As a non-native speaker, that is one area that always confuses me. When I am confident that the correct meaning is being conveyed, I'm not sure if the grammar correct. So I'm curious to know what...
As a non-native speaker, that is one area that always confuses me. When I am confident that the correct meaning is being conveyed, I'm not sure if the grammar correct.
So I'm curious to know what native speakers think of these UN guidelines. Do you apply (or wish to apply) these recommendations? Do they sound stylistically elegant to your ears? In sum, is that a good guide for me to follow in order to make my communications in English more gender-inclusive?
They're mostly good; for section two though, I personally think that the singular 'they' is a lot less kludgy than the phrase 'he or she', though aside from the former being inclusive of...
They're mostly good; for section two though, I personally think that the singular 'they' is a lot less kludgy than the phrase 'he or she', though aside from the former being inclusive of non-binary people, it's mostly a matter of taste. Some people dislike using 'they' as an un-gendered pronoun for a single person, even though that use dates back to at least Shakespeare.
Yeah, likewise. I had the usage of singular 'they' in essay writing beaten out of me in high school, and I've been trying in the last few years to re-acclimate myself to using it, especially with...
Yeah, likewise. I had the usage of singular 'they' in essay writing beaten out of me in high school, and I've been trying in the last few years to re-acclimate myself to using it, especially with the increase in visibility of non-binary people, but it still feels a bit weird. Maybe one day I'll manage to fix what those misinformed prescriptivists broke.
Good to know! I always thought it was weird if I was asking a question that quoted someone, that the question mark is supposed to go inside the quotes when that quote did not actually include a...
Good to know! I always thought it was weird if I was asking a question that quoted someone, that the question mark is supposed to go inside the quotes when that quote did not actually include a question mark.
I have trouble getting used to "they". I was taught it only applied to groups of more than one person, so in my mind it sounds like a weird plural. It doesn't help that the equivalent in...
I have trouble getting used to "they". I was taught it only applied to groups of more than one person, so in my mind it sounds like a weird plural. It doesn't help that the equivalent in Portuguese, "eles", is 100% gendered and there is absolutely no correct way to make it gender-inclusive. Some people write things like "amig@s" instead of "amigos" (male) or "amigas" (female), which is somewhat practical, but ugly and bizarre. And we have no idea how to pronounce that.
It's hard to think without genders when your native language ascribes gender to pretty much everything, including death (female), pencils (male), chairs (female) and boats (male).
The singular 'they' is grammatically plural but semantically singular, as is the singular 'you': they are treated, for grammatical purposes, as plural, while having a singular meaning, thus using...
I have trouble getting used to "they". I was taught it only applied to groups of more than one person, so in my mind it sounds like a weird plural.
The singular 'they' is grammatically plural but semantically singular, as is the singular 'you': they are treated, for grammatical purposes, as plural, while having a singular meaning, thus using plural forms of verbs, and so on.
That the singular 'they' sounds odd while the singular 'you' does not is probably just from familiarity, and the relative rarity of situations where 'you' is used near a corresponding noun and both are connected with verbs, requiring a difference in the grammatical number of two verbs that have the same subject. However, there are such situations, particularly in conversation, eg, "[to a group of people] Daniel is going to the store, [to the person] aren't you?".
I see that now. Part of the problem is that my English teachers literally told me that "they" == "eles", and therefore plural in all cases. They taught me you correctly, and that's probably why I...
The singular 'they' is grammatically plural but semantically singular, as is the singular 'you'
I see that now. Part of the problem is that my English teachers literally told me that "they" == "eles", and therefore plural in all cases. They taught me you correctly, and that's probably why I have no problem with that pronoun.
I actually only learned they also applied to the singular less than a year ago.
Your explanation is great, and I am able to rationally understand it, but it still sounds very wrong to my ears. A gut feeling that happens to be wrong.
