Talk:English usage controversies/Archive 1

message: I have marked this page with the NPOV dispute tag. I can tell that some attempt has been made to contextualize the boldly prescriptive statements, but there still remain such baldly non-neutral things like "XXX is wrong" and "XXX is correct". I'm going to try to excise the offending matter but I'm afraid the page will be nothing more than stub when I'm done. --Nohat 05:09, 2004 Feb 6 (UTC)
:I believe that I have excised the offending statements without diminishing the page. It seems to me that the way out of NPOV disputes is to describe who thinks something is correct. Given that prescriptivists believe in grammar rules as being absolute, then it makes sense to attribute this belief in correctness to them.
:My concern now is that I've bent over backwards to accomodate the descriptivist point of view and have erred in the other direction. Some may argue that descriptivism is itself an embodiment of NPOV, and therefore it would be impossible to be "too descriptivist". Feedback on this topic is welcome. 
:I would, however, request that the page not become stubby. I believe it can be fixed without major excision. -- hike395 06:11, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV dispute

message: I am not so sure about the first example of singular they.  It strikes me that in the sentence given: 
 Someone who smokes damages their health.
Someone could be seen as plural as easily as they could be read as singular.  As an example if the first word were People making the sentence:
 People who smoke damage their health.
I think the two sentences have essentally the same meaning.  Dalf | Talk 08:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They have essentially the same semantics, yes, but grammatically, the subject of the first sentence is singular, as the verb (smokes) is is conjugated for the 3rd person singular. Nohat 16:38, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I did notice that verb agreement when I was typing it (and also the shift to damage).  However, the meaning is plural (even in the first senence), so I would contend that in the specific example given, it is "someone/smokes/damages" and not the "they" that is incorrect (if we want to say any of it is). Dalf | Talk 03:40, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. If you feel that the use of a singular verb with the pronoun someone is wrong, then fine. Get that viewpoint published somewhere, and if it catches on, then Wikipedia will mention that some people hold it. In a sense, this article is not about whether singular they is correct, but about who thinks that it's correct and who thinks that it's not, and why each group thinks the way it does. Ruakh 22:45, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that was a bit harsh I think. I think Dalf is just a little confused about the difference between grammatical plurality and semantic plurality. In a sense, "someone" could be considered "plural" because the way it is used here refers to all people. However, grammatically speaking, it is decidedly singular, and this is made clear by the fact that the word is some one, as in one, unitary, singular. The only form of verb that goes with someone is a singular one. You will not find that native speakers use plural forms of verbs with the word someone as the subject. The sentence "Someone who smoke damage their health." is much more ungrammatical in standard English than the example sentence. Nohat 00:10, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dalf, if you were offended, my apologies. I did not intend to be harsh. I was simply attempting to explain that Wikipedia's goal is not to present arguments that could be made, no matter how valid, but rather arguments that are made, no matter how invalid. Ruakh 15:02, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is fine and I was not offended, so to speak.  In any event your response  indicates that I did not make my meaning clear anyway.  I was not suggesting that in the example given wikipedia should advocate any particular position.  I was merely arguing that the example sentence is not the best one that could be used for the article, to illustrate the dispute. That is to say that this sentence later in the section: Many prescriptivists, however, argue that the singular they is injudicious, signifying more than one person when the speaker intends only one person. Does not apply to the example given because the speaker in the example clearly does not mean a singluar person. I suppose it does not matter that much if someon reads the main article it has a more complete discussion of the usage in cases of interderminat people vs. more specific people. Dalf | Talk 05:23, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see; I think I disagree with your analysis, however. I think the someone in "someone who smokes damages their health" is semantically singular, in that while it's not referring to one specific person, it's still only referring to one person at a time. I think this distinction becomes more clear if we say something like "people with guns frighten me," where it really wouldn't make sense to say "someone with a gun frightens me" (or "someone with guns frightens me"); the former ("people with guns frighten me") makes sense because we're talking about a group as a whole, while the latter ("someone with a gun frightens me") doesn't make sense any more, because it's not something that's true of individual members of a group. (We could say "someone with a gun would frighten me if they came into my neighborhood," but that's different.) By contrast, "someone who smokes damages their health" is really making a statement about each person who smokes, which obviously implies (but is not grammatically equivalent to) "people who smoke damage their health." Ruakh 16:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Singular they 

message: Is this article an elaborate joke? __earth 17:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would you think this article is a joke? Nohat 17:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Sorry. Was too "excited" when I commented. Apologize. __earth 02:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's a little bit too soon for April Fool's Day isnt it?, 

message: Since when does Polish use an instrumentative case in, "It is I," type of sentences? We follow the, "It is I," pattern, not the, "It is me," or, "c'est moi." We always use Nominative there and it is not merely a mistake to use a different case; such usage simply does not exist. The Author is asked to make sure he has a vague idea of what he uses as an example to support his arguments. It is correct that we use an oblique case in, "If I were him," kind of sentences, but we always say, "It is he." Consequently, whereas the Author is correct on general usage, his specific example is a complete failure. 84.10.216.128 17:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Articles on Wikipedia don't have specific authors; rather, anyone who wishes to improve an article can edit it. If you're knowledgeable on a subject and feel that Wikipedia is inaccurate or misleading on a point, please fix it rather than simply commenting on the discussion page. (That said, it's much more helpful to comment on the discussion page than not to mention it at all, so thank you.) Ruakh 19:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Polish equivalent of, "It is I"