by orpheus wrote:laklak wrote:@Beat - yeah I agree that we need a better gender-neutral pronoun than "they", particularly in the writing examples you mentioned. I hate reading "he/she", I get truly annoyed with that. But then again "ze", "zir" and the like also annoy the shit out of me.
Yeah, I also agree here. The lack of a gender-neutral pronoun can make speaking awkward, and it's a real pain in the ass when writing. But I think the key is that it should be an option; I don't think we should eliminate the use of gendered pronouns. Here I disagree with Jake and the title of the thread. In fact, if the point of language is to "control" the flow of information, I fail to see how eliminating options serves that purpose.
Yes, I only noticed on rereading it that Jake was actually arguing against keeping the gender-specific pronouns at all. I don't agree with that - I think there should be either option. Although we might find that the number of cases in which it's relevant to specify the gender is remarkably few.