Also,
grammatically plural but semantically singular
Please don't take this as an anti-Anglophone dis: I know natural languages are the result of historical processes, and each one of them is full of random interesting stuff. But, from a non-native perspective, this kind of inconsistency seems like a bad idea.
Grammatically plural terms being semantically singular is actually rather common, particularly for European languages, not only English: the T–V distinction is by far the most notable example,...
Please don't take this as an anti-Anglophone dis: I know natural languages are the result of historical processes, and each one of them is full of random interesting stuff. But, from a non-native perspective, this kind of inconsistency seems like a bad idea.
Grammatically plural terms being semantically singular is actually rather common, particularly for European languages, not only English: the T–V distinction is by far the most notable example, along with related pronouns. Wikipedia's explanation reasonably points out that there is a cultural connection between plurality and power. This can be seen in the historical development of the T–V distinction including periods where common usage was not symmetric, with the more powerful person in a conversation referring to the other person in the singular, and the less powerful using the plural. To some extent, this still exists for some speakers of modern Greek, on the basis of age.
I'm not familiar with Portuguese, but it appears that there, the plural of the Latin second-person pronoun gained grammatically (and semantically) singular forms. That is not the case in some other Romance languages, for example, in French.
Yet other languages use grammatically third-person but semantically second-person pronouns (eg, Italian), or, the case of German, grammatically third-person plural but semantically second-person singular. I suppose one might think of the third-person aspect here as indicating a certain deference by separation.
Apparently, these distinctions also exist in a number of non-European language. One could suggest from a structuralist perspective that there is a deep cultural connection between number, closeness, and power. There are also other situations where the singular or plural nature of the signified is a matter of perspective, eg, for data, team, company, etc, while consistent grammar expects the words to have only one number.
As a native english speaker who has always been a fan of singular "they" and thought that it's perfectly natural, I've always interpreted the word "they" as being more about referring to...
As a native english speaker who has always been a fan of singular "they" and thought that it's perfectly natural, I've always interpreted the word "they" as being more about referring to unspecified people (zero, one, or more) rather than being about plurality. My personal intuition is it just happens to be used for plurality because there's no way to specify multiple at once in one word, so you have to use the word for unspecified people in that situation, but it's not the only situation you would use the word for unspecified people. The word does not make me think definitely of plurality in the same way that "many", "several", or plural words that end in -s like "things" do. It feels like the word "audience" in the sentence "Know your audience when speaking": the word fits for a situation where you're talking to a group or a situation where you're talking to one person.
It's interesting to see that the closest equivalent of "they" in Portuguese does end in -s like a plural word. I wonder if you might be mentally translating the word "they" to "eles" in your head and getting the "ends with -s (so it definitely refers to several things)" quality associated with "they", which wouldn't happen for native english speakers.
If you don't mind indulging my curiosity, do you read any difference in how natural each of these sounds? The dealer should shuffle the cards and pass one to the player on their left. Did your...
If you don't mind indulging my curiosity, do you read any difference in how natural each of these sounds?
The dealer should shuffle the cards and pass one to the player on their left.
Did your friend mention what they wanted for dinner tomorrow?
Chris told me that they got a new car the other day.
Interesting! They are contrived in the sense that I thought them up to cover three specific scenarios, but for me the first one especially reads much more naturally with "they" - to the extent...
Interesting! They are contrived in the sense that I thought them up to cover three specific scenarios, but for me the first one especially reads much more naturally with "they" - to the extent that I mentally put it back in when reading your version, and then had to go back and check.
For me, the first (the individual is unknown and unknowable) sounds more natural with "they" than with any other construct. The second (the individual is potentially unknown) sounds natural enough that I probably wouldn't notice it, but could be argued either way. The third (the individual is explicitly known) is where it would sound slightly jarring to me, even though consciously I know it's valid and reasonable usage.
I was interested to know how far others would see it that way: whether the focus of the "they" made a difference, or whether it was the singular usage alone.
I don't find it either of the negatives. I think it's rather clever, avoiding the gender barrier in this fashion. I'd be more in favor of a solution that doesn't require non-Latin characters...
