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Gender-neutral pronoun for "he/she" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5600 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German | Message 9 of 74 13 November 2009 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have seen people using "hu" (short for "human" I believe) to signify either sex. Doubt it will catch on though. I tend to use "you" or "he" depending on the context.
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 10 of 74 13 November 2009 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's true that English is missing an important pronoun there..
In my experience most people say "THEY" if they don't know, or don't want to reveal the gender of the person that they are talking about. For example: I discovered which one of our colleagues had stolen your yoghurt from the fridge and I told them you are very upset. They will buy another yoghurt and put it back in the fridge and they promise never to steal other peoples lunches again. In this situation the speaker didn't want to say "he" or "she" because perhaps that would reveal who he was actually speaking about. He used "they" even though he was only speaking about one person. I have heard this many times and I believe it's the normal way of solving this problem. Edited by cordelia0507 on 13 November 2009 at 7:59pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 11 of 74 13 November 2009 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Another similar problem in English is when you use "YOU" and it isn't clear whether the comment refers to "you and your friends/group etc" or "You" (only one person).
For example if I were to say to one person: "I am so sick of you and your negative attitude to everything new" It isn't clear whether I am referring to him as an individual or some group that he is part of... I think this is a bigger problem than the other one mentioned here! The only way I know to get around it is to "embellish"the word "you" a bit. For example by saying "you guys" or "you lot" or "you people" The problem is that the first sounds too AMerican, the second sounds downgrading and the third sounds like you are having a go at the people in question. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 12 of 74 13 November 2009 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm inclined to believe that using "they" in the example that cordelia0507 presented is the most frequent (rather than "normal") way of working around this "problem", but as I've observed earlier there are other languages that have personal pronouns differentiated by gender (be it natural or grammatical) but function without controversy or fuss.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 13 of 74 13 November 2009 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to make it sound "American", then say "y'all"
At the same I hardly find the alternatives of "you guys", "you lot" or "you people" to be problematic from a linguistic point of view as they do make the distinction between singular and plural, which can be an important or meaningful element. If anything the "problems" about their use are more matters or questions of register. The first two come off as being colloquial, while the third can sound accusatory. If we take the national angle, then "you guys" is more frequent in North American English (Americans and Canadians use "you guys" almost exclusively) while "you lot" is more frequent in British English. One's personal views about a variant or its speech-community can also have a hand in deciding which form is preferable. One alternative is to revive the use of "thou" and "thine" for the 2nd person singular in modern English, and reserve "you" and "your" for the 2nd person plural as was the case in earlier forms of English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 14 of 74 13 November 2009 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually I need a way of saying this which can be used at work..
I.e. it shouldn't be slang and it shouldn't be American. Also it can't be "thy" and "thine" or people will think I am trying to preach from the KJV bible... A professional "standard English" way of saying "you and the group that you are in" I am not sure that there is one. I speak a lot to teams in other countries on the phone and sometimes I want to have a go at a particular team as a group (not at any particular individual). But what usually happens is that several people think they are being individually singled out for a bollocking... etc. So sometimes in such situations I say "WE" even though I hardly include myself at all. I.e. "When WE agree on a cut-off time, WE need to respect that or let ME know well ahead if there are any problems.... Sounds stupid though. But that at least makes it clear that a group and not an individual is being referred to. The difficulties sometimes with differentiating between you (many) and you (one person) is a truly irritating thing about English. Edited by cordelia0507 on 13 November 2009 at 8:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 74 13 November 2009 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
One idiomatic way around this is to use "yourself" and "yourselves" as loose synonyms for the singular "you" and plural "you". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5696 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 16 of 74 13 November 2009 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
As far as I know "man" is derived from a PIE root and until as recently as Old English did not imply any gender. The OE words for man was "wer" (cf. Lat. "vir" and whence werewolf, i.e. man-wolf) and I believe it was only in Middle English that "man" displaced it. So I think it's less that it was elliptical (if that's what you meant) and more that the word had undergone narrowing in at least one of its definitions. In speech I hear by far most often "you guys" used for the second person plural, even when addressing a group of females, but I always feel weird doing so. Sigh, if only we didn't get rid of thou. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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