Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Interessante da MIcrosoft

Incollo una frase trovata su sito Microsoft:
"Even the most diligent person is likely to have some spam arrive in 
her mailbox from time to time."
Non sapevo che "person" fosse una parola femminile. Voi che ne dite?
P.
-- 
Crediamo innanzitutto necessaria l'abolizione della pastasciutta, 
assurda religione gastronomica italiana.

 Non sapevo che "person" fosse una parola femminile. Voi che ne dite?
Non credo che "person" c'entri niente. Temo che il pronome femminile sia
dovuto alla mania di essere politicamente corretti. Per me c'è da diventare
scemi vedendo che un "his" diventa un "her", per poi ritornare un "his", il
quale muta in un "his/her", che poi diventa "their".
A proposito di "their", se proprio volevano essere neutri ("his" per me lo
è già), avrebbero potuto usare "their": "Even the most diligent person is
likely to have some spam arrive in their mailbox from time to time"
(giusto?).
Ciao, FB
-- 
L'importante è che risplenda tu, sola primadonna e immarcescibile leggenda
del tuo pianerottolo.
(Lucangel su it.cultura.libri)

 P.
As you know, English has no genders for common nouns, for the most part.
This is an overly-PC attempt to be -- well -- Politically Correct. I
remember the first few times I met such constructions in print. Without
exception I had to re-read what I had previously read to try to figure out
who the woman was they were "suddenly" referring to. Up until the last
twenty or so years, one always used the masculine pronoun in impersonal
sentences, but then brassieres started burning and things changed. Lots of
things. :)
The "new" practice seems to have waned a bit now (the practice of using
female pronouns for the anonymous person cited in such expressions) but you
will run into it occasionally.
We still haven't been able to come up with a viable alternative to the
gender-fairness issue in English (and I wonder if other cultures even care
about it; it seems excessive to be so conscious, but then, I'm a male.)
I tried to propose "shhe" (pr.: sh&-HE), "herm" and "hers", for the
subject, object and possessive pronouns a while back, but no one listened,
so we are stuck with "he or she", "him or her", "his or her"; "they",
"them" and "their", or the occasional -- and still somewhat jolting -- use
of the feminine pronouns.
-- 
If you feel the need to e-mail me, un-not my address first.

about it; it seems excessive to be so conscious, but then, I'm a male.)
Sometimes you can find the plural.
"Even the most diligent person is likely to have some spam arrive in 
their mailbox from time to time."
Would that be correct?
Sebastiano

Would that be correct?
I don't think so.
Of  course,  both of us know that even the most diligent persons are likely
to have some spam arrive in their mailbox from time to time. ;)
-- 
Bye, Ghost of Lem Novantotto
Informazioni su it.*: 
http://www.news.nic.it
Archivio news: 
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=it
Linee guida della netiquette: 
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html



Define "correct"! :) Grammatically, no; not at present, anyway, however
it's gaining in use and will probably someday be considered grammatically
correct. If I were writing something I cared about I would recast the
sentence -- not always an easy thing to do, as it usually involves
rethinking the entire concept -- to comprise the plural:
"Even the most diligent people are likely to have some span arrive in their
mailboxes from time to time."
Not hard in this instance, but in a longer work it can become tedious.


 correct.
Do you mean "their" is not correct there, of that it's not correct at all?
You can read it several times in "Collins Dictionary for Advanced
Learners'" ("if someone does this, they are trying to..."). Is it commoner
in Britain perhaps?
Bye, FB
-- 
Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. 'She was determined to drop his
acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been
acquainted with him at all'. (Jane Austen)

 Bye, FB
I mean that technically, it's grammatically incorrect. You say
"if *someone does*" (singular noun and verb) "they are trying" (plural
pronoun and verb); the result is a mismatched antecedent.
I don't deny that it happens, and more and more frequently. No one will
"correct" you for that usage, but people like me will be re-casting the
sentence in their minds.


