Male/female pronouns

[Someone Else 37]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress....ar-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/he-or-she-versus-they
http://grammarist.com/usage/they/

In point of fact? That WAS the way "they", "them", "their", et cetera were used in the past, we're just reviving old usage in the face of a new problem.

You can honestly tell me "If your child needs a tutor, I can help them" is worse than "If your child needs a tutor, I can help hir"?

...

I still want to STAB people trying to invent new "hip" words for this kind of stuff. Xe/Hir/Ze/E? Need to go die in a fire. We STILL use plurals in many places as singulars, the usage just needs to ramp up. Even "the most famous authors" use they/them/their like that. Sure they use "his" or "her" more often, but generally as a differentiation tactic.

I can't really disagree with you; although when I say something like "If your child needs a tutor, I can help them" out loud, I usually abbreviate "them" to " 'em", which, in my dialect, sounds exactly the same as if I had done the same to "him". I mostly do this because that's how everyone I grew up around says it, but as a bonus, it's about as gender- and plurality-neutral as anything, and doesn't sound weird at all, unlike hir/xe/whatever.

As has been stated in this thread, both the masculine and plural pronouns have a long history of being used to refer to a singular person of indeterminate gender. Using a not-technically-a-pronoun that could just as easily be either one works well enough for me.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

Let me compare it like this.
German:

Ich
Du
Er/ Sie / Mann



Mann literally translated means 'one'. One has done this. One has done that. That is technically the correct term. NOT he. However, the word one is not commonly used in this way, as it is commonly assumed to be something only 'the really posh people say' and the correct term HAS become they in SLANG. That is why 'they' seems grammatically incorrect. It isn't proper English, but defaulting to he WILL offend a large proportion of females.

However, referring to a transgender person with a gender neutral phrase CAN still be offensive, so if you know they are transgender, asking them what gender they are ISN'T offensive, and if they say it is, they aren't worth the effort.

Hopefully this will end this argument, he is offensive to a lot of people, so please don't default to it.

 

[TomeWyrm]

Which would be why I generally try to avoid gendered language. It took some retraining, but I'm getting better at it; I still fail quite often, but them's the breaks

 

[Flipz]

Let me compare it like this.
However, referring to a transgender person with a gender neutral phrase CAN still be offensive, so if you know they are transgender, asking them what gender they are ISN'T offensive, and if they say it is, they aren't worth the effort.

Hopefully this will end this argument, he is offensive to a lot of people, so please don't default to it.

Just as a note, the least offensive way of asking someone their gender is generally something along the lines of "what are your preferred pronouns?"

On a personal level, they/them/their is the most technically correct set for me, but I don't really mind if people want to use he/she for me.

 

[keybounce]

In closing, let me just point out that the most generic form of pronoun would be something like she/he/it/they. Include everyone.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

In closing, let me just point out that the most generic form of pronoun would be something like she/he/it/they. Include everyone.

What?

EDIT: it's not that I disagree, I just have no idea what you're trying to say.

 

[dragon_fang101]

wha...

 

[dragon_fang101]

1st: people even remember this thread?
2nd:how is she/he a generic pronoun?
3rd: I thought we established "it" was rude or something

 

[Baaleos]

I guess its all about declaration of facts.
Until you know which gender someone belongs to, you are going to have to make some sort of assertion in order to use the English language.
It may be technically possible to remain politically correct while speaking aloud and using gender neutral terms, we are however as children taught a way of speaking which does imply the masculine pronoun by default.
Essentially- we have been hard coded since child-hood to assume that most positions and professions are male until proven otherwise with the introduction of more information.

EG: This actor is a male, until I see his vagina, at which point I now know it is a female, therefore I now know it is an actress.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

I guess its all about declaration of facts.
Until you know which gender someone belongs to, you are going to have to make some sort of assertion in order to use the English language.
It may be technically possible to remain politically correct while speaking aloud and using gender neutral terms, we are however as children taught a way of speaking which does imply the masculine pronoun by default.
Essentially- we have been hard coded since child-hood to assume that most positions and professions are male until proven otherwise with the introduction of more information.

EG: This actor is a male, until I see his vagina, at which point I now know it is a female, therefore I now know it is an actress.

No. That is offensive. It's basically something made in the language when men were far more in power than women, and is one of the big things feminists fight against. DO NOT DO THIS.

 

[Bashful Giant]

Normally, I refer to people as "he". If someone states otherwise, I'll just respectfully correct myself.

I don't consider it sexist, as that term implies that I'm actively discriminating against gender. I'm not. It's just the gender that I, as a man, default to, as well as most of the English speaking world.

Going out of my way to fulfill some sense of political correctness when speaking generally results in my head hurting, and me producing general nonsense.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

Normally, I refer to people as "he". If someone states otherwise, I'll just respectfully correct myself.

