I'm writing a new post, not to repeat the discussion about whether that's a good idea, but because it seems as though it would be quite difficult to force yourself to use "bad" English, and I realized what I would do to make it easier. This is all assuming that I wanted or needed to use "is" and "has" and "wants" with "they." For that person — the singular "they" — I would visualize "they" as a name — a noun.
I once listened to the audio version of a novel in which one of the main characters was named Yuu — "Earthlings," blogged here and here. (Buy it here, and you'll be sending me a commission.) The narrator pronounced Yuu, "you." I got used to hearing things like: "Yuu was the same age as me.... Yuu has been my boyfriend.... Yuu always sticks close to Natsuki...."
But if the pronoun loses the feeling of being a pronoun, hasn't the person who wants the "they" pronoun lost something? I'd be making the sound "they" but formulating the sound from a mind that was thinking — not a pronoun — but a noun, the nickname "They." (Or maybe I'd be visualizing a different spelling — like "Thay" or "Th'eh.")
It would be almost as if I had peevishly decided always only to refer to the person by repeating their name every time I mentioned them. That seems rude, almost as rude as deciding never to refer to them. Of course, when speaking to them, it would be rude to use the third person, and I would only need to be perfectly ordinary and say "you," which I would always use with the plural verb, whether referring to them alone or grouped with others.
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Someone once named their dog “Stay”. C’mere, Stay! Roll over, Stay! Fetch, Stay!
I was thinking about this last night as I tried to get to sleep. Isn't this another trap for the non-trans community? If someone demands that the world acknowledge that "they" are not a singular person, but rather that plurality is their essence, doesn't singularizing the pronoun in usage deny that "truth," leaving them with no option but suicide (or mass suicide as they would have it)? Transphobia lurks everywhere!
Cross-country use of a name winds up sounding like a trombone solo, Thurber said of "one."
Or, just use the name of the person: no pronouns.
A lá Elmo.
Don’t use the dead name, though.
That would defeat the purpose of the new programming.
My book club just finished a book in which the narrator is named Phúc (I may or may not be remembering which way the ú goes). He spends some paragraphs talking about how his parents decided to tell him to pronounce his own name in English when he was a small child: correctly, with tone and with a different sound, more like "p," to the final "c"? Anglicized according to sort-of phonetics? Or some other way that now I can't remember? They decided on "Fook," the second option.
Throughout the entire book, I struggled not to hear his name in my head as the f-word, and then one of our members, who had listened to the book instead of reading it (I still have no idea why anyone would think that way is better for retention and comprehension, but that's probably just because of the way my mind works), spent our whole discussion calling him "Fup" because that was what it had sounded like to her on Audible, but using English inflections that indicate the place in the sentence, for instance, rather than Vietnamese tones - so, sometimes tone-up, sometimes tone-down, sometimes up-and-down...
The whole thing was just irritating. Since the book was about the tension between this guy's desire to be American and his sometimes-angry realizations that the Americans around him in small-town PA in the 70s-90s couldn't relate to much of his experience, I consider my irritation to have been a pale reflection of what he must have felt.
As I’m oft told by an acquaintance from Alabama, “y’all” is singular and “all y’all” is plural. So I’m guessing the grammatical conundrum is solved by adopting the conventions “they/all they” and “them/all them” …
Hugh can do what hugh want, but I ain't playin.
So I was born in southern Missouri Ozarks, and it seems like I can remember my grandma using the “they wants” in exactly the way you’re describing. Right alongside with “youins” which which was usually referred to a small group.
Levi Starks said...
"So I was born in southern Missouri Ozarks, and it seems like I can remember my grandma using the “they wants” in exactly the way you’re describing. Right alongside with “youins” which which was usually referred to a small group."
Did you ever hear someone ask "Who do'd it?"
Why should we change the English Language and make "They" Singular? It makes zero sense and doesn't add anything. Most changes in the past have come about because we want a streamlined easier to understand grammar. Or new words express new technologies or new attitudes.
We have Americans got rid of the "U" in Harbour. We no longer care about "who" vs. "whom".
But using "They" as a singular, does none of that. It just makes it more confusing.
