He/she/they again.

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a_sharp

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At the risk of appearing misogynist (which I am not), I take umbrage with the damage misplaced political correctness has done to one aspect of the English language in particular: the ubiquitous "they" and "their" subsitution for "he" and "his."

Thirty years ago the women of the world rose up on their high heels, burned their bras, trashed cosmetics, and demanded equal opportunity and equal everything else. I in fact applauded the idea and still do. But before that time, writers of both sexes had used the masculine when referring to people in general. "Every author should mind his grammar" has become "their grammar," which grates me like nails on a chalkboard.

One solution is the awkward "he/she" alternative. Oh great, we got 'em both. But it makes just as much sense to include "it" so we don't offend gays. (Grab that one, PC posters!) My point is that the result is ludicrous and creates a reading snag. The same goes for mixing "he" and "she" in the same sentence or paragraph, just to make sure we cover our a**es.

This misbegotten fear of offending the female gender is splattered all over the Internet in blogs, web pages, news articles, and (perish, forbid) even this forum. I understand its use but I don't condone it. It's as bad as the proliferation of possessive "it's" in the same venues.

If you think I'm a prig, so be it, I've a tough shell. But why inspire confusion on this issue? Are teachers and professors demanding this sort of nonsense? Or has the English language simply gone to blazes in a bucket?

End of rant, but I'd like your opinion, pro or con, for (a) the reason behind this misuse, (b) whether you care, and (c) what might be done about it if you do.

And no, I'm not writing a dissertation on it. :)
 

rugcat

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It's not a PC problem. It's a problem with the structural limitations of English. We don't have a gender neutral singular pronoun. You can't use "their" because it doesn't agree with the singular noun. You can't use "he" or "she" because you mean both. The convention of using "he" to refer to both men and women strikes me not so much as anti PC as it does simply inaccurate. It has nothing to do with angry women storming the literary battlements.

In fiction, I write around it -- recasting my sentences so the problem disappears. In posting, I usually use he/she, which is awkward, but I don't care that much.

If anyone has a good solution, I'd love to hear it. It is a problem, gramatically speaking.
 

RLB

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Are teachers and professors demanding this sort of nonsense?

I know you're talking about poor grammatical construction and not gender neutral language. It still brought to mind a paper I wrote as a freshman at Vanderbilt. The professor knocked me down a letter grade for using "mankind" instead of "humankind." I think she was trying to teach me a lesson, but I still get annoyed when I remember it!
 

veinglory

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I don't see they problem, but then they in the singular has been standard English in New Zealand for many years--about as long as I have been reading. What is the objection? Language changes. People hated the metric system too, but they adapted.
 

FennelGiraffe

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I've seen the claim that the singular "they" was a valid usage a few centuries ago which later dropped out of favor. (I have no idea how reliable that is.)

As rugcat said, it's a deficiency of the English language. I don't like any of the alternatives, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. When I can't, I waffle between "he", "s/he", and "they" depending on my mood.

My fantasy is that a generation from now, texting will have succeeded in converting "you" to "U". Once that happens, the pattern of "I" and "U" will be extended to third person becoming . . . "E" :tongue .
 

Dawnstorm

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It's not even necessarily a gender issue:

"A pregnant woman should consult their physician before tanning indoors or outdoors. " (here)

"A mother should also protect their child from harm, and part of this means mothers have to reach out to organisations that are there to help." (here

Edit: How the * did I put this into the thread? Three hers! ["A woman should talk with her health care provider about her personal risk of getting breast cancer." (here)]

In none of these cases the singular their is an issue of gender indeterminacy. All pregnant women/mothers/women are female.

And it's not a recent development either. You'll find examples in Shakespear and Oscar Wilde, I'm told. Strunk's original Elements of Style from 1918 argues against singular they (in the commonly-misused-words section).

Then, there's the construction: "Somebody hasn't X-ed their Y." This is often ironically indefinite, directly addressing the "somebody" in question ("Somebody hasn't done their job.")

It's an interesting topic.
 
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I've read non-fiction books where he/she alternate on each page, in the words of the author, "To avoid causing offence to either gender."

Me, I use 'he'. Don't like it, read someone else's work.
 

Marlys

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I've seen the claim that the singular "they" was a valid usage a few centuries ago which later dropped out of favor. (I have no idea how reliable that is.)
Thing is, it may have dropped out of favor, but it's never dropped out of usage. According to this site, here's a list of some English-speaking authors who have used the singular they:

Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, the King James Bible, The Spectator, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Frances Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Fielding, Maria Edgeworth, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, George Eliot [Mary Anne Evans], Charles Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, George Bernard Shaw, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, W. H. Auden, Lord Dunsany, George Orwell, and C. S. Lewis.
 
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a_sharp

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Me, I use 'he'. Don't like it, read someone else's work.

Hear, hear, o Scarlet one!

Thanks to all. I'd never realized (realised?) there were so many prior instances of singular "they" in literature. And all along I've striven to be so good...:cry:
 

JoNightshade

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I'm gonna weigh in on the anti-their side. I use the masculine pronoun and this has been the accepted use for... a long time. Sure, you can cite SINGLE instances where this structure is used in Shakespeare or the KJV, but for 99% of the time the masculine pronoun prevails. It is standard use, and I don't think language should be changed to fit the whims of political correctness.

Also, it sounds good to me. I don't LIKE how "their" sounds and it feels awkward. When I read "he" or "his" or "mankind," I ASSUME it means everyone.
 

Shady Lane

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I also use he, and agree with your post, except...

But it makes just as much sense to include "it" so we don't offend gays

I must be confused.
 

Shady Lane

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All right, no problem. Just wanted to make sure I didn't have to whip out my tolerence fork.

I have no idea what a tolerence fork is, but I'm kind of dying for one right now.
 
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