Revisited: Is there a gender-neutral substitute for "his or her"?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
41

Alex_D, you show a propensity for arguing as if the plural of anecdote is data. You do it in your post #14 and again in post #16. It is not a propensity that will result in your views in debate being given weight.

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
Exapon Mapcase, (regarding the post immediately above), science hasn’t taken sides on either debate and you’re miserpresenting it to support your own views.
[/quote]

Actually, it has [emphasis added]:

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
You only think this way because you have been brought up in a world so sexist and male-dominated that it seems reasonable for you to think this way. The truth is that almost everybody who hears Man does indeed think “men.” **There have been a million tests in which this has been shown to happen. ** (The effect is far greater when the scale is smaller. Referring to doctors or soldiers or cops as “men” or “he” produces an image of a male doctor, a male solider, and a male cop.) Poetic and beautiful? Or oppressive and soul-destroying?
[/QUOTE]

Deal with it.

[emphasis added]

No, not entirely consistently, just mostly. Minor exceptions don’t disprove rules.

Your idea that the “he” be used solely as the singular indefinite, so that it loses any bias towards the male is (a) laughable, since the primary meaning of “he” is the former, so it’s never going to happen and (b) would leave the language without a gender specific term, something that seems to bother you in some instances but not others, viz:

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
Alright, we can use they. But what will happen to the use of “they” as the plural? Shall our language lose distinction between the singular third-person pronoun and the plural? That would be a heavy loss. But you’re right, we should explore all alternatives. I’m just postulating one of many (each none too perfect).
[/QUOTE]

42

Ya know, folks, there is a gender-neutral singular pronoun. It is called ‘it’. But for some reason, it seems, no one (including myself) can bring itself to use it. It just sounds weird.
(I abhor the use of “their” as a singular pronoun.)

43

The word “it” is being used for animals. Rather than say “The squirrel was electrocuted when he gnawed on a power line” (making people wonder who examined the genitalia of the fried squirrel), use the phase “when it gnawed…”

It does sound creepy when talking about people. Instead of “What a lovely baby. What’s its name?” I’d go with “What’s the name?”

44

Ah, gee, people are animals, too! :wink:

Using ‘it’ for a baby of unknown gender has long been an acceptable usage. But we seem to have an innate revulsion to using it for adults.

45

Well, the reason we don’t use “it” for adult humans of indeterminate gender is that it’s considered disrespectful. But there are some such humans for whom I feel no respect, anyway, such as Internet trolls. So in those cases, I just go ahead and use “it”.

46

[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
If “you” can be used for singular and plural, why not “they”?
[/QUOTE]

So, when are you language warriors going to move on to Spanish and associated Hispanic languages and free Hispanic peoples everywhere from the tyranny of having all words divided into masculine and feminine case? Cause that’ll be fun to watch …

It’ll make all kinds of sense. But I don’t think they’ll be going for it …

47

Why are people even talking about having men in their lives and menopause? Those two things were examples of accusations which are as out of line and ridiculous as accusing me that gender-neutral words threaten my manhood. “Such bigotry” was in reference specifically to the sentence preceding it and the sentence which inspired it.

Was that honestly unclear?
Or would some people rather not try to read or understand what I say, but gloss over it and let words and sentences transmute into ones they are comfortable ridiculing?
anyway.
Exapno Mapcase, you said some very intelligent things. The quote you bring up talks perfectly of the dynamic interaction between language and thought. On the one hand words do have a powerful influence on our thinking. But on the other is the fact that Raymond Williams’ very essays were about how the meanings of those powerful and influential words still ended up changing over time to meet society’s shifting predilection. So it doesn’t at all make sense that you at the end then snap and say that ‘he’ transmuting over time into a gender-neutral pronoun “is rejected by science as sheer impossibility.”

[QUOTE=Princhester]
Alex_D, you show a propensity for arguing as if the plural of anecdote is data.
[/QUOTE]
Princhester, anecdote is the scout and navigator of science. And the plural of anecdote is “weak data.” Only someone who does not have a strong and critical mind should shy away from extracting any value out of an observation. If you say I extract too much, then argue in what way. To forbid forms of observation off-hand is a very crude and dim method. And it also ignores how “scientific” data, such as that produced by psychology studies, is often very weak and airy as well. In fact, it often only slightly transcends good anecdote. This doesn’t mean anecdote should be accepted or that studies be rejected. It means you should hone those strong critical skills. And not judge things by the labels they seem to carry.

