From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: 27 Aug 92 16:15:00 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <10511@scott.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.025341.12877@Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>In article <10476@spark.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>[_simile_]

>>The statements are not all about age.  They are about <...>
>>specific sentences and situations in which "they" has long been used, etc.  

>Yes, that's right, specific sentences and situations.  It is rather
>interesting, isn't it, that when people offer examples to show how
>natural singular "they" sounds, the antecedent is most frequently a
>"-body" pronoun or a noun phrase containing a quantifier such as
>"every", "some", "any" or "no".  Could it be that singular "they"
>sounds worse if it has to refer to exactly one person?

Nobody's complained yet, and I've used it a hundred times in my postings
to this group.  

At any rate, the "generic" issue usually relates to the *unspecified*
sex of the person/s in question.  Those eight words are used for most such
situations, so it's not improbable that the usage has become most common
in connection with them.  But the plain "Who" also takes it, as in Jane
Austen's "Who makes you their confidant?"  "His" or "her" would be assuming
quite a bit, especially in a Jane Austen novel.  But that's exactly one
(unspecified) person.

>>Gendered words (the personal pronouns) were
>>*almost always* used for identification of a person's sex.  That is, the
>>gender-sex connection became far stronger in English than in other
>>languages.

>Not really.  Russian _on_, unlike English "he", can refer to a host of
>inanimate objects, but it can't refer to a female being any more than
>English "he".  In other words, if it has a definite antecedent, it
>can't belong to the female sex.  So there is a clear connexion between
>it and the male sex.  

But not a universal connection, as you yourself state.  Tables, chairs,
etc, only have a sex by the wildest of metaphoric or analogic connections.
They receive the same gendered pronoun as a sexed being does; this state of
affairs is *not* the English one.

>Yet it is, and always has been, the one and only
>gender-neutral pronoun, and I'm not sure that its ability to serve as
>such (that is, to refer to a person who may turn out to be a woman) is
>conditioned by the fact that there are many masculine inanimate nouns.

German is similar.  But I think the conditioning is obvious; nobody thinks
along sexual lines when hearing of "der Tisch" or "die Ruebe."  The 
der-die-das system is not expected to give clues as to sexual identity;
accordingly, it is not understood to do so.

>As for "he" and "she" being used for sex identification, well, "they"
>is used for number identification, isn't it? 

Usually it's the verb that identifies numbr in the third person; here, the
setnence will often have a change of number: "If anyone parks in my spot,
they get their windshield bashed in."  Not "he gets."  Number agreement
between subject and verb overrides the agreement across parts of the sentence
there.             

> There are versions of
>English in which "them" is a plural marker.  The number-quantity
>connexion is as strong as anything, and yet, as you see, if language
>chooses to evolve in such a way as to violate it, it can do that.

Quite right.

>>Nobody thinks of a penis when they hear "der Tisch" in German.

>But many would think of a penis when they hear "der Penis".  :-)

What do they think of when they hear "Das Weib"????????

>>When we hear a gendered pronoun, we think of a person -- and
>>have to loop back to see whether a male or just anyone was meant by "he."
>><...>  And some other situations require
>>it, too, as with "Who makes you their confidant?"   Answering "Jane" to
>>the question "Who makes you his confidant?" is pretty weird to most
>>English speakers.

>Language is largely made of conventions; it is what its speakers make
>of it.  If they were able to ignore the obvious plurality of "they",
>then they could just as well have ignored the equally obvious
>masculinity (and connexion to the male sex, as you said) of "he".  It

But they *didn't, and that, as the poet said, has made all the difference.

>is fine by me if they didn't, I just mean that you won't be able to
>prove that what happened was logically necessary, although I accept
>that there were features of English which helped it.

OK.  Nobody's going to catch *me* using a "Historicly inevitable" (Marxist
translation of "manifest destiny") argument.

>>In fact, someone
>>posted a long linguistic discussion of "they" just a few days ago.

>It hasn't materialised here.

Perhaps it could be reposted.

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

>>But it hasn't!  It went away until the Latinists tried to drag it back.  [1]
><...>
>>>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?

>>Right.  Both are in use.  (Which is the thing the "grammatically
>>correct" can't stand.)  [2]
><...>
>>>So gender-neutral "he" never
>>>completely disappeared from English, even for a short time?

>>No, not so far as I know.  [3]

>Why do I feel that [2] and [3] contradict [1]?

Huh?  What grammarians invented was the prohibition on g-s "they," not
some specific pattern of usage.  What went away was the old feature of
grammar in which g-s "they" *was* not used, as opposed to a system where
it *could* not be used. 

>>>>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.

>>Really?  

>Absolutely.  Beyond any doubt.  Just read the net for a while.

The net is not exactly a mirror of our society just yet.  And out there
in the Real World (tm), I don't encounter the "they"=PC argument often.  
I read about it in books on the language long before I heard people
arguing about inclusive language (which is a very good thing when done
right, I might add).

>>>Those who would tell us that gender-neutral
>>>"he" is unfair to women etc. often sound as though they have invented
>>>singular "they". 

>>Look, nobody's perfect.

>Let's not think in all-or-none terms.  One doesn't have to be perfect
>in order not to be <insert favourite derogative expression here>.
>There are even people ("they"-users all of them) who would have the
>community of speakers incorporate an artifact such as "E", "thon" or
>something similar into the language.  How much do you think they care
>for continuity?  (Yes, I know that lumping all of one's opponents
>together isn't a sound strategy, but it may be that some of us have
>the wrong allies.)

They can bluster all they want; it's hard to push the river.  Someone
dropped "Ms." into the river, and it soon became common; all the other
attempts have failed, pretty much.

>>> Hence the reaction of those of us who actively
>>>dislike political correctness (or some of its incarnations).

>>Alas, most of those who claim to disdain it. are also those who label
>>the things they don't like, "PC."

>I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I have no serious
>reason not to like singular "they" (I have absolutely no sympathy for
>Latinists, and it is precisely the most exotic features of English
>that I like the best), except that, by some unpleasant coincidence, it
>_happens_ to be politically correct.  

On the left.  In some circles on the right, it is politically correct to 
disdain it.  PC is to be avoided on both wings, and 

    ---->>>  FAR MORE IMPORTANT,  <<<----

PC should be *exposed for what it is* on both wings.  The right plays the
PC game at least as well as anyone on the left; in fact, they're the ones
who use the term, and who apply litmus tests (i.e., tests for proper 
"incorrectness") the most.  PC is real; the popular perception of it is
a clever manipulation of a minor phenomenon into exactly its opposite.

>That, however, is a very
>bothering circumstance, enough to keep me in the other camp.

In short, you apply PC-think at the second level: "If it's PC to say
this, then I must avoid saying it; anything else would be incorrect."

I think you're letting people jerk you around, my friend.

Roger