I’ve warmed to usage of the plural possessive all y’all’s as geography warrants and only in part for the privilege of the double apostrophe…
I'm writing a new post, not to repeat the discussion about whether that's a good idea, but because it seems as though it would be quite difficult to force yourself to use "bad" English, and I realized what I would do to make it easier.
What I do is refuse to play the game. I will use a person's actual name. I won't use "they" as a singular, since it isn't, and since all the trans ideology is sexist bullshit
My wife and I are cruising the Caribbean. We watched a musical production the other night and before the show the bios of the performers were projected on two giant screens. The bios were pretty typical except each listed the person’s pronouns, he/him, she/her and one was they/he. Why the cruise line decided to do this is beyond me. 99.5% of the guests will never interact with the cast. I’m still trying to understand what they/he denotes.
Just refer to people as "ya'll". It works up to about 5 or 6 people then you use "all ya'll"
In the novel 'Danielle's Passion' by Tired Moderate, about a women trying to navigate life back home in Orange County after graduating Woke college, there is a sex scene she is observing by two people with "pronouns". Most horrible thing I've ever read. I had no idea who was doing what to whom even though they had different genitalia so at least you could catch up when they thrusted and they felt filled.
Personally when speaking about a trans person, I just avoid all pronouns and use that person's name (the one that person chooses to go by.) It can sometimes sound a little awkward but it seems like a compromise position between avoiding saying something untrue and not upsetting someone.
I suspect that we are playing an unannounced game of Calvinball.
As I said here "I'm writing a new post, not to repeat the discussion about whether that's a good idea...."
Please go back to yesterday's post to comment on JM's idea. This post is specific.
I'm therefore deleting the off-topic comments.
Why is there so much consternation about pronouns when a pronoun is only used when that person is not around? Screw those persons who are so concerned with that. I guess micro, i.e. 1E-6, is a fitting prefix to "aggression"... Although, maybe a quectoaggression would be better.
"Did you ever hear someone ask "Who do'd it?""
"I dood it" was Red Skelton's catchphrase.
James Brown: "That Dood It."
Exactly what part of the they/them grammar doesn't reference a larger, demanding, and fetishistic political movment?
"I would visualize "they" as a name — a noun."
Lovely thought until you/they find yourself/theyself in a room of 20 or so "theys". Or is that 20 or so they?
Once again in the VAST majority are asked to change for the infantile demands of the few. (Yes, infantile. When people demand we recognize 72 or so genders, pronouns that have no connection to reality - my pronouns are butterflyer/Boobird... IS infantile. Could have used insane, but the meds have kicked in nicely today.
Einstein once wrote They = We B Square
Profound. A great thinker.
I've seen informal hand written signs with they misspelled as thay.
..."I would visualize "they" as a name — a noun."..."if the pronoun loses the feeling of being a pronoun, hasn't the person who wants the "they" pronoun lost something?"
Yes, but, at the risk of going off topic, they also gained something, another name. That has always been my objection to a pronoun, particular to an individual, that has to be remembered.
One can capitulate to emotional blackmail or one can resist it. It's your choice.
The Crack Emcee:
Did you ever hear someone ask "Who do'd it?"
Ozarks resident here. I've never heard that other than mockingly. Not once.
There could be more than one people “named” They in your conversations. How would you differentiate them?
Sorry, not people - person - lol!
Althouse:
I realized what I would do to make it easier.
I realized very early I have no desire to make the life of someone who wants to control my speech any easier. That has the secondary effect of taking the easiest option for me as well.
"Lovely thought until you/they find yourself/theyself in a room of 20 or so "theys". Or is that 20 or so they?"
I really want to stay on topic here. You see how the McWhorter rule is only relevant when "they" is used to refer to one person. It has no application to the situation you are talking about.
This discussion is about how to deal with it AFTER you've decided to use "they" to refer to ONE person AND AFTER you've decided to use a SINGULAR VERB so that it's going to sound like "bad" English.
That is the sole topic here.
I'm not posting to create a space to talk about an already-discussed topic, only this new topic.
It's blindingly obvious that 1. many people don't like the use of "they" for one person and 2. few will want to use McWhorter's rule.