[QUOTE=Exapno, restated by Princhester]
The truth is that almost everybody who hears Man does indeed think “men.” There have been a million tests in which this has been shown to happen. (The effect is far greater when the scale is smaller. Referring to doctors or soldiers or cops as “men” or “he” produces an image of a male doctor, a male solider, and a male cop.)
[/QUOTE]
Well that’s exactly the thing. I specifically refered to, I repeated again and again, that I was talking about the word Man in reference to mankind. The largest scale. Your own words should indicate that the effect is weakest here, confirming my anecdote. See how easy it is for even strong data to be misrepresented by an uncareful mind?

[QUOTE=Princhester]

[QUOTE=Alex Dubinsky]
If ‘he’ was ALWAYS used as the singular indefinate, even when referring to nouns which have little choice but to signify females, then the word ‘he’ will have no choice but to lose its male connotations even if it still means something male when used as a different part of speech.
[/QUOTE]
Your idea that the “he” be used solely as the singular indefinite, so that it loses any bias towards the male is (a) laughable, since the primary meaning of “he” is the former, so it’s never going to happen and (b) would leave the language without a gender specific term, something that seems to bother you in some instances but not others, viz:
[/QUOTE]
Regarding (a), that is like saying it’s laughable for “they” to be used as the singular since its primary meaning is as the plural (so it is never going to happen). You’re wrong, words are infinitely malleable. Regarding (b), no. Indefinite pronouns and definite pronouns are different things, even if the word be the same. There will be only one singular indefinite pronoun, but two definite. The meanings will be very clear if the usage is well defined and consistent.

Language is what we make of it. Better yet, language is made by how it is used. If we use language in a gender-neutral way, it will be gender-neutral. It doesn’t matter what sounds we utter or what characters we write. If that did, if we kept such things in our minds, one would wonder how a word could ever mean two different things. Instead, we make puns precisely because such overlaps escape our minds. In my future, people would make puns on the indefinite ‘he’ meaning masculine, and they would laugh because it would not be something they’d expect to think.

48

Anyway, I’m open to other words being elected as the neutral indefinite singular. Same as people could get used to “he” they could get used to “it” or “they,” and all the old connotations of those words would eventually be forgotten. I’d rather it not be ‘they’, as that would carry a cost. Although, perhaps not too great. And, I have to admit, the word is already well on its way in this trajectory. While ‘he’ has instead lost steam.

However, where I draw the line is contorting the language to make it void of any indefinite singular pronouns at all. That is an unacceptable solution. Rewriting sentences may work for a few decades, but anyone who claims that that is where English should settle is unreasonable. Worse, the pronouns will creep back in and could wreak their sexist influence once more. The pronouns must be tackled at the source, lest their absence or they themselves come back to haunt us.

49

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]

Or do i just “not get it”?
[/QUOTE]

Truth to tell, the ones that don’t get it are the dingalings who started this gender-neutral hogwash in the first place.

50

Thanks, Clothahump.

There, Alex. Now you can see why you’re wrong about the way people think and why the change the rest of us have been advocating is so urgently needed.

51

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
Princhester, anecdote is the scout and navigator of science. And the plural of anecdote is “weak data.” Only someone who does not have a strong and critical mind should shy away from extracting any value out of an observation. If you say I extract too much, then argue in what way. To forbid forms of observation off-hand is a very crude and dim method. And it also ignores how “scientific” data, such as that produced by psychology studies, is often very weak and airy as well. In fact, it often only slightly transcends good anecdote. This doesn’t mean anecdote should be accepted or that studies be rejected. It means you should hone those strong critical skills. And not judge things by the labels they seem to carry.
[/quote]

Nice try. It may be the scout, but it is not the last word. When the scout says “black” but the data says “white”, one ignores the scout. Fact remains, you giving a dubious undocumented account of a single instance of something is near-infinitely trumped by even fairly weak reported scientific data.

Been reading Orwell lately, have we?

Scientific data showing an effect that contradicts your (near valueless) anecdote does not confirm your anecdote. Furthermore, the fact that an effect is far greater in certain circumstances does not mean it is weak otherwise: it just means it is far greater in some cases than others.

If you use a gender neutral noun followed by the pronoun “he”, there is no way to tell how it is being used, so people will tend to assume the primary meaning. If you use a noun followed by the pronoun “they”, whether “they” is singular or plural will be determinable from whether the original noun was singular or plural. No problem.

