# It's "He" goddammit. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 1, 2000, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230 "2000-07-01T02:33:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/1 "2000-07-01T02:33:46Z")
That’s it. I’m fucking sick of these stupid bastards who can’t understand that you use the word “he” to refer to a gender neutral individual. No, it’s not sexist, you hairy-armpitted tree-humping hippie dipshit. No, you most certainly do not say “Them.” “Them” is a fucking plural, dumbass. “Them” means MORE THAN ONE PERSON. If I see another worm infected piece of ferrit shit use “them” to refer to a single person I will piss in his mouth and refuse to stop until he admits that he enjoys it and calls me “Daddy.” All you man-hating dykes who insist on saying “She” can suck monkey dung. It’s been “He” for a long, long, long time. There is no reason to change it just because you are afraid of dicks and facial hair. Go take your Wymyn’s Rights bullshit to the kitchen and make me some fucking pie. And then there are those new age dumbass liberal editors who insist on changing correctly used male pronouns to “S/he” or “Him/Her.” Does anybody fucking realize how rediculous this looks? How do you pronounce “S/he” when you’re reading out loud? “S/he” is not a fucking word. No, you don’t have the right to go inventing words, dicksmack. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/2 "2000-07-01T02:48:06Z")
On a friendly note, you oughta consider changing that there sig line of yours. I finish reading a rant like that, I find myself nodding in agreement when I get to it. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/3 "2000-07-01T03:10:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > All you man-hating dykes… > > \*\* Interesting. If I want to say “she” instead of “he” when speaking on a gender neutral basis, I’m a man-hating dyke. So, since you seem so hell bent on using “he”, you’re a woman hating fag. Well, now that we’ve got that all cleared up, I can rest easy. ---
**Author:** ![Ayesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Ayesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ayesha)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/4 "2000-07-01T03:27:51Z")
I prefer he/she/it. It’s got a beat you can dance to. Is this a problem for you ? If so, get squicked. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/5 "2000-07-01T04:13:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*\* > > > > All you man-hating dykes… > > > > \*\* > > Interesting. If I want to say “she” instead of “he” when speaking on a gender neutral basis, I’m a man-hating dyke. So, since you seem so hell bent on using “he”, you’re a woman hating fag. Well, now that we’ve got that all cleared up, I can rest easy. > \*\* Glad I helped clear it up for you. ---
**Author:** ![SterlingNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SterlingNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SterlingNorth)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/6 "2000-07-01T04:20:12Z")
> [@](#): > > If I see another worm infected piece of ferrit shit use “them” to refer to a single person I will piss in his mouth and refuse to stop until he admits that he enjoys it and calls me “Daddy.” I don’t think it is wise to use the pit to try to pick up dates. Or maybe I’m too old-fashioned. Or we can play _Spelling & Grammar Cop_! Let’s begin: > [@](#): > > That’s it. I’m fucking sick of these stupid bastards who can’t understand that you use the word “he” to refer to a gender neutral individual. > No, it’s not sexist, you hairy-armpitted tree-humping hippie dipshit. > No, you most certainly do not say “Them.” “Them” is a fucking plural, dumbass. “Them” means MORE THAN ONE PERSON. If I see another worm(-)infected (comma) piece of ferrit ( **ferret** ) shit use “them” to refer to a single person (missing comma) I will piss in his mouth and refuse to stop until he admits that he enjoys it and calls me “Daddy.” > All you man-hating dykes who insist on saying “She” can suck monkey dung. It’s been “He” for a long, long, long time. There is no reason to change it just because you are afraid of dicks and facial hair. Go take your Wymyn’s (invinted word–see below) Rights bullshit to the kitchen and make me some fucking pie. > And (Generally, you shouldn’t begin a sentence with “And”) then there are those new age (comma) dumbass (comma) liberal editors who insist on changing correctly used male pronouns to “S/he” or “Him/Her.” Does anybody fucking realize how rediculous ( **ridiculous** ) this looks? How do you pronounce “S/he” when you’re reading out loud? “S/he” is not a fucking word. No, you don’t have the right to go inventing words, dicksmack (Invinted word–ironic, huh?). Anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/7 "2000-07-01T04:27:24Z")
DNFTT ---