Some people write things like "amig@s" instead of "amigos" (male) or "amigas" (female), which is somewhat practical, but ugly and bizarre
I don't find it either of the negatives. I think it's rather clever, avoiding the gender barrier in this fashion. I'd be more in favor of a solution that doesn't require non-Latin characters (like, I dunno, "amiges" that I just came up with), but using the at sign would sit okay with me.
I'm all for gender-inclusiveness, I just don't think the at symbol is the best way to achieve that in the Portuguese language. A few reasons against it: @ is not part of the Portuguese alphabet @...
I'm all for gender-inclusiveness, I just don't think the at symbol is the best way to achieve that in the Portuguese language.
A few reasons against it:
@ is not part of the Portuguese alphabet
@ inside words is unpronounceable in Portuguese
@ is aesthetically unpleasant and inconsistent with the rest of the language
@ is used to distinguish e-mails and other Internet stuff[1]
Besides, UTF-8 makes non-Latin characters trivial. And Portuguese already has lots of unusual characters. I would not oppose a solution like ë or ä, generating words like amigës or amigäs (both meaning the gender-inclusive form of the English word "friends"). Like @, these patterns are currently unpronounceable in Portuguese, but are closer to other Portuguese constructions and could more easily fit in.
[1] My issue is not technical, but linguistic. Because of the content in which the at symbol is most frequently used, it evokes certain expectations in the reader
Fun fact: Your idea that you came up with is actually what some groups in the spanish-speaking community are suggesting. Great minds and all that jazz :)
Fun fact: Your idea that you came up with is actually what some groups in the spanish-speaking community are suggesting. Great minds and all that jazz :)
For us the problem in adopting the “e” instead of the super gendered “o” and “a” is that, at least in Portuguese, “e” suffixes are kinda associated with the male gender. It’s not a super strong...
For us the problem in adopting the “e” instead of the super gendered “o” and “a” is that, at least in Portuguese, “e” suffixes are kinda associated with the male gender. It’s not a super strong association and it’s definitely more neutral, but it’s masculine nevertheless.
I don't want to impose, but if you're open to it would you be interested in reading some articles I have read recently about transitioning to gender-neutral language in gendered languages like in...
I don't want to impose, but if you're open to it would you be interested in reading some articles I have read recently about transitioning to gender-neutral language in gendered languages like in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, and Germany? As a native english speaker I feel like while I can read and understand what they are saying, however, I don't really get it, and would love to hear first-hand thoughts of someone who's first language is a gendered language.
This seems really interesting. I'm in! But it would be helpful if you were a bit more specific on what aspects of these articles and gender-inclusive language, in general, you have more trouble...
This seems really interesting. I'm in!
But it would be helpful if you were a bit more specific on what aspects of these articles and gender-inclusive language, in general, you have more trouble "hearing" or understanding.
I think it's on the whole great, other than previously mentioned they, in fact I'd like to see about including it in training materials at work. Tho I don't know how to even begin that
I think it's on the whole great, other than previously mentioned they, in fact I'd like to see about including it in training materials at work. Tho I don't know how to even begin that
That's indeed a grave omission. But the UN is a large and complicated legislative body. I bet any little change must go through a bunch of convoluted steps, and there is disagreement about the...
That's indeed a grave omission. But the UN is a large and complicated legislative body. I bet any little change must go through a bunch of convoluted steps, and there is disagreement about the most trivial things.
Well I’m disappointed to see that this ignores non-binary people who use they/them pronouns. :-/
As a non-native speaker, that is one area that always confuses me. When I am confident that the correct meaning is being conveyed, I'm not sure if the grammar correct.
So I'm curious to know what native speakers think of these UN guidelines. Do you apply (or wish to apply) these recommendations? Do they sound stylistically elegant to your ears? In sum, is that a good guide for me to follow in order to make my communications in English more gender-inclusive?
