rationalskepticism.org

hotshoe wrote:

Scott H wrote:Another problem with 'they': What if you're talking about two subjects, one plural and one singular, and you have to use 'they' to refer to the singular? Wouldn't that be a bit... awkward?

"If the soldier confronts a group of hostiles, then they are expected to take cover and protect themselves." Wha-- who's they?

I still think you're being a bit harsh in your denunciation of my fun little project.

You're right, "they" as singular causes as many problems as it seems to solve.

But at this point, American culture is drifting into "they" singular in spite of its problems ... looks inevitable to me, but I still admire the project of trying to find a better alternative.

looks inevitable to me, but I still admire the project of trying to find a better alternative.

I’m afraid I don’t. Language is arguably the most important tool of self-expression that is available to us, and the thought of some anonymous youngster making rules for the entire English-speaking world is objectionable (but no doubt you can claim membership of that ancient tradition of prescriptive grammarians ). Of course, as a “fun little project”, it is harmless enough, and in any case I doubt whether anyone will take any notice. Personally, I love the English language and accept that in a way it has a life of its own.

I briefly discussed an aspect of ambiguity earlier, and now katja z has too. And thank you, katja, and I am sorry that somehow I missed an early notification of your comment . Ambiguity is always a problem to some degree, and given English syntax it is remarkable that we don't have more problems with it. But context is crucial to comprehension, so I dare say that that is an important factor in avoiding confusion.

Languages do not necessarily evolve in what one would suppose to be the the most “sensible” way, but given the number of factors that play their part this isn't really very surprising, and we just have to accept it. I won’t bore you with a comprehensive list of the various changes that I personally regret, but they include the loss of hither, thither, whither and the corresponding hence, thence and whence (belonging to the same series as here, there, where). It is not easy to see why such elegant and economical words should have been universally replaced by their more awkward and complicated present-day equivalents, even if one allows that those equivalents in some form or other may be equally old, but such things happen. Too bad.

katja z wrote:
As for the pronoun "they", I'm frankly amazed that it has managed to gain so much acceptance so quickly, in a few decades. I think this has been possible in English partly because the use of "they" doesn't demand a revolution in the morphosyntax of the sentence, as it would in more strongly inflectional languages.

That’s a really interesting comment and leads to much thought. I’d like to restrict myself here to the observation that, as regards the length of time involved, I make it a personal rule to assume that “new” developments have been in use for far longer than I have been aware of them. A good example is how “legitimise/legitimize” appears to be ousting “legitimate” (verb) from regular usage. The latter was the word I learnt as the “normal” one back in the early 50’s and for years I supposed that the former was some ugly new upstart (perhaps not unreasonably, as -ise/-ize is in constant use in the formation of new verbs). In fact, The Shorter OED gives the date of the first recorded use of “legitimise” as 1791, hardly “new” (legitimate, verb, from 1531). So it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that singular they is pretty old, though the oldest example I can find is from Thackeray, Nobody prevents you, do they? (quoted by Ernest Gowers in The Complete Plain Words). I would guess that singular they has its origin in such natural and unexceptionable idioms as this, from Jane Austen:

“To my fancy, a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to send three miles for their meat.”
(Sense and Sensibility)

A plural is clearly meant, but it is not difficult to imagine such a usage being extended to a logical singular without anyone even noticing. This is a different argument from the “nonsexist” one, but I think it more likely that the usage arose well before anyone began to seriously question the accepted use of he as the appropriate pronoun for a person unknown. (By the way, if you want to start a thread on the subject of split infinitives, do so by all means ).