The Off Topic Topic

[garbon]

I didn't mean to imply that "they" was an answer to trans issues, I agree that it was an answer to the perception that a default "he" implies that all doctors are male.  I still don't hear it used in the business world, and garbon's first sentence (but not the second one) would likely sound unusual enough in that setting that I would probably notice.

In my first example, I was envisioning scenario where he saw the doctor and I don't know the doctor's gender. I agree previously would have been male dominated profession and 'he' automatically used but I wouldn't do so in absence of other info. Though really the doctor's gender is likely irrelevant.

[Richard Hakluyt]

We switched from thee and thou to the plural quite a while back, the basic driver being politeness; I think the increased use of "they" is occuring for roughly the same reasons. He/she is an abomination and demanding people's pronouns or using the wrong one seems crass, so much easier to use they.

[PDH]

Ahh for the good old days when we could just refer to people by their proper title, "fuckwads"

[The Brain]

I think Lord British mock Shakespearean is the language of culture.

[Sheilbh]

I didn't mean to imply that "they" was an answer to trans issues, I agree that it was an answer to the perception that a default "he" implies that all doctors are male.  I still don't hear it used in the business world, and garbon's first sentence (but not the second one) would likely sound unusual enough in that setting that I would probably notice.

I think there might be a bit of an Atlantic divide - because I have definitely seen "he/she" in documents and I feel they've all come from the US. I don't think either of the sentences Garbo mentioned would even be noticed here. I think we maybe reacted more to "he/she" - I think if anything that was seen as an over-the-top, very American "political correctness gone mad" but we slipped very casually into just using "they" instead.

(US lawyers generally have a reputation in the UK for being more formal/formalist/old-fashioned in their language, but obviously that also involves a fair amount of English lawyers congratulating themselves on the clarity and simplicity of their language )

[ulmont]

I was thinking more of "they" as replacement for where you would use "he/she", or just "he" as default.  The first one sounds like a recent accepted use to me, the second one doesn't.  The doctor is a particular person, the bank is a nebulous entity.  Obviously you spoke with a person when you called the bank, but that person may as well stand in for the bank itself.

Let me give you Shakespeare using they with a person whose sex is known:  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html

And more including Emily Dickinson: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they

And Ursula K. Le Guin's, which is the best:




But back to the OP:  it's under some debate in the US now but common.

[Sheilbh]

I'd add that in terms of language I am a hard-core, extremist descriptivist. How people use language to communicate is what that language is, not a series of rules which people are failing. Obviously that means it does move around a lot over time.

So I don't care if "they" is only a plural pronoun, say, or about the less/fewer argument if that is no longer how they're used.

I take the entire resistance to personal pronouns expanding or shifting their meaning as a deeply suspicious, quite possibly French inspired and backed attempt by prescriptivists to take over English

[The Brain]

What are your views on antidisestablishmentarianism?

[PDH]

What are your views on antidisestablishmentarianism?

As a floccinaucinihilipilificator I find that to be of little value.

[crazy canuck]

Turns out faith is just a rhetorical tool of the American Right.

Fuck off.  It would've made my top 5.

You are not part of the American Right - unless something has changed.  And your one result would not change the results of that poll even if you were part of the American Right.

But your self identification with the American Right is noted.

Man, you have been in a bad mood since civilization started collapsing.

I call them as I see them.

[crazy canuck]

What are your views on antidisestablishmentarianism?

As a floccinaucinihilipilificator I find that to be of little value.

[The Brain]

What are your views on antidisestablishmentarianism?

As a floccinaucinihilipilificator I find that to be of little value.

[DGuller]

I guess now the impunity for murder extends to right wingers who want to be cops, not merely the cops themselves.  I predict the celebration of the murders by the usual suspects to be nauseating even by 2021 standards.

[Syt]

For the train fans: the menu on Czech trains. Between Prague and Vienna it's always Happy Hour, so that means a good meal for under EUR 8, and 0.5 beer from tap or bottle for 1.80.

https://www.jidelnivozy.cz/uploads/menus/foodMenu/1.pdf

[The Larch]

For the train fans: the menu on Czech trains. Between Prague and Vienna it's always Happy Hour, so that means a good meal for under EUR 8, and 0.5 beer from tap or bottle for 1.80.

https://www.jidelnivozy.cz/uploads/menus/foodMenu/1.pdf

I remember fondly my night trip from Warsaw to Prague back in the summer of 2005, the beer was really decent and half a litre was like less than an euro.