From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: 22 Aug 92 22:50:06 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Aug21.235443.23863@Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>In article <10455@scott.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug20.160932.7499@rdg.dec.com> cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn) writes:
>
>>>Thought readers here might appreciate these old notes, posted 6 years ago
>>>on the singular use of "they" in English. This usage dates from 1526 <...>
>
>>>I hope that this will establish in everyone's minds that the use of 
>>>singular "they" is as correct as anything can be in English.
>
>>The use of singular "they" is as correct as anything can be because it
>>dates from 1526?  
>
>Oh, come off it.  Do you see a "Therefore" between the two paragraphs?

Yes, I do, - an implied one.  Don't you see it?  Otherwise how can the
old notes, which are all about the age of singular "they", establish
anything regarding its correctness in people's minds?

>><...>  Given that every single Indo-European language (bar
>>the few which have lost the category of gender) uses its equivalent of
>>`he' as a gender-neutral pronoun, I can't help thinking that this was
>>the strategy of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, etc., and in this
>>sense gender-neutral "he" is the original state of affairs, hence as
>>natural as anything. 
>
>Au contraire!

Pas du tout.  In the subsequent paragraph you actually confirm what
I'm saying here, and I welcome the additions.

>English STOPPED using genders for things other than
>humans and the occasional animal; accordingly, gender became closely
>allied with sex in English, unlike all those other languages.
>Accordingly, English-speakers felt the need for a generic singular that
>was NOT male- or female-gendered, because they did not always wish to
>specify the sex of the person being referred to.

This sounds very reasonable.  I may not quite see how that need arose,
but I'd like to thank you for being the first netter to propose an
explanation of the fact that English, of all languages, developed a
gender-neutral pronoun in addition to a full set of gender-specific ones.
'Tis a very long time that I've been asking for such an explanation,
and the response was always an argument from political correctness.

Of course, now I'm going to ask what pronoun was used as a generic
singular BEFORE English stopped using genders for things other than
humans and the occasional animal, and before English speakers felt the
need for an ungendered generic pronoun.  I suggest to you that it was
the same one that is used in all other Indo-European languages, viz.
the third person singular masculine pronoun.

>Now calm down and look at the argument you call "ridiculous" [that
>"[i]t was only later grammarians who tried to enforce the rule that
>they are plural words, and force us to use 'he', etc.]  a little more
>closely.

I'm quite calm, just a little annoyed by being told that grammarians
have invented (copied from Latin, whatever) something that evidently
has always been there.

>It is *not* an argument from antiquity; instead, it is an
>argument from continuity.  The usage has been established for a long
>time, AND IS STILL WITH US.  i.e., it has not changed.

Can't the same argument from continuity be made for gender-neutral "he",
which is older than singular "they", and is also still with us?

>Why does this matter? Because the usual criticism of generic-singular
>"they" is that it is a modern coinage, brought about by "political
>correctness" or some such nonsense.

It is not nonsense, it is a legitimate impression, albeit probably an
incorrect one.  You see, that's what one encounters all the time.  Not
an argument from continuity, not one which links singular "they" to
other developments in the English language, but an argument from
political correctness.  Those who would tell us that gender-neutral
"he" is unfair to women etc. often sound as though they have invented
singular "they".  Hence the reaction of those of us who actively
dislike political correctness (or some of its incarnations).

This, incidentally, is also my response to E Kirschenbaum's reply
to E Sommarskog's remark.

In any case, I'll admit that singular "they" is not a modern coinage
invented by feminists, but neither is gender-neutral "he" a (less)
modern coinage invented by grammarians.

>The usage is, and has long been, standard and accepted and often
>preferred by great speakers and writers.

Often preferred?  Often, but not always?  So gender-neutral "he" never
completely disappeared from English, even for a short time?
-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
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