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Education News

Stylebooks Finally Embrace the Single 'They' (cjr.org) 301

Posted by msmash from the serenity-now dept.
Two major style manuals are now allowing the singular use of "they" in certain circumstances. While this is a victory for common sense, the paths taken are unusual in the evolution of usage. From a report on Columbia Journal Review: Both manuals, the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style, emphasize that "they" cannot be used with abandon. Even so, it's the middle of the end for the insistence that "they" can be only a plural pronoun. To recap: In English, there is no gender-neutral pronoun for a single person. In French, for example, the pronoun on can stand in for "he" or "she." English has no such equivalent; "it" is our singular pronoun, so devoid of gender that calling a person "it" is often considered insulting. We could use "one," but that is a very impersonal pronoun. Consider this sentence, for instance. "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten ____ safety belt before approaching the cliff." The article adds: For hundreds of years, anyone writing formally would default to "he." Advances in women's rights led to the clumsy "he or she." Many writers alternate "he" or "she." This twisting and turning is because what's known as "the epicene they" has been considered incorrect. [...] But that's not the "they" the style guides have let loose. Simply, the singular "they" will be allowed if someone prefers that pronoun.
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Stylebooks Finally Embrace the Single 'They' More

Stylebooks Finally Embrace the Single 'They'

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  • Hoo-ray! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:12PM (#54122215)

    That's to he or she who finally decided this!

    • Re:Hoo-ray! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LifesABeach ( 234436 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:39PM (#54122431) Homepage
      Ebonics rises again! LOL

    • That's to he or she who finally decided this!

      I think you mean "That's to the one who decided this". English already has a perfectly good third person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, 'one', which you can use when referring to people as opposed to things.

      • You've changed the direct object to an indirect object, so, you're changing the case.

        • The person referred to is the indirect object of the sentence in both versions since the "hooray" is being sent to the person. There is no change of case.

          • Oops, reading the parent more closely, yeah, my bad, you're right. But... that parent should be "That's to him or her," and that's what made me jump so bloody fast on the case! Oops.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by skids ( 119237 )

        Some person started yelling at me in olde english the other day. I have no idea what one wanted.

  • How (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aoism ( 996912 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:12PM (#54122217)
    How is this related to tech in anyway whatsoever?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Rakhar ( 2731433 )

      Maybe it's targeted at all of the grammar nazis that pop up when the summary of a grammer article uses the wrong pronoun for its own example...

        "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten HE safety belt before approaching the cliff." Yup, I would totally default to "he" in that example. Thanks, summary!

      (I'm aware that that isn't the intent of the article, but that's how the summary is presented.)

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

        "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten THEY safety belt before approaching the cliff." ... aah, doesn't that feel better?

        And yes, I noticed the same thing. Example could at least use the same word form as the headline.

      • Re: How (Score:4, Insightful)

        by slasher999 ( 513533 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:43PM (#54122455)

        You misspelled "grammar" there the second time you used it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Actually, English already had / has a genger nuetral (compound) pronoun.
        We like to keep it secret 'cause, when the time arrives, that's how we'll tell them from us;
        but I digress. Anyway the word is "ir" and it's generally used with a definite article.
        You gots air, right? And you have their, such that the sentence would read -

        "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten their safety belt before approaching the cliff."

        Something that is taught to the "right" people as early as second grade, if you get my drift.
        Anyw

      • I'm a resident Grammar Nazi, and I've been championing the use of "they" as a singular pronoun for ages. I've also been shitting on style guides ever since I first looked at one because of how inconsistent, ambiguous, and fucking stupid it was.

    • A nomination for the Ig-Nobel committee?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      I take it you don't read Hackaday regularly. They use "they" even when the gender of the person in question is known or otherwise obvious from the link to what the article is talking about.

      • Even when the sex of the antecedent is known, we should encourage people to de-humanize all of us by using "they". Besides, sex is messy. EWWW!!

    • Re:How (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @06:29PM (#54122831)
      Slashdot isn't about tech exclusively. It's for nerds. There are all kinds of nerds, including grammar nerds.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by xevioso ( 598654 )

      It is news for nerds, though. Grammar nerds.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      The Slashdot tagline is 'News for nerds, stuff that matters'. Many of the most active discussions on Slashdot have had very little to do with tech. If you want a tech site, just visit a tech site. If you don't like an article on Slashdot, skip it. If you don't like the articles of Slashdot in general, just leave.

  • Nope, I'll use he, she, they, there, their etc... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:13PM (#54122227)
    "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten __their___ safety belt before approaching the cliff."

    • Everyone needs to be sure to tighten one's safety belt before approaching the cliff.

      Perhaps the pronoun "one" matches "Everyone"?

      Also, how about this: Everyone needs to be sure to tighten the safety belt before approaching the cliff.

