What if I proposed that we used different pronouns for people who are white and people whose ethnicity is something other than white?
That would be obviously problematic because it’s a discrete proposal rather than a natural consensus-based evolution of language.
At the time the he/she distinction developed, we had no idea gender wasn’t strictly binary. Now that we know, we may like to change that part of our language, but it’s a trickier process than it seems on the surface because so many assumptions are built-in and so many other conventions and structures rest on it.
The distinction between “one male person”, “one female person” and “one genderqueer person” is one I don’t really care about; bring on the ubiquitous 3rd person singular pronoun, just don’t make it “they”.
They is very useful for easily dividing a known individual from a group of people. This is different from the “they” used for a generic individual, (who can at the same time be considered a multitude of possible people), and it’s use for known individuals erodes its usefulness.
I tend to agree, but I think that ship has sailed. A lot of non-binary folks seem to prefer it to inventing a new one. And if you believe Star Trek that will continue into the 31st century at least.
Indefinite “they” to refer to an unknown person is one thing, though rarely accepted in formal writing. But to refer to a specific, known person? It’s not the best choice, in part because it forces singular they into formal writing.
I think there’s a danger here. The idea that something that is somewhat important to (say)me, in application to myself, should go away because it doesn’t seem useful to (say)you is kind of coercive.
I don’t disagree that the system of pronouns we have doesn’t really fit the whole of the world any more, and I don’t have a solution to that, but I don’t believe the solution is for it to be taken away from the part of the world where it does fit.
If someone misuses a pronoun in a way that is somehow abusive, it’s the abuse, not the pronoun, that is the problem.
So is the idea that something that is important to someone else shouldn’t happen because it interferes with something that matters to you.
You’re not living in a different part of the world from the people who need neutral pronouns. Like it or not, you’re stuck living with them, and they’re stuck living with you. Coercing them into living with your preferred pronouns is in no way less coercive than coercing you into living with theirs.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t have neutral pronouns for themselves if that’s what they want - in fact I don’t know how you got that out of my post. Let me see if this helps:
Nobody’s saying you can’t use gendered pronouns for yourself. And specifying pronouns makes it more likely that other people will use the ones for you that you prefer. So I don’t see where the danger is.
Napier, to whom I was replying, does appear to be advocating exactly that - that is, their universal removal. Unless it’s me that is mistaken this time.
I identify as a man (he/him) and my gender is an important or significant aspect of my identity. And I think most people would agree that their gender identity is important to them as well. There’s a reason it’s considered rude to deliberately misgender someone.
I admit I think it would be better if nobody used gendered pronouns. But I wouldn’t go so far as to advocate “their universal removal” if you mean in a coercive way.
At this stage, I think gendered pronouns are a kind of speech that some people find offensive on the basis of the impact on minoritized peoples. Some other kinds of speech like that have become more formally discouraged, for example slurs that are more widely understood to represent bigotry. Some of those words can today trigger punishments, and I think they rise to the level of requiring “their universal removal”. They didn’t just a few years ago, though, and were more or less standard within my memory. I’d like to hope gendered pronouns could eventually go the way of these some day. But I’m not about to censor Dopers who don’t share that sentiment. Also I know a few people who have transitioned the gender in which they present themselves, for whom the binary gendered pronouns they can now use represent hard-won victories, which is great – there’s a conundrum here, and for now I use more gender neutral terms for cis and hetero folks, but gendered terms for LGBTQ folks who have expressed those terms themselves. So, you know John, and this is his spouse Mary, and then over here you know Bill, and this is his husband Fred. You may say I’m a dreamer. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, sure.
Language evolves. Part of the evolution is the way some words and phrases fall into disfavor. I think that’s good.
English has a million words, depending on how you count them. If we want to, we can abandon some of them just fine.
Now, somebody pointed out there’s a language with separated pronouns for the immediate versus the more distant person. THAT sounds USEFUL. As in:
Immediate - Distant
Here - There
Now - Then
This - That
??? - ??? for people
What you quoted from Napier in your reply was this:
which reads to me as objecting to the obligatory (my stress) pigeonholing of people into male and female pronouns; not as objecting to the optional choice of those pronouns for oneself.
– that seems to me to be backed up by @Napier’s later post.
You would be reinventing the system of the famous Person Paper on Purity in Language published by “William Satire” (actually Douglas R. Hofstadter) to address this very issue back in 1985!
OK, I guess I overlooked the importance of the term ‘obligatory’ in Napier’s post. I hope you’ll forgive me for that, given that it seems that’s an easy mistake to make.
Interestingly, formal writing in English has already accepted not only the “singularized” version of the originally plural second-person pronoun “you”, but a similarly “singularized” version of the plural first-person pronoun “we”. Academic writing very commonly uses authorial “we” even in single-authored papers.
The singular “they” as a personal pronoun is used extensively in generic references like “When a guest arrives, give them the door access code.” The use of it to refer to an actual person is an extension of that common usage. “When Pat arrives, give them the access codes”. Even though it’s the plural pronoun, the meaning is unambiguous so it doesn’t really matter. One place “they” can cause confusion is when there is both a singular and plural noun, such as “When Pat arrives with the prisoners, give them the access codes.” In a case like this, it’s not clear if just Pat should get the access codes or if Pat and the prisoners should get the access codes. Although I don’t have a problem with having a gender-neutral pronoun, I wish it wasn’t reusing a plural pronoun so that we could avoid this linguistic confusion.
Yeah, there are ways around that by rewriting/rewording - such as “When Pat arrives with the prisoners, give Pat the access codes”, but rewording often seems like the an awkward general solution to an awkward problem.
I certainly would if it were more widely accepted. Losing the number distinction on 2nd-person pronouns (thanks in no small part to religionists getting confused over whether their god should be familiar or formal, but also thanks to English getting confused about whether to have a number distinction or a formality distinction) was a bad idea and the language would be improved if it came back.
As an aside, in Hungarian, it’s easy. It’s all ő and ők for third-person singular and third-person plural. No gender distinctions. They do have singular and plural you, though.
