Pronouns

[stewamax]

In the Preface to one of my books, I begged pardon for mangling English:
"Lastly, an apology: English has not yet evolved gender-inclusive and unstilted variants of ‘he’ and ‘his’. Perhaps communication and natural selection, which together mould languages and ideas as well as species, will in time create something suitably simple and direct. Until then, an author, like Nature, has to work with what tools he has"

[bungeejumper]

Just wait till your socks are part of a snidey wee culture war created to engender a sense of righteous affront within a minority of those that perceive themselves to be your ruling class

Oi, that's enough of that righteousism. What about us lefteous sock lovers, then?

Yeah, I know what you'll say, you were just lulled into that unconscious semantic bias that's been around the language ever since somebody started to use the latin word sinister to mean, well, sinister?

Socksist crap.

BJ

[XFool]

“Oh, someone dropped their wallet, I’ll hand it in for them, I bet they are looking everywhere!”
or
“Oh, someone dropped his or her wallet. I’ll hand it in for him or her, I bet he or she is looking everywhere!”

Exactly.

Or, nowadays:

“Oh, someone dropped his or her or their wallet. I’ll hand it in for him or her or they, I bet he or she or they is or are looking everywhere!”

[servodude]

Just wait till your socks are part of a snidey wee culture war created to engender a sense of righteous affront within a minority of those that perceive themselves to be your ruling class

Oi, that's enough of that righteousism. What about us lefteous sock lovers, then?

Yeah, I know what you'll say, you were just lulled into that unconscious semantic bias that's been around the language ever since somebody started to use the latin word sinister to mean, well, sinister?

Socksist crap.

BJ

You know the sinister ones have their own day (13th August)...
but do we dextral, normal folk get a day?!

No we bally well don't!

Which is something my lefty kid does like to rub in (but she looks as awkward as she does with scissors when she rubs something )

As a result my guitars will be going to her sister that can use them

-sd

[bungeejumper]

“Oh, someone dropped his or her wallet. I’ll hand it in for him or her, I bet he or she is looking everywhere!”

I got into an interesting exchange about ten years ago with a (female) reference book editor, over her insistence that every reference to a professional of unspecified sex should say "she", and never "he".

It was tiresome feminist militancy, frankly, and it made a lot of things read really clunkily. But what the hell, her bosses were paying my fee, so I let it go. Apart, that is, from the time when she used the she-word for all airline pilots.

I pointed out that barely 2% of the world's international airline pilots are female. And that one reason for that is that it costs an airline two million dollars up front to train a pilot, which makes it a bit annoying that so many female pilots quit the job by the age of thirty. (That old biological clock. ) Which in turn means that airlines have (or did have) a special exemption that allowed them to select far more male trainees than female. I believe they still have the exemption today.

Then there's the fact that a pilot automatically loses his/her licence if he/she takes a maternity leave of more than a few months. The thing is, nobody wants to fly with a pilot who hasn't flown a plane for five or six months. So it's back to college for expensive retraining before he/she gets his/her licence back, and airlines don't like that very much either.

And finally, there's the fact that female pilots are effectively banished from many countries in Africa and the Islamic world, because so many passengers simply refuse to fly in a plane piloted by a woman. That's ridiculous and bigoted and politically incorrect and [insert adjective of your choice], but the bottom line is that an empty plane on the tarmac is a bad business proposition, so no airline wants to be the first to force the pace of change.

The editor listened to me carefully, and then clenched her jaw and stuck to her guns. And, at the stroke of her keyboard, all the world's pilots became female.

I tried, honestly I did.

[UncleEbenezer]

In the Preface to one of my books, I begged pardon for mangling English:
"Lastly, an apology: English has not yet evolved gender-inclusive and unstilted variants of ‘he’ and ‘his’. Perhaps communication and natural selection, which together mould languages and ideas as well as species, will in time create something suitably simple and direct. Until then, an author, like Nature, has to work with what tools he has"

Now that's a fair argument. What exactly you're arguing for is unspecified, so I won't try to comment.

As I said above,

If others want to, that's their business, but don't expect me to join in.

Whether I would join in a particular instance of something remains unspecified, but I will push back against language police imposing nonsense on me. Which is what the OP described.

[servodude]

In the Preface to one of my books, I begged pardon for mangling English:
"Lastly, an apology: English has not yet evolved gender-inclusive and unstilted variants of ‘he’ and ‘his’. Perhaps communication and natural selection, which together mould languages and ideas as well as species, will in time create something suitably simple and direct. Until then, an author, like Nature, has to work with what tools he has"

Now that's a fair argument. What exactly you're arguing for is unspecified, so I won't try to comment.

As I said above,

If others want to, that's their business, but don't expect me to join in.