      • Everyone needs to be sure to tighten one's safety belt before approaching the cliff.

        All of us who identify as Dissociative Personality gender are offended.

    • Yeah, that's what immediately came to mind for me, certainly not "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten he safety belt before approaching the cliff" as the article suggests. They probably mean "his" but it's just a really poor example because of "everyone".

      Better perhaps; "The Dean of Medicine gave a scathing speech this afternoon." "Really? What did ____ say?".

      Not only is that a common example where people's unconscious bias would insert "he", but it's a perfectly acceptable place to say "they" in speech fo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        I'm curious, what do you think the appropriate answer is to that last example?

        And for illustrating this actual argument; "The prom queen is dressed unusually" "Why? What _____ wearing?" in that sentence "are they" makes no sense, unless the prom queen is conjoined twins.

        If you assume sex with due to the mention of "queen", replace it with, "The winner of the prom is dressed unusually", or "The prom winner ...".

        I think that's a good example of the need for a gender neutral singular pronoun other than they. You can fill it in with:
        * is she
        * is he
        * are they
        * is it
        * is he or she ... but the "are they", due to the verb, implies a plural (unless I'm mistaken).

        I don't see how "one" would fix this exampl

        • It could be "is he", "is she" or "is it", or even some other gender neutral pronoun construct, but you'd have to know the person to know what their pronouns are; which is why this stuff is so fraught, I shouldn't need a pronunciation guide to avoid offending people, but while "it" /should/ be acceptable, it is not.

          You can't replace "queen" with "winner" because there is also generally a "king" and neither of them "win" the prom.

          I can't help read, "What is the queen wearing?" in Chandler Bing's voice with ap

    • "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten __their___ safety belt before approaching the cliff."

      And that would be what most people would actually produce.

      The trap that stylebooks had evidently fallen into is to assume that the rules of grammar in English are as they are written in textbooks.

      This is incorrect; the rules of grammar in any language are what native speakers produce. If a native speaker produces it and, on introspection, insists that it is correct then it is, by definition, correct.

      • I don't think that's a general statement you can make. It is true in English, much to the chagrin of English teachers everywhere, but there are absolutely languages where there is a body empowered to decide what the correct grammar is. I believe, France is rather notoriously defensive of it's académie française. That's not to say that everyone, especially in speech, does what they say but that there actually is a correct way to do things.

  • "In French, for example, the pronoun on can stand in for "he" or "she." English has no such equivalent; " ...

    "We could use "one," but that is a very impersonal pronoun."

    I hate to disagree, but 'one' is _exactly_ the same thing as the french 'on'.
    They words even have some sort of resemblance, don't you think?

    • "He" is perfectly personal, though. Granted, it sounds kind of archaic but the claim is false. But given the fact that this whole language we're talking about is written archaicly, and many have to suffer for it, it seems like cherry-picked small potatoes.

    • Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:24PM (#54122321) Homepage
      Unfortunate that the two words have almost nothing in common then, right? "One" comes from the Germanic ancestry of English which itself took it from Latin and it meant "one" the whole way through. The French "On" actually comes from the Latin "homo", or human being.

      What's more, even ignoring etymology, the two words have basically opposed uses: "One" is very formal and impersonal, whereas "On" tends to be favored in informal speech. It also really is not a good gender-neutral pronoun and is basically never used as such in French, which still favors the masculine form as the gender-neutral form.
      • Perhaps, whether one considers "one" to be very "formal and impersonal" depends on which of the many dialects of English one grew up using. As you can tell from the previous sentence, I consider its use perfectly natural in some situations. Yes, I know many would replace "one" with "you", but that in a literal sense changes the meaning.
    • Of course, "on" in French gets used all the time, to the point that it sounds ridiculous and grating on the ears, almost as bad as alors. On the other hand, if we used 'one' like that with such frequency in English, it would also get annoying, quickly.

    • "In French, for example, the pronoun on can stand in for "he" or "she." English has no such equivalent; " ...

      "We could use "one," but that is a very impersonal pronoun."

      I hate to disagree, but 'one' is _exactly_ the same thing as the french 'on'. They words even have some sort of resemblance, don't you think?

      One is the loneliest ...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by green1 ( 322787 )

      The funny part is that every inanimate object in french has a gender, but they have a way of talking about people without gender, meanwhile in english we realize that inanimate objects don't need a gender, but somehow insist that people must have one.

      That said, the singular "they" has been quite acceptable in most forms of english for many, many, years now.

  • none of the examples work (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:16PM (#54122241)

    Everyone needs to be sure to tighten he safety belt before approaching the cliff

    Everyone needs to be sure to tighten they safety belt before approaching the cliff

    • Everyone needs to be sure to tighten they safety belt before approaching the cliff

      In modern Ebonics, this appears to be acceptable.