They're mostly good; for section two though, I personally think that the singular 'they' is a lot less kludgy than the phrase 'he or she', though aside from the former being inclusive of non-binary people, it's mostly a matter of taste. Some people dislike using 'they' as an un-gendered pronoun for a single person, even though that use dates back to at least Shakespeare.
Yeah, likewise. I had the usage of singular 'they' in essay writing beaten out of me in high school, and I've been trying in the last few years to re-acclimate myself to using it, especially with the increase in visibility of non-binary people, but it still feels a bit weird. Maybe one day I'll manage to fix what those misinformed prescriptivists broke.
I’m fortunate enough to have rarely listened to my teachers. I even sometimes put punctuation after quotation marks! Language is what we make of it. 😊
So do most native English users. It's only the Americans who do it differently.
Good to know! I always thought it was weird if I was asking a question that quoted someone, that the question mark is supposed to go inside the quotes when that quote did not actually include a question mark.
I have trouble getting used to "they". I was taught it only applied to groups of more than one person, so in my mind it sounds like a weird plural. It doesn't help that the equivalent in Portuguese, "eles", is 100% gendered and there is absolutely no correct way to make it gender-inclusive. Some people write things like "amig@s" instead of "amigos" (male) or "amigas" (female), which is somewhat practical, but ugly and bizarre. And we have no idea how to pronounce that.
It's hard to think without genders when your native language ascribes gender to pretty much everything, including death (female), pencils (male), chairs (female) and boats (male).
The singular 'they' is grammatically plural but semantically singular, as is the singular 'you': they are treated, for grammatical purposes, as plural, while having a singular meaning, thus using plural forms of verbs, and so on.
That the singular 'they' sounds odd while the singular 'you' does not is probably just from familiarity, and the relative rarity of situations where 'you' is used near a corresponding noun and both are connected with verbs, requiring a difference in the grammatical number of two verbs that have the same subject. However, there are such situations, particularly in conversation, eg, "[to a group of people] Daniel is going to the store, [to the person] aren't you?".
I see that now. Part of the problem is that my English teachers literally told me that
"they" == "eles", and therefore plural in all cases. They taught meyoucorrectly, and that's probably why I have no problem with that pronoun.I actually only learned
theyalso applied to the singular less than a year ago.Your explanation is great, and I am able to rationally understand it, but it still sounds very wrong to my ears. A gut feeling that happens to be wrong.
Also,
Please don't take this as an anti-Anglophone dis: I know natural languages are the result of historical processes, and each one of them is full of random interesting stuff. But, from a non-native perspective, this kind of inconsistency seems like a bad idea.
Grammatically plural terms being semantically singular is actually rather common, particularly for European languages, not only English: the T–V distinction is by far the most notable example, along with related pronouns. Wikipedia's explanation reasonably points out that there is a cultural connection between plurality and power. This can be seen in the historical development of the T–V distinction including periods where common usage was not symmetric, with the more powerful person in a conversation referring to the other person in the singular, and the less powerful using the plural. To some extent, this still exists for some speakers of modern Greek, on the basis of age.
I'm not familiar with Portuguese, but it appears that there, the plural of the Latin second-person pronoun gained grammatically (and semantically) singular forms. That is not the case in some other Romance languages, for example, in French.
Yet other languages use grammatically third-person but semantically second-person pronouns (eg, Italian), or, the case of German, grammatically third-person plural but semantically second-person singular. I suppose one might think of the third-person aspect here as indicating a certain deference by separation.
Apparently, these distinctions also exist in a number of non-European language. One could suggest from a structuralist perspective that there is a deep cultural connection between number, closeness, and power. There are also other situations where the singular or plural nature of the signified is a matter of perspective, eg, for data, team, company, etc, while consistent grammar expects the words to have only one number.
It’s always nice to be educated. Thanks!
