ceigered:Why not just use "they"?

People already do, including you:

ceigered:Heck, I use "they" even for people whose gender I can clearly express as "he" or "her", and I'm surely not the only person who does it that I know, all my family and friends do it every now and then. In writing too I think I've seen "they" over take "he/she" since "he/she" looks too impersonal and ugly, as if you don't care who they are.

It's probably only a matter of time before 'they' acquires that meaning to everyone. Just as 'thou' became obsolete and 'you' is effortlessly able to express both 'thou' and 'you', so I am sure will 'they' be able to express both 'he or she' and 'they'. Perhaps 'he' and 'she' will one day seem quaint and old fashioned, as 'thou' now does. Not quite yet, though:

"Brian lost their x-box. They were really fond of that. Perhaps their friend will buy them a new one."

Ah, cheers 3rdblade. I thought I was crazy for a second, thinking "hang on, what's happened pronoun wise to the English language while I was in bed? I hope it's not just me who's been using "they" all the time"

3rdblade:

ceigered:Why not just use "they"?

People already do, including you:

ceigered:Heck, I use "they" even for people whose gender I can clearly express as "he" or "her", and I'm surely not the only person who does it that I know, all my family and friends do it every now and then. In writing too I think I've seen "they" over take "he/she" since "he/she" looks too impersonal and ugly, as if you don't care who they are.

It's probably only a matter of time before 'they' acquires that meaning to everyone. Just as 'thou' became obsolete and 'you' is effortlessly able to express both 'thou' and 'you', so I am sure will 'they' be able to express both 'he or she' and 'they'. Perhaps 'he' and 'she' will one day seem quaint and old fashioned, as 'thou' now does. Not quite yet, though:

"Brian lost their x-box. They were really fond of that. Perhaps their friend will buy them a new one."

Not if English teachers have anything to say about it. In a lesson on common grammar mistakes my sophomore English teacher pointed out 'singular they' specifically as a grammatical error, and that he/she should be used instead. He wouldn't allow me to argue the point.

Personally I'll still use 'singular they' because it's more natural then 'he/she' and doesn't look... weird like other proposed gender neutral pronouns, but just a random anecdote.

(Another one; I first became interested in gender neutral pronouns when wanting to address the reader of the Python code of a script I was writing in code comments. It ended in me, for some ungodly reason documenting my entire search for a gender neutral pronoun in the opening comments of the script. )

Hehe, I'm guessing "sophomore" corresponds to high school? (we don't have such fancy terms in AU, only things like "year 10, 11, 12").

I do remember in high school (even now at uni) that there was only a handful of teachers I could argue such points with. I guess the curse of being a student, or armchair physicist/philosopher/gynaecologist is that to professionals you'll never have credibility right off the spot, and while it would be nice for them to give you benefit of the doubt and listen to your side of the argument, there's many other students/armchair professionals out their too with much more "armchairy" theories taking away from the communal reputation

@ 3rdblade, moving back onto topic - what is the gender neutral word in Japanese? Is it just a combination of これ／ここ "Kore"/"koko" (alluding to "this" or "over here is ......-san") and あの人 "ano hito"? I was thinking that "tiu" might sound rude in some cultures, but then after thinking about it many languages say "this is" or "That person was" etc.

adrideo:Honestly, would you want to be referred to as "ĝi?"

That's beside the point. If I were gender-neutral, I wouldn't have a choice in the matter; Zamenhof chose ahead of time.

That's not the case in everyday language, referring to one person. In those instances, "he" will be interpreted as "male third person singular."

It's not everyday language to use a neuter-animate pronoun, because gender-neutral individuals do not occur in nature. (At least, not frequently enough to urgently require a pronoun.) If we use "it", the listener will assume we are referring to an inanimate object. If we use "he", we will have the same problem you mentioned, but at least we will be grammatically correct.

I looked up the 'singular they' in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) one time. The earliest example phrase showing use of the singular 'they' was from 1526.

It's a hardly a newfangled form used only by these modern-day degenerate youth.

ceigered:what is the gender neutral word in Japanese? Is it just a combination of これ／ここ "Kore"/"koko" (alluding to "this" or "over here is ......-san") and あの人 "ano hito"? I was thinking that "tiu" might sound rude in some cultures, but then after thinking about it many languages say "this is" or "That person was" etc.

あの人 (ano hito, literally 'that person') is pretty common, and variations like 'ano sensei' (that teacher) or another title can be used if the title is known. 'こちら'(kochira) is used when introducing someone, literally 'the one on this side...' One of the words for 'she', 'kanojo', also seems to be a word for 'girlfriend'.

BlackOtaku:Not if English teachers have anything to say about it. In a lesson on common grammar mistakes my sophomore English teacher pointed out 'singular they' specifically as a grammatical error, and that he/she should be used instead. He wouldn't allow me to argue the point.

