Singular they?

[onlyaworkingtitle]

Jun 14, 2011 5:12:21 GMT -5 @sabazius said:

I don't have an objection to singular 'they' for the most part, but I occasionally find it awkward to distinguish between a group of people and a gender-undetermined individual (GUI? hehe). I think the reason that people resist its usage despite the rich heritage of the singular 'they' is because it requires verbs to agree as though the subject were plural. Here's an example sentence referring to a GUI: "They are so friendly." Really, it should be "They is so friendly" but because 'they' is usually plural - and the singular usage is a derivation of that - it sounds incorrect. "Ze is so friendly" makes far more sense. It is in this area that I think the language would most benefit from the addition of gender-neutral pronouns; it's not just an LGBTQ issue.

You're my favorite.

[Deleted]

Haha, thank you very much.

[Annie Ozone]

I think the ze/hir is a great idea, for the most part--it's a way of owning language, which is incredibly important for marginalized groups, and it works well in writing. There's no problem with using ze/hir as a hypothetical, the way they/their is currently used (i.e., unknown person, unknown gender identity); it's just that we already have "they", and we have since before Shakespeare. De-emphasizing the gender binary in speech is a very important thing, and it should happen, but that happens by getting rid of he or she/him or her, not they/their.

Since we already have they/their, I see ze/hir mostly as an alternative gender pronoun that someone might wish to be referred to. That is, not as a hypothetical. Most writing uses he/her to refer to a specific person identifying as male or female (cisgender or not), and that adds clarity--to dialog especially. If a person or character identified and wished to be referred to as ze, that's really the only time I would use ze/hir. Sabazius' example refers to a specific person, so I would use either whatever pronoun they identified as, or, you know, their name.

Again: get rid of he or she/him or her, NOT they/their. They/their serves the purpose that ze/hir is going for, and people know what it means. It's not something that requires definition, it's not "exotic", it's not something anybody can object to. It's a subtle way of equalizing people. The reason I'm being emphatic about this is because, so far, we've been referring to the written word. Guess what? The written word isn't the most influential. The spoken word is.

Now, I don't know if y'all come from places where the he or she/him or her is used consistently in everyday speech, but I do not. We use they/their, and it works just fine. Frankly, in a Southern accent, ze/hir is useless. The accent cancels out a fuckton of written distinctions--"here", "her", and "hair" are all pronounced the same way where I'm from, and no, I'm not kidding. Ze/hir would be heard as she/her, or, at best, Zee (as in a [nick]name)/her. I'm saying this as an ally born and raised in Texas: trying to get everyone to use ze/hir instead of they/their would be seen as hostile. It would be saying that our way of talking is stupid and that we, by extension, are also stupid. That's something I get all the time from people at my university--which is in Texas. Coming from a Yankee? That's a big old fuck-off waiting to happen. That the gender-neutral would sound feminine is another problem, and no, that's not right, but it's what we've got to work with. Beyond all that, the majority of black people in America live in the South, and a significant proportion of them speak in the same or a similar accent as I do. No do-good Northerner of any race has ever corrected their speech, I'm sure. Same goes for the vast number of Central and South American immigrants, although I don't know the nuances of every accent or how they hear/pronounce specific spellings.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't use ze/hir ever, or that we shouldn't add it to the lexicon; I'm just saying that in this part of the country, there's already a widely accepted, grammatically correct gender-neutral term. It's used by newscasters, it's used by teachers. Trying to "correct" an already correct term would be kicking a hornet's nest of issues, particularly of class and race, and would just earn the LGBTQI movement hostility in an area where things can get pretty fucking hostile for it already.

TL;DR: Intersectionality! It happens in language too.

[WhatIf]

I hate how we don't have gender neutral words, so you get stuck with saying "they" in reference to one person.

It's wrong. Very wrong.

Personally, I think that the gender neutral words should work their way into peoples vocabularies.

[KatjevanLoon]

Jun 17, 2011 0:00:45 GMT -5 Annie Ozone said:

Now, I don't know if y'all come from places where the he or she/him or her is used consistently in everyday speech, but I do not. We use they/their, and it works just fine. Frankly, in a Southern accent, ze/hir is useless. The accent cancels out a fuckton of written distinctions--"here", "her", and "hair" are all pronounced the same way where I'm from, and no, I'm not kidding. Ze/hir would be heard as she/her, or, at best, Zee (as in a [nick]name)/her. I'm saying this as an ally born and raised in Texas: trying to get everyone to use ze/hir instead of they/their would be seen as hostile. It would be saying that our way of talking is stupid and that we, by extension, are also stupid. That's something I get all the time from people at my university--which is in Texas. Coming from a Yankee? That's a big old fuck-off waiting to happen. That the gender-neutral would sound feminine is another problem, and no, that's not right, but it's what we've got to work with. Beyond all that, the majority of black people in America live in the South, and a significant proportion of them speak in the same or a similar accent as I do. No do-good Northerner of any race has ever corrected their speech, I'm sure. Same goes for the vast number of Central and South American immigrants, although I don't know the nuances of every accent or how they hear/pronounce specific spellings.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't use ze/hir ever, or that we shouldn't add it to the lexicon; I'm just saying that in this part of the country, there's already a widely accepted, grammatically correct gender-neutral term. It's used by newscasters, it's used by teachers. Trying to "correct" an already correct term would be kicking a hornet's nest of issues, particularly of class and race, and would just earn the LGBTQI movement hostility in an area where things can get pretty fucking hostile for it already.