Whether I would join in a particular instance of something remains unspecified, but I will push back against language police imposing nonsense on me. Which is what the OP described.

Pretty sure the OP was having a grump at their work asking them to provide pronouns for a profile in a company "computer system" (things that are famously inflexible)

That's not really a language police imposition is it?
It sounds like a intended courtesy fraught with problems around assumptions.
Similar to how you can't guess titles..
Ms. Marion Morrison? I think not, he was a Duke obviously

Consider the ire of some t*ats who get upset if you accidentally Mister their Doctor or (indeed Doctor their Mister for the important ones)
- it matters to some, so I reckon it's polite and less likely to upset or cause umbrage (on average) if you ask folk what they'd prefer

But.... if we're fixing English can we have a negative yes?

[Lootman]

My niece recently declared that she wants to be known as "They". Because some days she feels like a man and other days she feels like a woman.

I have to confess I am always baffled by this. What does it mean? What does it actually mean to "feel like a man" or "feel like a woman", on a day to day basis? I find I just can't attach any recognisable meaning to such a claim. For myself I have always found that, on a day to day basis, I mostly just feel like... myself.

I feel the same way but I am willing to accept that some others do not. After all, you can't really argue with a feeling. If you feel something then it has some validity on that basis alone. In that it cannot reasonably be denied by another person who, by definition, cannot know how I feel.

[XFool]

Consider the ire of some t*ats who get upset if you accidentally Mister their Doctor or (indeed Doctor their Mister for the important ones)

Well, one can sympathise there, surely?

But.... if we're fixing English can we have a negative yes?

"You, have a nice day now!" ?

[richfool]

Just came across this thread, whilst looking for ones on investment related topics.

I note in books about evolution of our species, when we talk about humans, we always refer to mankind. That works for me. I see that as including women as well as men. It seems to me that people who want to sit on the fence in terms of gender are just being pedantic. Perhaps we should refer to them as "one". E.g. How does one feel today? Which side of the fence does one feel today?

[UncleEbenezer]

I note in books about evolution of our species, when we talk about humans, we always refer to mankind. That works for me. I see that as including women as well as men.

A separate but not unrelated issue. I can certainly sympathise with women feeling pressured into making a statement one way or t'other when men don't, and I would certainly respect a woman's choice to be addressed as "chairman" or "chairwoman", or even variants. Even addressing "the chair" is fine: it fits with the fact that the addressee is the role rather than the person.

Quite recently someone played a clip of the late, great Ursula LeGuin on t'wireless, proclaiming herself a man. She was of course referring to the linguistically inclusive use of "man", as in mankind. As a leading wordsmith, LeGuin was of course well aware of her language.

[marronier]

Whilst I support someone's democratic right to choose whatever pronoun they wish , I resent the notion that I am under obligation to concur , that my democratic rights and liberty are of no consequence. This whole manic nonsense has a whiff of passive fascism, first ,control how people may speak , then , what they think and ultimately ,what they may do. Soon , we will all be " North Koreans "

[tjh290633]

I have a feeling that, should I wish to attract the attention of someone it might be best to say "Oi, you" or "You there In the dress" in the case of the transvestite who occasionally has appeared in our local pharmacy.

Can anyone tell me the plural of "them"?

TJH

[XFool]

..."thems" ?

As in: "Them's the ones I mean."

[WrenChasen]

"Bond, James Bond" works for me. I cringe when men introduce themselves as "Mr" unless they're actually a surgeon. As a woman, when writing letters, I think it's polite to avoid confusion by signing off with my preferred title in brackets after my name.

Pronouns are a step too far; there are too many serious issues in the world today to worry about offending the permanently offended.

[stewamax]

Can anyone tell me the plural of "them"?

"Even-more-of-them"

[tjh290633]

..."thems" ?

As in: "Them's the ones I mean."

That's obviously the genitive singular. "thems' " would be the genitive plural, perhaps.

TJH

[UncleEbenezer]

Ms. Marion Morrison? I think not, he was a Duke obviously

How do you think I communicated with 张立强 ? I still have no idea if the chinese translator of my book is a man or a woman.

[mc2fool]

Can anyone tell me the plural of "them"?

"Them" of course. If you need to distinguish between singular and plural do so the same way as you do with "you". I tend to use the southern US "you all" (but without the drawl). So "them all"?

[servodude]

Ms. Marion Morrison? I think not, he was a Duke obviously

How do you think I communicated with 张立强 ? I still have no idea if the chinese translator of my book is a man or a woman.

I've dealt with mobs in that part of the world where some of the staff weren't even real!
"So you've billed us on that line as Johnny and that one as Yuxi? Hmm!"