From: baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron)
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Organization: University of Illinois
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 14:24:58 GMT
Keywords: prescriptive, proscriptive

In article <8705@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil> matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt) writes:
>From: matt@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil (Matt Rosenblatt)
>Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
>Keywords: prescriptive, proscriptive
>
>Who needs proscriptive rules?  Especially rules based on "resentment"?
>
>					-- Matt Rosenblatt
>					(matt@amsaa.brl.mil)


I don't see my comment, "Give it up, folks," as a proscriptive rule a tall,
a tall.  It is simply a comment.  While the usageasters argue over the
status of pseudo-generic he, people who prefer to use language react more
and more negatively to its occurrence.  If this isn't a sign of language
change then I don't know what is.  Sol Steinmetz went on record a couple of
years ago in the NYTimes that the most significant new vocabulary trend in
English in the last 15 years has been a shift toward sex-neutralization
and away from linguistic sexism.  The examples are clear to any observer
of the language: increased use of Ms.; decreased use of generic masculine
pronouns and of generic _man_; decreased use of masculine-marked nouns
(mailman, fireman).

None of these trends is categorical or uncomplicated.  Ms. shows strong
evidence of straying from its original function as a marriage-neutral
term (not a blend of Miss and Mrs., as all the dictionaries allege, but
an abbreviation of Miss going back at least to the 1930s, probably earlier).
Data shows (sic) that many young women today use Ms. as the equivalent of
Miss, a yuppified term that will become Mrs. when they marry (it remains
to be seen whether they in fact do change titles).  And another signiifcant
number of young women associate Ms. only with unmarried (divorced, widowed)
women of their mothers' generation.

Singular _they_ has always been the term of choice in spoken English, and
has frequently appeared in standard written English texts as well.  
Objections to it have had little or no effect on its spread, though it
retains enough grammatical stigma that usage books warn against it.

But there is no doubt that generic _he_ is in sharp decline in edited
writing.

That being said, the issue is further complicated by the fact that the
sex-neutralization of written English tends to be accomplished by fiat
(pre and proscription) rather than by some more random process (it's not
clear that language change can be random, anyway, instead of a response to
some social pressure).  Linguistic edicts engender resentment, whether
they tell you to use he for all persons, or to avoid the generalization.

Linguistic guidelines handed down by vice chancellors, editors, style
books, or the legal system tend to get opposed. This is not
unexpected.  More interesting, they frequently tend to backfire (as, for
example, the new direction being taken by _Ms._), since linguistic control
can never be complete or absolute, or maybe even barely effective.

Now it's time for one of Baron's Laws:

Baron's Fourth Law of Linguistic Thermodynamics states that the more 
people object to a trend in language, the more likely it is that the 
trend has gone beyond the point of now return.

An important corrollary to this Law: the more an individual objects to
a form, the more like you are to find it in his or her speech or writing
if you look long enough.

And remember: I _never_ use smileys.

--

The fourth law of thermodynamics: the heat of the discussion is inversely
proportional to the square of the knowledge.

--





debaron@uiuc.edu               (\                   217-333-2392
                               \'\             fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron                    \'\           __________
Department of English           / '|         ()_________)
Univ. of Illinois               \ '/          \ ~~~~~~~~ \
608 S. Wright St.                 \             \ ~~~~~~   \
Urbana IL 61801                   ==).            \__________\
                                 (__)             ()__________)
Newsgroups: sci.lang