      • Reminds of Reginald D. Hunter being asked what he knew about some famous person who'd passed away:

        "Well, I know he dead."
        "I think you mean 'he died.'"
        "No, at first he died. Now, he dead."

    • They both work, but you have to use the correct form. He, him, his are not different words. They are different forms of the same word.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gorobei ( 127755 )

        "Fieryphoenix" and "nutcase who decides that words are not sequences of letters" are not different words. They are different forms of the same word.

  • "While this is a victory for common sense" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:18PM (#54122269)
    Heh. For half of Indo-European population that learned English as a second language, speaking as one of those people, it's more of a constant confusion than anything even resembling common sense.

    • It sounds as if you've truly mastered English, then!

    • Heh. For half of Indo-European population that learned English as a second language, speaking as one of those people, it's more of a constant confusion than anything even resembling common sense.

      Please don't bring politics into a grammar discussion. One does not want to confuse one...

      • That's not politics, that's linguistics. The languages are related in structure, and the gender structure is largely compatible, hence it makes perfect sense for learners to stick with it so as to avoid confusion. Exceptions may be present in case of languages that collapsed the masculine-feminine axis instead of the animate-inanimate axis in the unstable late-PIE tri-gender system (some languages such as Czech instead extending it into four effective genders with retaining indeterminate/generic masculines)
    • Common sense would mean that you use the third person, singular, gender-neutral pronoun which already exists for people: "one".
      • Common sense in writing means that you use whatever is common in the majority of the corpus you're confronted with so that you wouldn't have to mentally switch languages every time you're switching documents, which mostly means conservatism. That's why especially spelling became so frozen.

  • In the linked article, the example given, “Carly cleared their voice and spoke”, feels awkward and ambiguous. I never thought I'd prefer usages like "his or her", but compared to the example, I do.

    • “Carly cleared their voice and spoke”, feels awkward and ambiguous.

      It is. But in fairness, it is a situation that could be ambiguous and awkward.

    • True, but "they" is much less awkward with an indefinite subject, though. "The presenter cleared their voice and spoke" sounds almost as natural as his or her and is far better than using constructions like "his or her" or new words like "xis".

      The problem with "Carly cleared their voice and spoke" is that it introduces ambiguity. Whose voice was cleared in that case? It doesn't have to be their own, Carly could be an otolaryngologist.

      • How about 'The otolaryngologist cleared their voice and spoke'?

    • It could've been Pat.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • That's why there's a notion of an idiolect. Different people to prefer to write and speak in different ways and there's seldom absolute rights or wrongs, especially in a language like English without an official governing body. Singular generic "they" hasn't been wrong for centuries. Singular generic "he" hasn't been wrong for millennia. From the perspective of today, both fit some people's idiolects.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      Singluar they has been used at least since Shakespeare's day.

      Yes. And since Shakespeare's day, pedants who fail to realize that English is not a prescriptive language [wikipedia.org], for example in the manner certain French insist upon imposing upon other French, will denigrate writers who are far better than they are (as well as everyone else) by citing rules made from whole cloth, usually in an attempt to structure English like Latin. This appears to make them feel superior.

      Someone you've never heard of will, almost wi

  • Already A Pronoun For It (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fieryphoenix ( 1161565 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:22PM (#54122301)

    One wonders where one's language went.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      One wonders where one's language went.

      Even if you did speak English properly, with whom would you speak it?

      • One wonders where one's language went.

        Even if you did speak English properly, with whom would you speak it?

        I think you mean "with whom wouldst thou it speaketh", you swine.

    • Interestingly I find it non-trivial to discern whether this sentence has one or two pronoun referents in it.

    • 'One' is impersonal, indefinite, and may refer to a first- or second-person as well as third-person. Singular 'they' is personal, definite, and always refers to the third-person.

  • Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OhPlz ( 168413 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:29PM (#54122363)

    This is nonsense. "He" has always been the default in English when the gender is unknown or not relevant.

    French using "on" is no different than referring to an unknown person as "one" in English. We don't use "one" that way very often because it doesn't sound right because we're used to using "he" instead. Of course it sounds impersonal, it's not using "he" or "she". It's meant to be impersonal!

    • This is nonsense. "He" has always been the default in English when the gender is unknown or not relevant.

      That's what style guides have mostly previously said, and it's what people say when they want to look all clever and knowing.

      But the truth is that most people, in everyday use, use "they" when they don't someone's gender.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OhPlz ( 168413 )

        That might be an age thing. I tend to stick with "he" because that's how I was taught and that's what the style guides said at the time. I still remember a pair of professors that would call this out specifically. They were both women too, strange that they didn't think it was improper.

        • Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)

          by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday March 27, 2017 @08:34PM (#54123847) Homepage Journal

          It's an education thing. People who know how English evolved know that 'he' can be both masculine or neuter, depending on context. It's been that way since before 'ye', 'thou', 'thy' and similar words went away.

          People who are uneducated may assume that 'he' is only masculine and will choose to feel oppressed about it. I can't imagine how bad those people feel using romance languages where half of the nouns are masculine gendered.

          It's somewhat awkward, but less so than losing the singular/plural distinction. Style guides are a useful reference, but feel free to ignore their inconsistencies and poor suggestions.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by green1 ( 322787 )

            And people who are even more educated know that the singular "they" has been in use for centuries and is perfectly acceptable.

  • Missing quotation marks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChrisMaple ( 607946 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @05:33PM (#54122391)
    "Advances" in women's rights

  • Yeesh (Score:5, Informative)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @06:03PM (#54122611)

    >"Consider this sentence, for instance. "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten ____ safety belt before approaching the cliff."

    Sorry, that is easy and was solved hundreds of years ago and without using "his". The answer is "one's".

    "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten one's safety belt before approaching the cliff."

    • Even after teh summery I am still confused about how this new revelation applies in reality.
      Is it saying that the "correct way" for the sentence to go now is:
        "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten __they__ safety belt before approaching the cliff."
      Or is it:
        "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten __they's__ safety belt before approaching the cliff."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AJWM ( 19027 )

      Who is this Juan, and why does everybody need to worry about his safety belt?

  • Stylemanual... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bartles ( 1198017 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @06:15PM (#54122707)

    ...is newspeak for the word newspeak.

  • "On" in French is a bad example -- "on" agrees with masculine conjugations and endings, not feminine. And French is a bad example in general, since so much of the language is gender-laden. Try getting a French person to remove the destinction between "le" and "la", replacing it with something else ("lo"?) -- and replace all masculine/feminine dimorphism in the language with some new generic ending. That will take you far.

  • Other usages that are changing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @07:50PM (#54123507)
    Other shifts I've noticed in general vernacular over the last 30 years:
    • Less vs. fewer. Countable items are supposed to use 'fewer' ("10 items or fewer"). Non-countable items are supposed to use 'less' ("less water"). But nowadays I hardly ever see 'fewer' being used. Nearly everyone uses 'less' for both cases.
    • "and I" vs "and me". When I was young, the common error was to use "and me" when you were supposed to use "and I". e.g. "My wife and me went to the party" is incorrect. "My wife and I went to the party" is correct. The frequent correction by grammar nazis caused people to overcompensate, and now they say "and I" even when they're supposed to use "and me." e.g. "The dog sat by my wife and I" is incorrect. "The dog sat by my wife and me" is correct. A quick way to test is to eliminate the conjunction. "The dog sat by I" is clearly wrong, while "The dog sat by me" is right. So in this case you're supposed to use "and me".
    • Who vs whom. As with "and I" vs "and me" above, who is a subject, whom is an object. But almost everyone uses 'who' for both subject and object now.

    BTW, my solution to "he or she" in writing was to simply add a slash - "s/he". One extra character and the same number of characters as "they". Unfortunately there's no way to pronounce it, so when speaking I usually use "they".

    Don't even get me started on the silly rules about punctuation inside or outside quotation marks, which prioritize conformity over meaning.

  • The Spanish language is loaded with masculine/feminine forms which are intrinsic to the grammar. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about the evils of gender in Spanish?

  • Nous, on pense that "on" can mean "each of us."

  • Wonder (Score:3)

    by Stormy Dragon ( 800799 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:09PM (#54124049)

    Do the people so outraged by the singular they also insist on still using "ye" and "thou" on account of "you" being purely a plural pronoun?

  • Isaac Asimov (Score:3)

    by Zobeid ( 314469 ) on Monday March 27, 2017 @11:06PM (#54124511)

    I recall that in IASFM (yes, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine), Asimov once wrote an editorial which covered this subject. Although I don't have that anymore, I think I recall the gist of it pretty well. He noted that a number of science fiction writers over the years had attempted to invent gender-neutral pronouns for the English language, but none had ever gained any traction. Asimov then pointed out that English already had gender-neutral pronouns that work just fine, in the form of "he" and "his". It's rarely difficult to tell from the context when they are being used in a gender-neutral way. The awkward "he or she" construct was a solution to a non-problem.

    So, I think I'll stick with Asimov on this. However, I have to admit to being stodgy in my writing habits. I still refer to The Elements of Style (which Asimov also recommended), not to mention Webster's 2nd Edition (the "dord" dictionary), and I still capitalize God (yes, even when He is referred to by pronouns), and I still believe that "flammable" is not a real word and shouldn't be used outside of warning labels that must be understood by semi-literates.

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