**Author:** ![PRISM02](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@PRISM02](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PRISM02)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/8 "2000-07-01T04:36:13Z")
I don’t know if he is a troll and, besides, in many cases, I **like** trolls. They often make things interesting so long as they don’t go too far. The board has been a bit dull since all of the major trolls were banned. There doesn’t seem all that many postings with real teeth in them. Besides, I somewhat agree on the ‘s/he’ bit and as far as I can recall, in religious teachings, God has been referred to as male. I would assume that since no one has ever seen God, and that He spoke to some people in the past, that the timbre of His voice led them to believe He is male. Jesus _did_, according to record, refer to God as his ‘Father.’ ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/9 "2000-07-01T04:47:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > If I see another worm infected piece of ferrit shit use “them” to refer to a single person I will piss in his mouth and refuse to stop until he admits that he enjoys it and calls me “Daddy.” > > I don’t think it is wise to use the pit to try to pick up dates. > > Or maybe I’m too old-fashioned. > \*\* ROFLMAO! Touche, SterlingNorth. > [@](#): > > I don’t know if he is a troll and, besides, in many cases, I like trolls. They often > make things interesting so long as they don’t go too far. The board has been a > bit dull since all of the major trolls were banned. There doesn’t seem all that > many postings with real teeth in them. I’m not a troll; just trying to add a little humor to something that annoys me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/10 "2000-07-01T04:50:21Z")
I said DNFTT not to denigrate the OP, but because overall this thread is seeming to develop nasty, troll-thread-like qualities to it. Maybe the “man-hating dykes” phrase set me off. I’m sorry, I’m tired, and I’m going away now. Also, some shit from Korea is trying to hack my PC right now, and the non-stop firewall warnings are starting to really piss me off because I just did a portscan on him, and I still can’t find a way to fight back… ---
**Author:** ![Jo3sh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@Jo3sh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jo3sh)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/11 "2000-07-01T04:56:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Anyone else? > \*\* Well, yeah. He’s wrong, to boot. [here’s](http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html) a link to a web page which defends the singular “their.” Friedo: Essentially, what we were all told in English class is a load of shit made up by anal-retentive people who wished to make an entirely chaotic subject rational and orderly. They attempted to do this by applying rules from Latin, which has nothing to do with English. The singular “their” dates back to at least the 14th century, and has been used by such notables as Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Frances Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Fielding, Maria Edgeworth, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, 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. Do you think that your measly little intellect outweighs theirs? I don’t presume that it does. And learn to spell “ferret.” Asswipe. ---
**Author:** ![Obvious\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Obvious\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obvious_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/12 "2000-07-01T05:25:21Z")
Screw em… go friedo GO GO!!! ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/13 "2000-07-01T05:33:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*\* > > Anyone else? > > \*\* > > Well, yeah. He’s wrong, to boot. [here’s](http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html) a link to a web page which defends the singular “their.” > > Friedo: > Essentially, what we were all told in English class is a load of shit made up by anal-retentive people who wished to make an entirely chaotic subject rational and orderly. They attempted to do this by applying rules from Latin, which has nothing to do with English. The singular “their” dates back to at least the 14th century, and has been used by such notables as Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Frances Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Fielding, Maria Edgeworth, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, 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. > > Do you think that your measly little intellect outweighs theirs? I don’t presume that it does. > > And learn to spell “ferret.” Asswipe. > > \*\* Well I stand corrected. But it still pisses me off, goddammit. And whose to say Latin doesn’t have anything to do with English? Almost all of English is based on Latin and German, as I recall. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Screw em… go friedo GO GO!!! > \*\* Right on, brotha! ---
