Talk:Singular they/Archive 2007-04

message: What's with all the citation-needed marks in the article?
From the Wikipedia style guide: "This should be used sparingly; Wikipedia has a lot of undercited articles, and inserting many instances of  is unlikely to be beneficial." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.237.124.70 (talk • contribs) 
* If you go through the archive, you will note 'singular they' is a contentious issue with lots of POV, strongly held opinions/beliefs, etc (I'm being diplomatic ;-) In an effort to 'put money in mouth', contributors have been encouraged to back up their statements with cites, so far this is working fine albeit slowly but for this particular page it seems to be a good solution to the alternative - revert & edit wars. Suffice it to say, this page appears to be working together for a better tomorrow. (us Linguists, cunning or not, are a strange breed) Bridesmill 19:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations needed 

message: We read: One solution in formal writing has often been to write he or she, or something similar, but this is condemned as awkward when used excessively , overly politically correct,  or both. Whenever I see or hear the phrase "politically correct" my eyes glaze over; but that aside, what is this "something similar"? And while I haven't looked at a recent revival of "Fowler", I'd have thought that the awkwardness of "he or she" is not a matter of its excessive use but of the ghastly chains of genitives, etc., that it compels: If an examinee raises his or her hand, an invigilator can ask him or her to write his or her specific question. . . . -- Hoary 15:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I understand -- although if you're agreeing with anyone about "political correctness" then that anyone is not me. I'll try to improve this part later today (my time) unless anyone beats me to it. Hoary 01:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Or something

message: Bridesmill writes above: I think perhaps we need something which while acknowledging the occasional existence of this form in some speech, also explains why it is grammatically problematic.
Here we may disagree. First, it's not a matter of "occasional existence":
singular they is all over the place. Secondly, I don't regard it as
grammatically problematic at all. I'd regard it as grammatically
problematic if speakers of L1 English spontaneously produced
examples that grated on my (L1 English) ear -- but they don't. Of
course anyone can come up with hypothetical examples of singular
they that are ungrammatical (e.g. *"The woman walked in to get their
hair cut"), but these say nothing about the grammaticality of idiomatic
examples. The usage does seem to be an issue for the kind of
"grammarian" who might also say that since "me" can't be used for the
subject of a verb, "What, me worry?" is wrong and should instead be
"What, I worry?"* Perhaps "why it is grammatically problematic" just means
"why prescriptivists fret about it"; if so, OK, but this hardly seems
very important to me, and indeed one might suggest that they fret about
this kind of thing because it's their livelihood. -- Hoary 01:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * As I hope is obvious, such a prescription would be utterly wrongheaded (it would flout most L1E speakers' ideas of what is and isn't idiomatic, and show an ignorance of syntax). Hoary 04:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A grammatical problem?

message: :the second paragraph in the tagged section is the sloppy one.
:While the grammatical aspects of referring to intersexual or transgender persons are important, I think the mention is slightly out of place here, on singular they. 
:the sapir-whorf reference is what made me tag this section, tho. I think politcal correctness, (one thing), equal rights (another, tho I get that language can oppress), and s-w (the idea that grammatical categories can shape the way a speaker thinks about the world/reality) cannot all be rattled off quite so casually. I'll be back. Ka-zizzlMc 16:02, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: k, for that section there are no footnotes, only 2 "citation needed" tags, and I clicked that fowler reference thing- it doesn't go anywhere. I see some ISBNs. you want I should buy th books? I agree that those aspects contribute largely to the sing.they phenomenon. Ka-zizzlMc 03:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: sorry I said it was sloppy. that was harsh. Ka-zizzlMc 03:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I was gonn clarify th Sapir-Worf reference but 

message: I have the THEY userbox on my userpage. Some anonymous user came to my talk page and just posted "Rubbish" about THEY. I thought it was funny. Really, they should have come here.  mitchsensei June 27 1am-ish
:I'll declare my colours, I'm a . But it warn't me promise. I don't think no grammar gonna stop me abusin dat to make me point more better by breakin it. Alastair Haines 08:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Driveby Insulting