So they should, but ultimately in natural languages, common usage will triumph, if it's sensible enough. So, I don't think 'U' is going to catch on for 'you'. However, a few years ago an Australian PM used the word 'fulsome' meaning 'very full and great', which is what it sounds like, and he was criticised for it because the actual meaning is 'exaggerated, flattering (and therefore phony)' but I see both meanings listed in dictionaries now. What an annoying word it has become!

The French govt. try to regulate language closely. They introduced a word for iPads recently for use by public servants ('ardoise' (slate), I believe). Most people call all of them iPads, even if they aren't made by Apple. Which means more smiles down at Apple, if nothing else!

erinja:I looked up the 'singular they' in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) one time. The earliest example phrase showing use of the singular 'they' was from 1526.

It's a hardly a newfangled form used only by these modern-day degenerate youth.

Indeed. Singular they appears in the King James Bible and also Shakespeare. It is the opponents of singular they who are the relatively recent (1800s or so) reformers, arbitrarily declaring half a millenium of English usage and literature 'wrong' for no reason at all other than the fact that that's not how it works in Latin. (Latin was seen as the language of the educated elite in the 1800s and before, and its rules were therefore considered normative even for non-Latin-based languages like English).

3rdblade:The French govt. try to regulate language closely. They introduced a word for iPads recently for use by public servants ('ardoise' (slate), I believe). Most people call all of them iPads, even if they aren't made by Apple. Which means more smiles down at Apple, if nothing else!

They were going to be called "slates" here too for a bit weren't they? Wonder what happened there...

3rdblade:'こちら'(kochira) is used when introducing someone,

Whoops... What's "koko" used for when referring to people again? "Koko no" or something like that? I swear my Japanese teacher mentioned it... Anyway thanks for that, seems like I still need a bit of practice so I don't keep on forgetting the "-chira" words!

Speaking of both this and the changes in English over the last bazillion years, is it just me or is "彼" (kare) sort of gender neutral in origin (vs. kanojo, with -jo at the end)? I thought it was interesting since I think in English, "he" was at one point gender neutral (after inflection and pronunciation had both been degraded leaving feminine forms virtually non-existent), until I think a female writer decided it'd be better if there was a pronoun for women only, thus pushing the now differently looking (due to mutations) "she" back into usage and creating the imbalance we see today with "he" and "she". Can't verify it though as I can't remember where I heard that.

Also, a little biological theory - is it just me or do men use "she" not just for women but for anything they sort of care for, at least on average? I myself can't answer despite my gender because like I said I like "they" or "it", but with vehicles, countries etc all being called "she" (perhaps only for historical reasons, e.g. -ia), and with phrases like "she'll be right", it does make me wonder a bit.

Adriedo,

adriedo:I'm not a fan of "hir" etc. for that reason. I think my favorite proposed English pronoun set is
ey, eir, em--it's an easy shift from they, their, them.

In Esperanto, I favor "sli" over "ri," simply for pronunciation's sake. But then again, "sli" is pretty well operating on a binary gender system (seems like "he or she" rather than being gender neutral).

For what its worth, him and her combine to make hir, and I believe its pronounced like "here". Sounds a little weird at first, but most people who use "hir" will drop the leading-"h" sound, giving it a really informal and colloquial sound. Still, I prefer the sound of ey/eir/em

ceigered,

ceigered:Why not just use "they"? I was under the impression that was the de facto way to refer to the neuter singular.

Singular-they only really works for indefinite people, not so much specific people. Here are some examples:

"Bob tied his shoes." == "Bob tied their shoes."
"Bob went to mall with his friends. He bought some neckties." == "Bob went to the mall with their friends. They bought some neckties."

Without very clear contextual or grammatical markers, you can't distinguish singular-they from plural-they.

To disambiguate the sentences above, you'd write them like this:

(singular-they) "Bob tied Bob's shoes." / "Bob tied their own shoes."
(singular-they) "Bob went to the mall with their friends. They themself bought some neckties."
(plural-they) "Bob tied all of their shoes."
(plural-they) "Bob went to the mall with their friends. They all bought some necktimes."
(plural-they) "Bob went to the mall with their friends. All of them bought some neckties."

Its a little wordy, not quite as elegant, but at least the grammatical markers keep the meaning clear.

With that in mind, let's consider some grammatically correct, grammatically unambigous sentences:

"He ties his shoes." == "They ties their own shoes."
"He speaks Esperanto" == "They themself speaks Esperanto."
"They laughed at him" == "All of them laughed at them themself."

As a general-purpose, gender-netural, personal pronoun, singular-they is just too restrictive. It leads to confusing and unnecessarily wordy sentences, even for simple ideas. Sie/hir/hirs/hirself, ey/eir/eirs/eirself, and other proposed gender-neutral pronouns are expessive and unambiguous, so I'd prefer them over singular-they.