and 'her' is easily the most common mistake I hear.

The character is different, sure, but the female ta (她) is a relatively recent linguistic invention. I'm not sure about the inanimate ta (它) but I imagine a similar story. In casual speech there is really little distinction. If someone needs to clarify, they tend to use 女 and 男.

The character is different, sure, but the female ta (她) is a relatively recent linguistic invention. I'm not sure about the inanimate ta (它) but I imagine a similar story.

Yes, drawing such a distinction in written Chinese is based on imitation of European languages and has been standard in school instruction for not more than a century.

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?

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.

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

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005298.h...

"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.

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.)

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.

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. How can one be vague in a book of 50 pages is beyond me.

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.

"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...

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.

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.

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

I like this idea better then "they".

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?

"the idea of using "he" to be gender neutral doesn't bother me. Maybe it's because I'm a sexist"

Or perhaps you don't mind being subtly emasculated.

Is hu pronounced hew?

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

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

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