Good evening, folks.
I want to start this post out by first introducing to you a fact of which not many people are aware. According to the Oxford History of the English Language:
| Another example of the Androcentric Rule in eighteenth-century English is
| the rise of the so-called sex-indefinite he, [...]. An alternative, then as
| now, is the use of they as a singular pronoun: [...]. Such a rule would
| have violated the principle of number but not that of gender, as with the
| choice of he, a decision which would no doubt have been preferred by
| women. It is therefore odd that this rule first appears in a grammar by a
| woman, Ann Fisher [...].¹
So, it would appear that 'they' in place of a singular pronoun has been in use for quite some time, much longer than 'he'. In fact, as we know, 'they' did not die from usage in common speech any time during the 'he' movement, and 'they' is still going strong. So, for this post I would like to ask the following questions:
1) To native speakers: What solution have you been taught in your university or similar education to the problem with English currently lacking in an official non-gender-exclusive pronoun? Have you been told to use 'he/she' or some variant thereof, or have you been forced into using 'he', or perhaps permitted to use 'they'?
2) To non-native speakers: What have you been taught in your English classes regarding how to handle the lack of an official non-gender-exclusive pronoun in English?
3) To all interested parties: Who would be interested in starting a move to place pressure on grammarians to revive the use of 'they' as not only an acceptable solution to the problem, but as an OFFICIAL SINGULAR PRONOUN. Spanish, for example, uses 'su' for bother singular and plural possessive forms, so it is certainly not outside the realm of linguistic possibility. Furthermore, millions of English speakers use 'they' and have suffered absolutely nothing in their ability to effectively communicate with one another.
The movement must come on with great strength. There is already a divide amongst native speakers who accept 'they' and those who do not. I know that there are a number of professional educators on this board, and I would urge them to promote and demand use of 'they' as a singular pronoun—in place of 'he', and in place of 'he/she' and its variants. The purpose of the movement, then, must be to increase the number of people preferring singular 'they' by encouraging (demanding?) its use in classrooms and other forms of official communication.
I would hope this can generate some replies. As a student, I have taken up the movement in all of the documents that I submit to my professors. I would hope others can join me in this effort to make, perhaps, the first good prescriptivist change in English through all its history.
Thank you for reading,
Jon
__________
¹ "English at the Onset of the Normative Tradition" Indgrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade in _The Oxford History of the English Language_ ed. Lynda Mugglestone (Oxford:2006) 259.
I want to start this post out by first introducing to you a fact of which not many people are aware. According to the Oxford History of the English Language:
| Another example of the Androcentric Rule in eighteenth-century English is
| the rise of the so-called sex-indefinite he, [...]. An alternative, then as
| now, is the use of they as a singular pronoun: [...]. Such a rule would
| have violated the principle of number but not that of gender, as with the
| choice of he, a decision which would no doubt have been preferred by
| women. It is therefore odd that this rule first appears in a grammar by a
| woman, Ann Fisher [...].¹
So, it would appear that 'they' in place of a singular pronoun has been in use for quite some time, much longer than 'he'. In fact, as we know, 'they' did not die from usage in common speech any time during the 'he' movement, and 'they' is still going strong. So, for this post I would like to ask the following questions:
1) To native speakers: What solution have you been taught in your university or similar education to the problem with English currently lacking in an official non-gender-exclusive pronoun? Have you been told to use 'he/she' or some variant thereof, or have you been forced into using 'he', or perhaps permitted to use 'they'?
2) To non-native speakers: What have you been taught in your English classes regarding how to handle the lack of an official non-gender-exclusive pronoun in English?
3) To all interested parties: Who would be interested in starting a move to place pressure on grammarians to revive the use of 'they' as not only an acceptable solution to the problem, but as an OFFICIAL SINGULAR PRONOUN. Spanish, for example, uses 'su' for bother singular and plural possessive forms, so it is certainly not outside the realm of linguistic possibility. Furthermore, millions of English speakers use 'they' and have suffered absolutely nothing in their ability to effectively communicate with one another.
The movement must come on with great strength. There is already a divide amongst native speakers who accept 'they' and those who do not. I know that there are a number of professional educators on this board, and I would urge them to promote and demand use of 'they' as a singular pronoun—in place of 'he', and in place of 'he/she' and its variants. The purpose of the movement, then, must be to increase the number of people preferring singular 'they' by encouraging (demanding?) its use in classrooms and other forms of official communication.
I would hope this can generate some replies. As a student, I have taken up the movement in all of the documents that I submit to my professors. I would hope others can join me in this effort to make, perhaps, the first good prescriptivist change in English through all its history.
Thank you for reading,
Jon
__________
¹ "English at the Onset of the Normative Tradition" Indgrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade in _The Oxford History of the English Language_ ed. Lynda Mugglestone (Oxford:2006) 259.