What?

The experiment has been done and it didn’t work.

52

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
Why are people even talking about having men in their lives and menopause?
[/QUOTE]

We were just responding to something weird that you said:

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
And using the word ‘he’ makes you painfully aware of the men you’ve never had in your life and of your period. Save such bigotry to yourself, you so-called feminist.
[/QUOTE]

But we probably should have just ignored it.

53

Or you could have understood its ironic intent aimed at the fact that Annie-X said something exactly of the kind. Except when she said, she meant it.
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
Alex I’m not sure if you are playing devil’s advocate or if you see using a gender neutral word instead of “he” as a threat to your manhood.
[/QUOTE]
Does anyone else think those words are bigoted and a personal attack? Perhaps you people don’t feel the same way if it’s directed against a man. That is why I brough up similarly ignorant things that might be said against a woman for analogy.

Except a) I did not argue a single instance of something. I talked about my mother, but that was just something entirely tangential to the debate about pronouns. b) yes, if further study says “white” (don’t say ‘data’, for you give more significance to that term than it deserves) then you conclude white. Except further study does not back you. It backs some things. Against which I have not been arguing. Yet don’t let such silly things confuse you. For you have DATA.

Blah, blah, blah. You have no study which says the word Man, when used poetically to refer to humanity, makes people forget about women. So shut up. All you have is yourself. You are your own anecdote. At the very least, you should, according to what you argue, be quiet and claim we do not know. Worse, you do not even speak of yourself. You claim to speak for everyone else. All I’ve said is that I, personally, do not associate the indefinite Man with anything beside simple civilization. What do YOU think when you hear Man? What do other readers? Answers such as, “well, it makes me think of humanity but it also reminds me how men have controlled it” are good too, and should be kept distinct from mere ‘for’ and ‘against’.

It is usually clear from context whether the original noun refers to something specific or something indefinite. The articles “a” and “the” do those jobs effectively.

What?
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry, do you have trouble understanding my words? Perhaps that is why you do not see how different parts of speech with different uses are distinct things.

That’s funny… because such an experiment would last decades and have to involve all of society. For many words, such as ‘teacher’, I think the experiment has already worked.

54

Anyway, the more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that transitioning to ‘he’ being gender-neutral is just as unlikely at this point as transitioning to ‘er’ or ‘itsit’.

My only point is that, in the long term, it would be just as possible for the two letters h-e as for any other phonetic combination. But my opponents, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge language’s inherent malleability, will never refuse to back down on this point.

As my last word in all this, I’d like to say that the shortening of the gender-neutral ‘them’, ’ 'em ', sounds like the word ‘him’ in many accents. So I’ll leave you all to bitch about how the sentence “You should see a doctor about your sore. But you will not get 'em to write you a prescription.” destroys the egalitarian fabric of our society.

55

I love the fluidity of our language, and also arguments about what is correct, real, proper, etc.

My dog in this fight? I’ve been an advocate of “they” since the 3rd grade when I had the argument with my teacher regarding its usage.

I’m a girl. The excessive “he’s” in everything are rather alienating. I was a child when the Equal Rights Amendment fights were going on. All the books were like that. We were/are in a male dominated society, no one that was allowed to matter gave a crap. Now that we are allowed to matter, we give a crap. Sure it isn’t a huge thing in the big scheme of things, but it DOES matter. Role models are people you can identify with, I assure you, I never wanted to be Superman, I wanted to be Wonder Woman. The Heroes were always boys. Everyone was, except the chick that fell and twisted her ankle. Textbooks always referred to HE if the gender was unknown.

Maybe I’m anal. Maybe I’m silly enough to think that it is better to be inclusive than exclusive. Maybe, just maybe, my perspective on the whole “defaulting to he” thing is different. Perhaps you see it as valid, or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are enough people out there that think that defaulting to male pronouns isn’t the best way.

Fortunately, the fabulous way of language in all its wonder and glory, is that it will all work out. It always does somehow, and it will for a good long time.

Now, can we talk about how pointing is NOT inherently rude. That it is a pretty unique feature among mammals and signals a milestone in human development, so if I need to indicate YOU, I’m gonna point. I’ll stop doing so at about the same time I stop using Sir and Ma’am as forms of respect.