TL;DR: Intersectionality! It happens in language too.

Yes, thank you. I've had some reservations about instituting wide-spread use of ze/hir, but I haven't been able to name them. You've hit the nail on the head.

Also I have to note that I am in immense favour of using "y'all" as a second-person plural instead of "you guys" or "you gals" or "youses". I say it all the time, which earns me strange looks, until I say "Fuck off, my dad's from Texas."

[Annie Ozone]

Y'all is the best. Favorite word, right there. (I was like, how is y'all weird?, and then I saw your location was CANADA. That would do it.)

I honestly couldn't figure out why I was so offended by the "they/their is incorrect" stance until I realized--when people IRL correct me on it, or on "y'all" or "fixing to", what they really mean is, "You're white trash." [Background: in addition to having a rather strong Texas accent, I also grew up literally across the street from the ghetto.] And when you're insulted like that, it's not just you who's slighted, it's your family and friends who speak the same way being called trash as well. These are corrections to me, a white person; similar corrections given to people of color would have much worse connotations. This is in Texas, and, obviously, this particular subtext isn't understood everywhere. Language is not universal; it's multidimensional.

The larger point: there are certain cultural codes in language that people have to understand before implementing any serious change. This one issue just happened to hit my "someone is insulting you" and "someone is insulting your mother" buttons, and I had to dig a little to figure out how they had been hit. People being people, not everybody's going to dig before hitting back.

PS: Sorry if I sounded cranky in my other post? I didn't think I did, but the week-long thread coma may beg to differ. Also sorry if this post makes no sense! I am le tired and thinking of maybe starting a teal deer farm.

[Fuck Yeah Dion]

Jun 3, 2011 14:22:42 GMT -5 onlyaworkingtitle said:

I hate "singular" they. Hate it. So much.

I think the "floundering" of ze/hir in place of she/he and his/her depends on where you are, too -- it's widely used at my alma mater, so I have to assume there are other pockets where it's commonplace -- and I think it really has to catch on. We need an alternative to the overly-formal "one" or the completely incorrect usage of "they."

Until then, if I overhear anyone using "they" as a singular pronoun, I will ask if the person ze is referring to has multiple personality disorder (and use the opportunity to introduce hir to the preferable alternative).

Yeah, but here in North Carolina, ze isn't going to catch on any time soon.

[rayyychul]

Jun 27, 2011 4:37:37 GMT -5 Fuck Yeah Dion said:

Jun 3, 2011 14:22:42 GMT -5 onlyaworkingtitle said:

I hate "singular" they. Hate it. So much.

I think the "floundering" of ze/hir in place of she/he and his/her depends on where you are, too -- it's widely used at my alma mater, so I have to assume there are other pockets where it's commonplace -- and I think it really has to catch on. We need an alternative to the overly-formal "one" or the completely incorrect usage of "they."

Until then, if I overhear anyone using "they" as a singular pronoun, I will ask if the person ze is referring to has multiple personality disorder (and use the opportunity to introduce hir to the preferable alternative).

Yeah, but here in North Carolina, ze isn't going to catch on any time soon.

Yeah, I don't think they're going to catch on and become a part of the majority of people's vocabulary any time soon.

Also, I never take anyone who asked me if I had multiple personality disorder seriously. Could you get any more offensive?

[Fuck Yeah Dion]

Haha in a mission to avoid being sexist/transphobic, people are being ableist. Can't win.

[Deleted]

I think gender neutral pronouns are unlikely to catch on in common parlance any time soon. It's certainly not something that can be forced upon a language - languages develop organically, no matter how much the French would like to believe otherwise. However, I think in writing, especially at an academic or equivalent level, it allows for a greater degree of specificity without the additional awkwardness of "he or she"-esque verbal contortions. As someone who takes a pragmatic and descriptivist view of language, I don't think there's anything wrong with the singular 'they' as long as it conveys the intended meaning. The genderless singular pronoun just helps in cases where meaning is obscured by the ambivalence of 'they', and there's nothing offensive about that.