I don't consider it sexist, as that term implies that I'm actively discriminating against gender. I'm not. It's just the gender that I, as a man, default to, as well as most of the English speaking world.

Going out of my way to fulfill some sense of political correctness when speaking generally results in my head hurting, and me producing general nonsense.

In the end it's all down to whether they take offence or not. If they do though, don't say I didn't warn you.

 

[HeilMewTwo]

In the end it's all down to whether they take offence or not. If they do though, don't say I didn't warn you.

If they do then they aren't the kind of people I want to be speaking to in the first place.

 

[Baaleos]

Sure it would be nice if everyone remembered to be grammatically correct and use gender neutral terms and pronouns.
However people don't immediately think in gender neutral terms.
Police often assume a killer is male, until additional information is provided - is this because of gender bias or is it due to statistics of killers being male?

Lets imagine a 911 call.
'Help me, he is going to kill me'
or
'Help me, the person whos gender I dont know, is going to kill me'

The movie scream for instance, the serial killer's gender was never known until the very end, but in every reference during the movies - the killer is called a 'he'.
Assumptions are natural and reasonable. Even in scientific study, assumptions are made which are then subsequently validated through introduction of more facts to arrive at a more informed answer.

So if you don't know the gender of a person, it is not inherently bad to make an assumption in the interim until you have the facts you need to make an informed decision on the gender of the person in question.
Sure- assuming the person is female may go against the grain - as many people might assume male initially, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it - unless you are doing it intentionally.

 

[Someone Else 37]

My junior-year English teacher's advice: Pick "he" or "she" and run with it; it doesn't really matter which. To make her point, this teacher only used "she" on the syllabus to refer to a generic student, which I thought sounded pretty weird when I read it.

I'm in the "default to 'he' unless otherwise informed" camp. English speakers have been doing that for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; not to mention languages like Spanish that don't even have gender-neutral third-person pronouns.

 

[dragon_fang101]

I agree. first I check profile, and if it doesn't say than I default to he.

 

[keybounce]

Sigh.

I started this thread, hoping to get people to talk about this. It's a big pet peeve of mine.

From the OP:

Using the male pronoun by default DOES offend. It is inherently problematic, because it sets up a "assumed male" effect.

Consider that a "poetess" is defined as "a female poet", and "poet" is "Someone who makes poetry". If you don't see an inherent flaw in that concept, then explain why "poetess" is not "someone who writes poetry", and "poet" is not "a male poetess".

Male by default hurts by making the females the oddball.

There's an article I read, in print, years back, that I wish I had an online version of. But just to give you an example: What if everyone assumed you were white until you found out otherwise. What if being black was considered the horrible exception? What if there was one form of address for a black person that did not have a job, and a different form for a black person that did have a job -- with the justification of "This way, they don't have to tell you that they need a job -- it's made clear, and you can offer someone a job if they need it and you have an opening".

We would not accept a language that made black the oddball exception.
We would not accept a language that said "Oh, white people are treated differently than black people".

Never mind that our culture does exactly this. Our language does not.

Yet both culture and language does this for women.

 

[keybounce]

Aha! Google for the win!

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

(I asked Google for: what if language made being black the oddball, with special language for employed or non-employed black people. That isn't even found in the page, but was enough to identify it. Google is smarter than my memory).

 

[HeilMewTwo]

Sigh.

I started this thread, hoping to get people to talk about this. It's a big pet peeve of mine.

From the OP:


There's an article I read, in print, years back, that I wish I had an online version of. But just to give you an example: What if everyone assumed you were white until you found out otherwise. What if being black was considered the horrible exception? What if there was one form of address for a black person that did not have a job, and a different form for a black person that did have a job -- with the justification of "This way, they don't have to tell you that they need a job -- it's made clear, and you can offer someone a job if they need it and you have an opening".

We would not accept a language that made black the oddball exception.
We would not accept a language that said "Oh, white people are treated differently than black people".

Never mind that our culture does exactly this. Our language does not.

Yet both culture and language does this for women.

Yeah I assume most people I talk to are white as well, because I fall into that group. I don't particularly care if I get mistaken for female or a separate ethnicity because most people will assume that others have similar traits to them and arguing that is in any way discriminatory or harmful shows more of an insecurity on the part of those who complain about it.

 

[LivingAngryCheese]

The only thing I agree with in the 'default to male' is that sometimes on the internet, people want to be called male because.. well... let's just say you should never tell anyone that you're female on the internet. But, you shouldn't assume somebody is male when you are in a place where it isn't full of pervs. To be fair, mewtwo has made a few good points, but 'we've done it for thousands of years' is an absolutely terrible argument. There have been slaves for thousands of years! Women haven't had the vote for thousands of years! Don't give me that crap about it of been like that for thousands of years.