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28 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5086 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes

Message 25 of 28

07 July 2012 at 2:56pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

The grammar rules for singular "they" are tricky, and vary from speaker to speaker.

... it's now completely acceptable in formal prose, and it does not feel strained or odd in any way.

Don't you see the slight contradiction in these two statements?

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emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5320 days ago
2615 posts - 8806 votes

Speaks: English*, French^B2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
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Message 26 of 28

07 July 2012 at 8:49pm | IP Logged

lingoleng wrote:

Don't you see the slight contradiction in these two statements?

Nope, not really. Native speakers can often use grammar without being able to explain it
formally.

My goal was to describe English as used by native speakers. And a vast number of them
have long accepted many forms of singular "they" as grammatical, even in highly formal
prose, especially when it refers to a qualifier like "anyone" or "someone". Even E.B.
White used it that way in his novels. But (EDIT: some) other constructions with singular
"they" are universally considered to be ungrammatical.

Edited by emk on 07 July 2012 at 10:45pm
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lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5086 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes

Message 27 of 28

07 July 2012 at 9:14pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

lingoleng wrote:

Don't you see the slight contradiction in these two statements?

... especially when it refers to a qualifier like "anyone" or "someone". Even E.B.
White used it that way in his novels. But other constructions with singular "they" are
universally considered to be ungrammatical.

Yep, it is the generic universal character of such a sentence which makes the brutal switch acceptable. In our example above, and this is the one I was referring to, we don't really have this. "Asking a linguist what they know about the universals of language" is like asking what linguistics as a whole knows about language, so it is more acceptable than "asking a linguist which languages they speak", which is just not very well formed and actually quite difficult to understand at all, if one comes to think about it ...
1 person has voted this message useful

montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4616 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 28 of 28

07 July 2012 at 9:43pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

lingoleng wrote:

It could be worse because it introduces an unnecessary
ambiguity. A
competent reader will try to make sense of the shift from singular to plural and think
about what languages the linguists as a community speak, but this is not what the
questions wants to ask.

Singular "they" is not exactly new—I think it's attested back to 1500 or so, with
examples in Shakespeare and many other skilled writers over the centuries. In the US,
lots of people spent about 10 years writing "he or she" (which is really awkward), but
this has since been overtaken by singular "they". Basically, a lesser-used feature of
English became rapidly more prominent under the stress of avoiding "he or she".

The grammar rules for singular "they" are tricky, and vary from speaker to speaker.
Here are some examples, adapted from a discussion I read somewhere (probably something
by Pullman). They range from the most-widely-used forms of singular "they" to the
least:

Quote:

1. Everybody has their own ideas.
2. Somebody didn't do their homework.
3. When a student skips class, they miss out on important material.
4. ?When a student gets pregnant, they generally need support from the school.
5. *Sally didn't do their homework.

(1) and (2) have long been common. (3) is slightly more controversial, but it's rapidly
becoming the norm. (4) is interesting—we know that "a student" must be female here—but
many Americans under the age of 40 will find nothing odd about this sentence. (5) is
grammatically incorrect and will make any native speaker wince.

You're perfectly welcome to avoid singular "they". But for tens of millions of native
speakers, it's now completely acceptable in formal prose, and it does not feel strained
or odd in any way.

Thanks for an American viewpoint on this, Emk.

For a time, I adopted (in some contexts) (s)he, which is sort of grammatically correct
(if not exactly standard), but this doesn't help with the possessive.
...
His|hers (hi)hers her(hi)s.....no; none of those works!

So "they" and "theirs" seems safer in most cases.
Occasionally I will still use the long singular form, or see if I can rework the
sentence.

A small victory for feminism?
I don't really see it that way.
Approximately 50% of the population is female, and so to use "he" and "his" (as we used
to) is simply inaccurate.

Occasionally, referring to a child of unknown gender, I will use "it" & "its",
consciously borrowing (with a nod to J.K.Jerome ("3 Men on the Bummel") from German :-)

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