56

Just re-read Joe Haldeman’s excellent military SF novel, The Forever War. Centuries from now, he posits, the English-speaking portion of humanity will have devised these gender-neutral terms:

tha = he/she
thim = him/her
ther = his/hers

It’d take some practice getting used to these, I supposed, but if tha can do it, so can I.

57

:rolleyes: “He” is the masculine gender third-person singular nominative personal pronoun. (And it takes all those qualifications to define it.) “He” is not the male sex pronoun. There is no such thing in standard English. A penis is male. A penis is “it”–neuter gender. A person of unknown/unspecified sex may be male or female. But that person is “he”–masculine gender. Masculine != male. Feminine != female.

This sounds absurd to most English-speakers, because they don’t understand the difference between sex & gender. But study a language like, say, German, where there is often no way to define an appropriate pronoun without an antecedent, & you will come to realize: Words have gender, persons have sex. Linguistically, a person is neither gendered nor genderless; a statement referring to the gender of a real ontological thing or being in itself (as opposed to a given word used to define it) is nonsense of the highest order, for only words have gender.

And in standard English, it is perfectly correct to use the masculine gender to refer to a person of indeterminate sex. Is this sexist? Sure. But apparently it’s considered less insulting to use a term which appears to assume a sex, than to use “it” which implies non-personhood.

The problem is that people who understand neither language nor linguistics are trying to redefine their language from a position of ignorance.

Short of adding a fourth gender progression (“neutral personal”?) to the distended third person singular personal pronoun set (which will happen, in real usage, when swine levitate), our options are not so great:

  1. Feel free to refer to persons of indeterminate sex as “it.” Very logical, & at least you will be using a recognizable word. But that usage has already been abandoned as dehumanizing, centuries ago.

  2. Use the plural “they” to refer to persons of indeterminate sex. This is plainly a horrible idea, sowing confusion & leading to the total collapse not only of our excess of third person singular personal pronouns, but of the singular/plural distinction, which has already fallen apart in the second person.

  3. Pick one of the other two third person singular personal pronouns. Seriously. And our ancestors picked the masculine. Women complain that they are left out, when really, grammatically, they are included. Men arguably lack a defining sexual pronoun correspondent to “she” as “he” is now the default. But it avoids options 1 & 2.

  4. Scrap it all. Strip it down to “he” for every person, place, or thing; in all places, all contexts, all times, maybe even all cases. This sort of thing has happened in other languages. But see above about levitation of swine.

  5. Continue ignorantly to confuse sex & gender, & use constructions like “his or her.” Whatever. Go ahead. It may be clunky, but it’s arguably better than each the previous four one way or another, though perhaps not better than all of them in the same way.

  6. OK, you could try adding a fourth-gender neutral personal. But with no way to prescribe a standard usage, you’re probably only encouraging the ugly triumph of option two & the eventual downfall of the whole singular. If we’re really really lucky, our descendants will instead embrace “it”, & turn “he” & “she” into nouns.

  7. Or you could learn to use other kinds of pronouns, like “one” & “who.” But that’s really a workaround, not a solution.

We are in serious danger of the language taking path two.

58

Um, quite frankly, people do have sex, but preferably not in public. A correct term for whether a person is male or female is “gender.” Which nouns also have. And to refer to a female person with a noun that is clearly masculine in gender is offensive to many. That may be a new development historically, but it is quite common now, at least in the US, to accept this linguistic point of view. To assert in the face of feeling and usage that the language need not change is to cling to anachronistic prescriptive principles, and look like a dinosaur.

Defending that viewpoint with incorrect terminology is not a boost to the argument. :smiley:

59

Where’s all the indignation against that second person plural pronoun “you guys”?

Seriously, I grew up in an environment where this was never used. If I hear someone say “you guys,” my brain parses that exactly as “you male people,” and if later on the context reveals that the speaker actually meant both men and women, my brain has to do a rewind and re-parse it.

Now I can understand that people have a negative reaction to the indeterminate “he” pronoun, but why not the same reaction against “you guys”? I’ve not been able to think of a reason why one would be offensive but not the other, and I’ve never seen anyone take up the position that “you guys” is offensive.

60

So, foolsguinea, you’re saying that the following would be perfectly correct? “Nancy Pelosi gave a speech in Congress today. In it, he addressed Social Security reform and the welfare system.” If that’s not correct, why not? Surely, there’s no problem using “he” to refer to Speaker Pelosi, since Pelosi, being a human and not a mere word, does not have gender. Or if there is a problem with this construction, why does the problem not apply elsewhere?