#1 has been discussed in the past and is an old topic.
#2 has a post just yesterday and I've given you the link to go back to that.
Please restrict this thread to the NEW topic!
"There could be more than one people “named” They in your conversations. How would you differentiate them?"
It wouldn't matter. I'm just talking about how I would visualize it in my head to make it possible to say things like "They is" and "They has." That sounds so bad and un-sayable to me. If I had to do it, this is how I would psychically adjust.
If I knew more than one person to whom this applied, I'd differentiate them the same way I differentiate anybody -- by their name, how they look, who they are.
In conversation, when pronouns are confusing, you revert to names. That's the same problem as ever. Pronouns are used when convenient and you use names otherwise.
Uhoh, want are my ebonics pronouns?
I always figured that if I can't have a gendered pronoun, I should "it".
"It" is the neuter pronoun. Do people want to be genderless, but not neuter? Do they have real and/or vicarious castration fears? Or is it just beause of the Addams family?
Ann Althouse:
"I dood it" was Red Skelton's catchphrase.
Appropriate, as he used it to indicate a (momentary or not) state of idiocy. Much like how I view those trying to control my pronouns.
To make it synonymous you'd have to be trying to get everyone to use "dood" for all occurences of "did".
The simplest way to handle it is to conclude that any individual that wants to use the pronoun 'they' is mentally disturbed and should be treated accordingly, which includes non-confrontational sympathetic sounds, calmly nodding and making soothing motions, while not engaging the lunacy. Thus, the problem is solved objectively, without any reason to revise the language or humanity in general.
Althouse:
Please restrict this thread to the NEW topic!
Got it, this'll be the last then.
A problem is that there's a butt-load of implication in "AFTER you've decided to use" because for many (majority) it also means "AFTER you've been broken", which for us is a false premise because THAT person is a fictitious one and one we cannot relate to.
And that outlook is not a deficit.
I find this an amusing discussion. Languages change all the time, not just English, in which BTW occasional singular use of "they" goes back at least to the 16th Century.
Yet French, too, is messing with pronouns, and they have no need to do so because, for example, possessives match to the linguistic "gender" of the item, not the owner. So a man will say "ma chaise" [feminine pronoun, "my chair"] and a woman will say "mon livre" [masculine pronoun, "my book"]. Over the last 30 years the subject pronoun "nous" [= "we"] has almost completely disappeared from common use, replaced by "on" [= "one"] which has existed as a neutral 3rd person singular for many centuries. It had no reason to replace a neutral 1st person plural pronoun, but it did.
In 30 years the woke BS and trannie nonsense of our times will be nothing but amusing anachronisms, along 'beehive' hairdos and all the silly fads of the '60s.
“That sounds so bad and un-sayable to me. If I had to do it, this is how I would psychically adjust.“
Would you have to?
Or, would you want to?
To be kind, or politically correct or to be progressive and supportive?
Hopefully O/T…
One person got lost hiking on the trails this Summer, I think. Always referred to as They. “They were last seen…” “They we’re headed toward…”
I suppose if the pronoun was used as McWhorter suggested, at least the singularity of the lost person would be made clearer.
I had to read the damned article more than once to figure out how many were actually lost.
I’d say: they all are :0(
Should we bring back "They-uns" and "we-uns". That used to popular in the Old South.
Breezy said...
"There could be more than one people 'named' They in your conversations. How would you differentiate them?"
'Cause I'm Slim Theydy, yes, I'm the real Theydy
All you other Slim Theydys are just imitating
So won't the real Slim Theydy please stand up
Please stand up, please stand up?
Sam Felder don’t gotta give pronouns in his bio to sell films
Well I do, so f**k he/him and f**k thou/you, too
You think I give a damn about an Article of Speech?
Half o’ you critics can’t even stomach me, as you constantly screech
"But Slim, what if you aceept using them, it's not a big cross to bears?"
Why, so you guys can just lie to my ass?
So you can sit me here next to Lia Thomas?
Yo shit, Eliot Page better switch me chairs
'Cause I'm Slim Theydy, yes, I'm the real Theydy
All you other Slim Theydys are just imitating
So won't the real Slim Theydy please stand up
Please stand up, please stand up?