 Ok, but in this case wouldn't it be Politically inCorrect towards males?
Yes, of course, but in the shadow of centuries of our culture using the
masculine pronouns, we're in this period of "adjustment" (or "atonement",
if you will,) after which, I believe, things will settle down. Maybe by
then we'll have neuter terms.


 subject, object and possessive pronouns a while back, but no one listened,
I sometimes use [s]he, where the s in square brackets stands for an
optional s. Or h[er|im] for her/him, where the pipe symbol | is a
logic OR, so that means an alternative between two options. 
I am not sure if I make myself understood, though :)



Yes, perfectly fine. I had considered spelling it s/he (still pronouncing
it sh&-HE), but then I figured no one would want to be using slashes in
their writing, so I dropped it and added the extra "h", but it really
doesn't matter because no one caught on to it.


 about it; [...]
Other cultures speak other languages, so they presumably have different
grammatical issues than English has...
E.g., if the example above would be translated in Italian, there would be
no question that that "persona" should be referred to with feminine
pronouns (and feminine articles, adjectives, participles etc.), because
"persona" is a grammatically feminine noun, regardless that it refers to a
man or a woman.
Moreover, most occurrences of English subject and possessive pronouns that
might raise "gender-fairness" issues would be omitted when translating
into Italian and other languages. We do not normally say: "the user checks
HER mailbox to see if SHE has mail" but, "L'utente controlla LA mailbox
per vedere se HA posta" (literally: "the user checks THE mailbox to find
if HAS mail").
I Italian, we have a totally different grammatical feature that might
raise "gender-fairness" problems. That is that almost all nouns referring
to persons can assume either a masculine or a feminine ending, so we have
no way of naming people in a "gender-neutral" way.
E.g., whereas English "the president", "the workers", "a mathematician" do
not specify the sex of the person(s) being referred to, the Italian
equivalents "il presidente/la presidente", "i lavoratori/le lavoratrici",
"un matematico/una matematica" have two forms that do indicate
*biological* sex (in addition grammatical gender, that is never a problem,
per se).
When not talking about specified people, the masculine form of these pairs
is normally understood as having a sex-neutral value, especially in the
plural. So, when you read about the powers of "il presidente" or the
rights of "i lavoratori" nobody thinks that the president and the workers
necessary have to be men, or that if a woman was elected she'd have
different powers, of if women were engaged they'd have different rights.
However, this is neutrality of the masculine is sometimes refused by some
people, so it may happen to read pedantic expressions such as "il o la
presidente", "le lavoratrici e i lavoratori", "i/le lavoratori/-trici".
But I would say that this kind of "political correct" monstrousities is
still much more rare in Italian than it is in English.
--
Cingar
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 man or a woman.
Italian pronouns don't agree with the subject, but with the object.
Bye, FB
-- 
Se dico "siedi!" manca l'oggetto.
Siedo chi? Lei o me?
(da it.cultura.linguistica.italiano)

 Italian pronouns don't agree with the subject, but with the object.
Gůlpete!! La tentazione di mettermela nella signature č forte... :-)
--
Cingar
P.S. Ma credo di aver capito cosa intendi: i pronomi e gli aggettivi
possessivi italiani concordano con il genere della cosa posseduta, non con
quello del possessore. (Non che ciň c'entri granché con quanto stavo
dicendo, eh...)
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 dicendo, eh...)
Beh, sì, un po': si direbbe "sua casella di posta" in ogni caso perché
"sua" concorda con "casella", non con il soggetto. 
Ciao, FB
-- 
"Gli americani sono ignoranti per loro stessa natura"
that is "The Americans are naturally ignorant"
(Paolo Bonardi on it.cultura.linguistica - 
http://snipurl.com/7ryg
)

 "sua" concorda con "casella", non con il soggetto.
(E insisti con 'sto "soggetto"! Mo' la signature te la becchi.)
Comunque, sì, hai ragione. Però un "problema" simile c'è anche in italiano,
quando la cosa posseduta è una persona: "Mio cugino fa basket", "La mia fa
danza moderna". In inglese, i due non avrebbero avuto bisogno di rivelare il
sesso dei rispettivi cugini.
--
Cingar
"Italian pronouns don't agree with the subject, but with the object."
(FN on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)


 sesso dei rispettivi cugini.
Forse avrei dovuto dire "non concorda con il genere di colui che parla, ma
con il genere del nome cui si riferisce"?
Ciao, FB
-- 
"Nasalization is just a part of life"
(Joey DoWop Dee on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)

 con il genere del nome cui si riferisce"?
No, guarda, sono fuori strada. Oggi qualche neurone è rimasto a letto fino
a tardi.
Ciao, FB
-- 
Io ho deciso di rifiutarmi di vederlo: Ettore con la faccia di Eric Banana
mi fa venire i conati.
(commento sul film "Troy" su it.fan.scrittori.tolkien)

 con il genere del nome cui si riferisce"?
[Ormai irrimediabilmente OT]
Nelle grammatiche in italiano (non necessariamente *di* italiano) ho sempre
visto "possessore" e "cosa posseduta".
--
Cingar


 visto "possessore" e "cosa posseduta".
Ecco, ecco!