As a native english speaker who has always been a fan of singular "they" and thought that it's perfectly natural, I've always interpreted the word "they" as being more about referring to unspecified people (zero, one, or more) rather than being about plurality. My personal intuition is it just happens to be used for plurality because there's no way to specify multiple at once in one word, so you have to use the word for unspecified people in that situation, but it's not the only situation you would use the word for unspecified people. The word does not make me think definitely of plurality in the same way that "many", "several", or plural words that end in -s like "things" do. It feels like the word "audience" in the sentence "Know your audience when speaking": the word fits for a situation where you're talking to a group or a situation where you're talking to one person.
It's interesting to see that the closest equivalent of "they" in Portuguese does end in -s like a plural word. I wonder if you might be mentally translating the word "they" to "eles" in your head and getting the "ends with -s (so it definitely refers to several things)" quality associated with "they", which wouldn't happen for native english speakers.
There’s definitely some mental translation going on.
If you don't mind indulging my curiosity, do you read any difference in how natural each of these sounds?
The dealer should shuffle the cards and pass one to the player on their left.
Did your friend mention what they wanted for dinner tomorrow?
Chris told me that they got a new car the other day.
Interesting! They are contrived in the sense that I thought them up to cover three specific scenarios, but for me the first one especially reads much more naturally with "they" - to the extent that I mentally put it back in when reading your version, and then had to go back and check.
For me, the first (the individual is unknown and unknowable) sounds more natural with "they" than with any other construct. The second (the individual is potentially unknown) sounds natural enough that I probably wouldn't notice it, but could be argued either way. The third (the individual is explicitly known) is where it would sound slightly jarring to me, even though consciously I know it's valid and reasonable usage.
I was interested to know how far others would see it that way: whether the focus of the "they" made a difference, or whether it was the singular usage alone.
I don't find it either of the negatives. I think it's rather clever, avoiding the gender barrier in this fashion. I'd be more in favor of a solution that doesn't require non-Latin characters (like, I dunno, "amiges" that I just came up with), but using the at sign would sit okay with me.
I'm all for gender-inclusiveness, I just don't think the at symbol is the best way to achieve that in the Portuguese language.
A few reasons against it:
@is not part of the Portuguese alphabet@inside words is unpronounceable in Portuguese@is aesthetically unpleasant and inconsistent with the rest of the language@is used to distinguish e-mails and other Internet stuff[1]Besides, UTF-8 makes non-Latin characters trivial. And Portuguese already has lots of unusual characters. I would not oppose a solution like
ëorä, generating words likeamigësoramigäs(both meaning the gender-inclusive form of the English word "friends"). Like@, these patterns are currently unpronounceable in Portuguese, but are closer to other Portuguese constructions and could more easily fit in.[1] My issue is not technical, but linguistic. Because of the content in which the at symbol is most frequently used, it evokes certain expectations in the reader
Fun fact: Your idea that you came up with is actually what some groups in the spanish-speaking community are suggesting. Great minds and all that jazz :)
For us the problem in adopting the “e” instead of the super gendered “o” and “a” is that, at least in Portuguese, “e” suffixes are kinda associated with the male gender. It’s not a super strong association and it’s definitely more neutral, but it’s masculine nevertheless.
Portuguese is fucked up hahaha.
I don't want to impose, but if you're open to it would you be interested in reading some articles I have read recently about transitioning to gender-neutral language in gendered languages like in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, and Germany? As a native english speaker I feel like while I can read and understand what they are saying, however, I don't really get it, and would love to hear first-hand thoughts of someone who's first language is a gendered language.
This seems really interesting. I'm in!
But it would be helpful if you were a bit more specific on what aspects of these articles and gender-inclusive language, in general, you have more trouble "hearing" or understanding.
I think it's on the whole great, other than previously mentioned they, in fact I'd like to see about including it in training materials at work. Tho I don't know how to even begin that
That's indeed a grave omission. But the UN is a large and complicated legislative body. I bet any little change must go through a bunch of convoluted steps, and there is disagreement about the most trivial things.