**Author:** ![Jo3sh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@Jo3sh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jo3sh)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/14 "2000-07-01T05:53:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Well I stand corrected. > \*\* Then shut up. \*\* > [@](#): > > But it still pisses me off, goddammit. > \*\* Why does it piss you off when you just admitted you were wrong? You have no reason to be pissed off. The people whose speech offended you so strongly were right. There’s nothing to be pissed off about. Drink your milk and go to bed. \*\* > [@](#): > > And whose > \*\* who’s \*\* > [@](#): > > … to say Latin doesn’t have anything to do with English? Almost all of English is based on Latin and German, as I recall. > \*\* Many English words have been lifted from a variety of languages over the centuries. This is the very reason that we cannot apply the rules from any one language to our collection of words; we have had to make our own rules that fit as we’ve gone along. In short, you’re an idiot. You were wrong to get pissed off in the first place and you’re wrong to continue being pissed off. So piss off. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/15 "2000-07-01T14:58:13Z")
Then “you” should not be used as a singular either. The singular is “thou.” Language changes, and masculine is not generic. Either drop the pronoun (Every doctor should treat (his) patients) or use an article (Everone put on a (his) hat. ---
**Author:** ![beakerxf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc79bd/32.png) [@beakerxf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beakerxf)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/16 "2000-07-01T17:55:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > And whose to say Latin doesn’t have anything to do with English? Almost all of English is based on Latin and German, as I recall. \*\* Hmmm, actually I think English is derived from Latin and _Greek_. German is also a descendant of Latin. So I think English would be considered a sister language to German, rather than having derived itself from German. Oh, and I believe that man-hating dykes spell it “womyn” rather than “wymyn”. ---
**Author:** ![Dumb\_Ox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dumb\_Ox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumb_Ox)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/17 "2000-07-01T18:11:48Z")
> [@](#): > > And whose to say Latin doesn’t have anything to do with English? Almost all of English is based on Latin and German, as I recall. To quote Paticia T. O’Connor, author of _Woe is I_, “This is a misconception out from under which modern grammarians have been trying to get us.” Many individual English words may derive from Latinate languages, but structurally, English is a Germanic language. Misunderstandings about this have led to such popular “fake” grammatical rules such as “Never split an infinitive” and “Never end a sentence with a preposition.” Languages change. It’s time to find a gender-neutral substitute for the masculine generic pronoun. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/18 "2000-07-01T18:25:47Z")
> [@](#): > > No, you don’t have the right to go inventing words, dicksmack (Inv **i** nted word–ironic, huh?). SterlingNorth, oh the irony! Dumb Ox: Isn’t English technically a dialect of German? ---
**Author:** ![Dumb\_Ox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dumb\_Ox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumb_Ox)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/19 "2000-07-01T19:06:24Z")
**android209** > [@](#): > > Dumb Ox: Isn’t English technically a dialect of German? My linguistics knowledge is quite limited, so I can’t answer authoritatively. My understanding is that in the common usage of the word “dialect,” the answer would be no. I know that dialects of the same language can differ from each other so much that speakers of one dialect won’t understand speakers of another dialect, as sometimes happens in China. But I don’t think English qualifies as a dialect of German in this way. On the other hand, a linguist might say that French and Spanish are both dialects of Latin, meaning that they share a common descent and belong to the same language family. In this technical sense, you could say that modern English and modern German, while they are separate languages, are both dialects of [the] German [language family]. But I would defer to anyone with a more complete understanding of linguistics on this question. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2000, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230/20 "2000-07-01T22:11:41Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t know if he is a troll and, besides, in many cases, I like trolls. They often make things interesting so long as they don’t go too far. But they always go too far. That’s what makes them trolls. I despise anyone who abuses this board and tries to justify it. Remember Serlin/Sentinel’s “experiments”? What a dateless loser. Which brings me to freido, our angry male Computer Science major. Sounds like a real heartbreaker to me. Try to avoid complex social issues like linguistics or intergender politics. Discussing the thrilling world of Unix seems to be your speed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-he-goddammit/24230.md?page=2)