As an aside, the “traditional” rule–using “he” when a single person’s gender isn’t known–is a really stupid rule in some cases. We know, for example, that Madonna, George Michael, and Debbie Gibson each had his greatest success during the eighties, but damn does that “his” sound awkward. Folks who insist on “traditional” rules need to be aware of how grim they sometimes are, and how mellifluous an alternative like “their” can be.
I’ve always hated that one, too. Most style guides now recommend rearranging the sentence to avoid having to use it. Failing that, they recommend using he or she. I hope that using they will become the preferred method before too long.
Those are known genders, so you would rewrite the sentence since English has no singular gender neutral third person pronoun.
To my ears “to each their own” still sounds wrong, and I’m a young dude.
~Max
ninja’d
No, that’s not the rule. The traditional rule is, to quote The Elements of Style,
The sentence as I wrote it follows the traditional rule ( when referring to a single member of a mixed-gender group, use “he”) exactly.
If it sounds dumb, that’s my point: the traditional rule leads to awful results. If following a traditional rule is so clunky that you need to rewrite the sentence to avoid the rule’s implications, maybe ditch the rule.
It’s right there, “unless the antecedent is or must be feminine”.
~Max
And the antecedent in @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness 's sentence isn’t or mustn’t be female, because his list included George Michael. By the old rule, so long as there was even one male in his list, the pronoun had to be “he”, not “she” or “they”.
EDIT: The old rule would, at least, have allowed “she” if the list had consisted of Madonna, Debbie Gibson, and Cindi Lauper. Because in that case, even without knowing which specific one was meant, the antecedent must be female.
Not meaning to junior mod, and I’m as guilty as anyone, but maybe we could take this aside to another thread?
ETA: Ohhhh… I just junior modded a mod!
Archaic? Oh, is 1980 archaic now? If I had used “they” as a singular pronoun on a theme in English 102, a letter grade would have been deducted. We’re not talking 1575 here.
Yes, it is.
My Elements of Style in the same section reads,
Consider these strategies to avoid an awkward overuse of he or she or an unintentional
emphasis on the masculine:Use the plural rather than the singular
The writer must address his readers' concerns. Writers must address their readers' concerns. Eliminate the pronoun altogether.
The writer must address his readers' concerns. Writers must address readers' concerns. Substitute the second person for the third person.
The writer must address his readers' concerns. As a writer, you must address your readers' concerns. No one need fear to use he if common sense supports it. If you think she is a handy
substitute for he, try it and see what happens. Alternatively, put all controversial nouns in
the plural and avoid the choice of sex altogether, although you may find your prose
sounding general and diffuse as a result.
~Max
When was yours published? The one LHoD linked to was from 1920.
'99, 4th edition. In other words, it’s archaic.
~Max
Right, so do you understand how your cite isn’t relevant to the discussion now?
We were talking about someone who retired from teaching this month. Probably not someone who has been teaching the 1920 standard.
~Max
While Reagan certainly didn’t do anything to HELP the AIDS crisis, I think it was going to happen whoever was president, and whatever the politicians did. Yes, it might have been less, but it would still have been a BFD.
But I agree with your sentiment – Yes, to a large degree, AIDS forced gay men out of the closet. They suddenly had giant purple marks on their face, for instance. Trans people seem to be coming out of the closet for less horrible reasons. And I hope it stays that way. I REALLY REALLY hope that.
But the result of gays coming out of the closet was that we recognized there are more gay people than we used to think there were, and society made many reasonable accommodations for gay people. And gay people now enjoy nearly the same level of mental health as straight people, where back in the days of the closet, they suffered inordinate rates of suicide and depression. I hope that trans people can similarly find reasonable accommodations and better mental health.
Agreed. The rate of suicide among transgender kids is just stupid-high. We need to fix that, especially those of us who remember the 80s.
Good lord, man. I was pointing out the traditional rule, which has changed. Showing me that the traditional rule has changed doesn’t exactly address what I said.
It EXACTLY addresses what you said – it perfectly proves your point.
If you would say, “Funny, you don’t look plural” to someone today, based on what would have happened 42 years ago, yeah, that’s an archaic response–analogous to the archaic objection to the singular “you”.
Your use of one singular pronoun (which used to be plural) to object to a different singular pronoun (which used to be plural) was just a tasty bit of irony, that’s all.
I may have misunderstood you, and I apologize. When you mention the traditional rule I assumed you meant before they became acceptable (in style manuals) as a singular pronoun. Which would have been this past decade.
~Max