- "The Real Slim Theydy", by Theminem, 2000.
It's not a solution to the underlying problem. It makes language imprecise and the person making the demand irritatingly ostentatious. What happens if there's two or more theys? He wants to borrow the car. They wants to borrow the car. Theys want to borrow the car? Life becomes an Abbot and Costello act. With the exception of Siamese twins, everyone gets acknowledgement of only one of their existences from me. Nobody get to force me to pretend that he or she is plural, although a pregnant woman who welcomes such a query might rationally say "we're fine."
You can eat at the big people's table. They will have to stay at the kiddies' table until they grow up.
I frankly find preferred and neo-pronouns rather oppressive. Partly because there is no limiting principle involved. And it becomes onerous trying to keep track of everyone's preferred pronouns. What motivates this trend? Two things: (1) exercising *power* over others (you must speak to/about me in the way I demand or else suffer consequences) and (2) tearing down norms (to help bring about the Revolution that ushers in Utopia).
I recently watched an interesting YouTube video by a German linguist who questions whether some neo-pronouns even make grammatical sense. And toward the end of the video asks "why not just ask people to call you a nickname".
A more important point she makes is that languages do change but they do so organically. The whole "use my pronouns or else" movement is a bizarre instance of language change that is imposed (hence should be viewed as a power move).
My preferred pronouns are Lord / Master
Unless you're willing to use those, you can take your they/them and stuff it
I can see from the trend here, that the compelled use of elaborate plural/singular pronouns is going to lead us back into a mish-mash of local, mostly southern, dialect styles. It's going to become so absurd, with the 'they wants' and 'we-uns' and 'Who do'd it' and 'all y'all' that pretty soon the only way the American language is going to make any cultural sense at all is if we were all wearing blackface and hopping around like minstrels. Wouldn't that just be peak irony for peak Wokeism?
Ever English teacher I ever had would have murdered me for using the term, “they,” in such a manner.
"Ever English teacher I ever had . . . ."
Ha! (Tom may be from around here.)
"Unless you're willing to use those, you can take your they/them and stuff it."
Stuff its.
I can't find the book at the moment, but there's a place in Florence King's When Sisterhood Was In Flower where the protagonist, who is switching from writing Regencies to the much more lucrative writing of porn, is presented with a document written by a former editor at "Sword & Scabbard." Among the items is some pronoun advice: When writing lesbian sex scenes, it's best to make one participant blonde and the other brunette, so as to avoid pronoun confusions like "she flipped her over on her back and then inserted her tongue up her c*nt while she massaged her back vigorously." (I made that up, but it's more or less the style.)
That whole little document is priceless, btw. "'Aureole' is the halo of a saint. 'Areola' is the dark area around the nipple. Kindly learn the difference."
So would you say “that’s they’s bag” or “that’s their bag?” The second one feels much more natural.
“I'm writing a new post, not to repeat the discussion about whether that's a good idea, but because it seems as though it would be quite difficult to force yourself to use "bad" English, and I realized what I would do to make it easier.”
Not difficult at all. Just lower your standards.
Do irregular verbs make a language richer or just more difficult for non-native speakers? Is richer better or just annoying?
I'm not compromising in a war that ends inevitably with speech laws and speech tribunals, with people "tried" before unelected activists as the do in Canada, or arrested in the middle of the night, hauled from their houses for allegedly expressing a politically incorrect thought, as happens regularly now in Britain.
As we sit here parsing a linguist's thoughts, they are trying to make our speech and opinions literally punishable by law. So what's at stake isn't really McWhorter's suggestion. He's just whistling past the graveyard. We all ought to know how this ends.
From Maggies Farm this morning
https://www.psypost.org/2023/11/new-research-hearing-grammatical-errors-affects-your-heart-rate-variability-214767?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
"Our hearts may indeed “skip a beat” when we hear grammatical errors in speech. In a new study published in the Journal of Neurolinguistics, researchers discovered that our heart rate variability, a measure of the heartbeat’s rhythm, changes in response to grammatical errors in speech. "
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