I'm not sure I feel very passionately about this - not as passionately as someone with a background in writing should I guess. Not as passionately as I feel that leggings are not pants. But I do think "they" is an appropriate replacement for the French gender-neutral "on." If you know the gender of the person, or it's a hypothetical, but the person could only be a specific gender, use that gender. Otherwise, I'm kind of liking "they." I absolutely understand that it is grammatically incorrect, but I feel like that's just a way to force the use of "he." I could say "she" but it feels conspicuous. Or I could just join the movement to establish "they" as a gender neutral pronoun. Which is the direction I find myself going.
I re read it and I still don't really see where it's going. I however will call people exactly and only what they WANT to be called. My ball is rolling a bit slow today.
I think using "they" bothers me for the reasons mentioned- it's grammatically incorrect! And as such, my reaction is "No- I'm a she".
But when I think of using a word that doesn't already have ties in our language - like zie - I don't have quite the same reaction. If someone referred to me as that, I'm a bit more "eh, that's fine" about it.
I find the "No I am a she" reaction interesting. So we're opposed to having a gender neutral default, because we don't want to be identified as the wrong gender. And not even the wrong gender, we just don't want to give up our automatic gender identity ;to something that would be more inclusive. I would think that feeling would be a good indication of the exact reason TO have it. Because we have a subset of our population that is not being honored in their identity by default.
I was thinking about this while driving - for people who resist because it's grammatically incorrect - what's the alternative? Using an incorrectly gendered pronoun*. Which is also grammatically incorrect, right? I mean - number >> gender when it comes to grammar does it? They're both equally important to get correct aren't they? So the argument that we can't use a correctly gender-neutral pronoun because it's incorrect in number makes no sense unless you're just dismissing the fact that the gender of he or she or even he/she is flat out incorrect in some instances.
*Or using one of the z-based alternatives. which I'd be down with if it seemed to actually have some steam behind it.
Post by colliebabe on Dec 10, 2015 20:52:55 GMT -5
I teach high school and have a guest speaker who identifies as gender queer. It took me a few times make sure I was using "they" instead of "she." My students took right to it though. They were better at using the PGP for them than I was!
I just can't get over "they" being grammatically incorrect for one person. It's a plural pronoun.
So I'm reading Anthem and all I can think about is this post. I came in to say that it's really confusing to call everyone "they" and "we" and the grammar is terrible! But I'm enjoying it and I wanted to tag whoever recommended it. It was you - lol!
I just can't get over "they" being grammatically incorrect for one person. It's a plural pronoun.
So I'm reading Anthem and all I can think about is this post. I came in to say that it's really confusing to call everyone "they" and "we" and the grammar is terrible! But I'm enjoying it and I wanted to tag whoever recommended it. It was you - lol!
How far are you into Anthem? There's definitely a reason why people are called "they" and "we." Just wait...you'll have an "aha moment."
So I'm reading Anthem and all I can think about is this post. I came in to say that it's really confusing to call everyone "they" and "we" and the grammar is terrible! But I'm enjoying it and I wanted to tag whoever recommended it. It was you - lol!
How far are you into Anthem? There's definitely a reason why people are called "they" and "we." Just wait...you'll have an "aha moment."
40%. You're right; it's a quick read. It's just so clumsy and weird (the grammar, not the story. Well, the story is weird, too, but you know what I mean.). I just read this sentence: "Their are Solidarity 9-6347....they scream in their sleep". Weird to read!
Post by anastasia517 on Dec 12, 2015 22:34:38 GMT -5
I do think using "they" as singular is interesting because we do often refer to one person with a plural verb (ex. "you were" instead of "you was"). This may be a holdover from something else, like French, where to be polite you use the plural form of you (vous) instead of the singular (tu).
"They" for a single person is one of the things that doesn't bother me that much. If you're happy with your pronouns, I don't care what they are.