message: Would it be appropriate to include a comment about foreign languages in which agreement between the various parts of a sentence is much stronger than it is in English, and the use of a plural-form pronoun simply could not be contemplated to be applied to a singular entity? My knowledge is of French and Spanish, both of which have specific rules that the masculine form of a pronoun is used unless it is known that the referent noun is feminine. Also, both have a distinction between genders in the third person plural pronouns, and the rule is that masculine is used unless all the members of the group referred to are feminine. Note that, in these languages, nouns that we would regard as common (ungendered) are always one or the other.--King Hildebrand 23:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it would be inappropriate, per se, but I don't think that speculation on why singular they is so English-specific would contribute much to the article. (And if we do include such speculation, I don't think we need to look so far: English is the only language I know of that has a mandatory gender distinction in the singular third-person personal pronouns, but not in the plural third-person personal pronoun. Replacing French il/elle with ils or elles, or Spanish él/ella with ellos or ellas, or the like, will make no difference, because doing so won't remove the burden of assigning a gender. It's also less necessary, in that il/elle and él/ella indicate grammatical gender, not natural gender — you can simply use the noun personne/persona and use feminine pronouns and adjectives without implying anything about the actual person you're referring to.) Ruakh 00:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You know, before I made that statement, I actually went to check on Russian, and found that Russian grammar's table of personal pronouns doesn't actually identify each pronoun's person, gender, and number; very unhelpful. BTW, regarding "ships being feminine," apparently that's no longer universal; Lloyd's List started using it a few years back, and apparently it's not alone. (That's really not here nor there, but I thought you might be interested.) Ruakh 00:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me go fix that right now...Unfortunate about ships; I'd heard rumours to that effect, though we still call them "her"; again the obsession on 'gender neutral'; I think in many ways that whole debate has missed the point - but that's a personall opinion 
 Bridesmill 01:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The United States Navy is far from gender neutral in its language - as a female I was a marksman and had several other qualifications whose official title was -man. We would also man the hose during firefighting exercises and man the rails when we entered a new port, but our ship was an it. Durova 01:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foreign languages 

message: I don't think they is really "the gender-neutral third-person plural pronoun" when it is used with a singular antecedent, so the sentence reads in a self-contradictary fashion. Perhaps inserting "otherwise" before "gender-neutral" would fix this? 
(Also, the citation for "Fowler 1992" later on in the article is broken, which I'm not sure how to fix) JulesH 21:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First sentence. 

message: There's a discussion going on at the Manual of Style about singular they. Feel free to drop a line. Strad 03:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manual of Style 

message: There's a bit of disagreement between a few editors atm. Ruakh has been involved with this page for some time. A couple of other editors are anonymous. There's a fair bit of good, but unattributed material being added. I suggest we interact a bit here on the talk page. I think we may be able to agree to an overall presentation that hangs together, clarifies what the issues are, using facts in the literature.
Here's a suggestion from me, please let us know what you think.
Section 1: Basic Meaning
*They [+0] definition: they has a long tradition of usage where antecedent is indeterminate (explain from literature what this means for non-grammarians).
*Uncontentious examples: someone, anyone, no one, every one, each, all, any, "a worker ...", etc.
*Plural interpretation of these examples of indeterminacy.
Section 2: Issue and Proposed Solutions
*Late twentieth century move for "gender inclusive" language in general.
*Traditional generic he.
*They [+gender issue]: indeterminacy of they suitable and has precedent for indeterminacy with regard to gender.
*Other alternatives and stylistic concerns:
:*cumbersome she or he
:*generic she
:*confusing alternation of generic he and generic she
:*(s)he can't be read aloud
:*thon xe and other suggestions to coin a word
:*rephrase the sentence
Section 3: Current Practice
*Examples of unambiguously singular they where gender is indeterminate.
*Examples of same that feel forced, inappropriate or unclear. (infelicity not simply grammatical prescriptivism)
Summary:
*Traditional solution of generic masculine is ruled as inappropriate in almost all settings.
*Singular they comprehensible and accepted in all spoken regsiters and dialects.
*Many style guides however still recommend rephrasing sentence in formal writing.
If anyone cares to know my own approach. I helped with the backgammon article here at Wiki. Consider the following. "Backgammon is a game for two players. They take it in turns to role the dice, except on the first role, where they both roll one die. After that, before rolling the dice a player has to decide whether to double. If they decide to double ..." This is problematic. I recommended, and others accepted, generic she throughout the article.
Please record it here if you think any of the above are false, unattributable or misrepresent a position. Please note if there are any major considerations not covered, or if the weighting favours any particular view.
Even more helpfully though, if you have suggestions for "cannonical" sources for any of the points above. Please note those, 'cause ultimately that's what this article needs to rest on. Alastair Haines 03:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Let's talk