Talk:Singular they/Archive 6

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Let's talk about this. Article quotes S&W, "A common inaccuracy is the use of the plural pronoun when the antecedent is a distributive expression." Then notes,

“ This is a semantic assessment (note the word "inaccuracy"), rather than a syntactic linguistic prescription (as some have, rather loosely, claimed). Prescriptions of taste are not true or false, so they can't be proved right or wrong; however, claims regarding accuracy can be demonstrated to be true or false. Strunk and White have been proven wrong on this point by logical analysis of quantification in natural language (like Pinker following Lewis and others above) — distributive expressions are neither exclusively singular or plural, they are indeterminate in number. ”

Articles and books written regarding distributive constructions are frequently classified as dealing with the "semantics of natural language". Here are 72,000 google hits for "SNL".[1] Here are 851 for "Strunk and White" prescriptive.[2] Now those are the key things. Are we using the right language? Or are semantics and prescription words that are not typical in the literature for application to S&W? Are S&W dealing with semantics? Does anyone say S&W are prescriptive? Would you care to provide a reference that says these things are not the case? Do you think that the study of semantics is a prescriptive activity? Please cite a reference that claims this. Do you doubt that people have claimed S&W to be prescriptive on the point at issue?

The points being made here are simply a matter of applying the usual definitions of words to the text cited. S&W are against distributive they, explicitly on the grounds that they believe this is a plural pronoun refering to a singular antecedent. Do they suggest this is a matter of taste? or of semantics? Obviously, since they explicitly say the structure is semantically inconsistant with the pronoun they, they also find it distasteful. They don't say that, they don't need to, it is implied by their assessment that agreement fails on the basis of meaning — the grammatical number of the referents failing to agree.

Unlike those who may rhetorically refer to the implied preference of S&W, Wiki is simply sticking to what is actually stated, without making that extra jump. For the purposes of this article it is not actually relevant whether S&W liked they in distributives, it is relevant that they analysed it as a refering pronoun, not a bound pronoun as in later analysis. Are you claiming that they do not so argue? What do you think they are saying? Do you have any reference for that interpretation? Alastair Haines (talk) 23:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow

Not a linguist, but I just wanted to say this article is amazing. Really detailed and thorough. Great job, everyone who worked on it.

71.239.209.93 (talk) 19:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Good on you, thanks for stopping in to say something nice. Very refreshing. Please think about registering with a user name and joining the team some time. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 11:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

On the Pronouns "Pe" and "Ge"

I recently read somewhere (but I can't remember where) that some people were attempting to replace the use of this "they" with "pe" or "ge". I don't think that this is wide spread, but someone (dare I say "me"?) should include somewhere the fact that some are trying to reform/crea:te a new pronoun for this, right? As a matter of interest, what are their possesives and accusitives? If there aren't any, I call I get to coin "pe'r" and "gour" for the possessives! ;) Thanks and good article- 76.188.26.92 21:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Great stuff! I hadn't heard these proposals.

You may want to look at the Gender-neutral pronoun article and expand it. That article considers all pronouns in all languages. Pe and ge are specifically third person, singular, modern English, epicene, personal, neologism pronouns — i.e. quite specific.

One of the points of this article is to address a very specific usage of the word they in English. Many argue that this word is the most suitable for use as an epicene 3s pers pron, on the basis that it has a long history of usage in this capacity. Personally, I think that is correct, so long as it is also understood that not all non-plural uses of they are, in fact, singular or even referential pronouns, if we accept Pinker et al., which the best English language scholars seem to do.

However, there is substantial usage that deliberately avoids they as a singular, referential pronoun. Pullum, is willing to go so far as to prescribe that they IS permissible in cases where the pronoun acts as a bound variable, but NOT when it is a refering, singular pronoun. This explicitly denies it a place as the ellusive epicene 3s pers pron.

I am more sympathetic to epicene they than Pullum. It is very common in Australian (and I believe British) English. Though, I must admit, I feel the awkwardness of it. It is not suitable in all contexts, and there are objective grammatical analyses as well as style guides that explain why.

In short then, epicene they IS used as a 3s pers pron, contra the best grammatical analyses. I can see value in some treatment of other proposals re 3s pers pron, as it demonstrates that the search is still on, because they remains intractably difficult, despite it actually being the most popular option for precisely this role.

The question is, how far do we explore those options under the heading "singular" they, when we have articles on Gender neutral language, Gender neutral pronoun, English personal pronouns, etc.? You may like to explore some of those links and let us know what you think? Cheers friend. Alastair Haines 03:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

PS Be bold! Make any changes you think are good, if we don't like 'em, we'll just revert them. Believe it or not, most changes go through. If they don't, there's usually (or should be) a discussion. You don't need to register in order to edit, but it sometimes helps people take edits more seriously, when you're not anonymous. Mind you, you don't need to use a real life name as I do. Cheers again. Alastair Haines 03:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A joke?

I have to ask, in all seriousness, whether I've stumbled on some Wikipedian inside joke? This article isn't serious, is it? It's riddled with false or misleading statements, and elaborate but irrelevant and very POV arguments. Is it a Pythonesque parody? Please tell me if I'm wrong, but my feeling is that this article should be deleted or restarted from scratch. — Aldaron • T/C 03:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not a joke, it's just very much a work in progress. It's badly structured, and dumps the reader into a minefield of detail way too early, and contains misleading information. The basic message that I would like to see conveyed is: "In English, 'they' is formally incorrect when referring to a single person, but it has been used as such in literature and in informal speech and writing for a long time. In some other languages a similar construction is normal." Whether or not you agree with this statement, feel free to go ahead and improve the article (not that my invitation is required or relevant). I don't think that the article should be dumped, but a thorough re-write would do a lot of good. --Slashme (talk) 06:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Your sentence alone would be a vast improvement. — Aldaron • T/C 13:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"Formally incorrect" is a rather value-laden term to use, especially in a "basic message". It's also somewhat misleading; whether or not a construction is formally correct in a language is entirely dependent on one's chosen model of the language. If certain prominent grammarians' language models exclude 'they' with particular referents, then that's presumptively notable, but this article has the potential to be far more than a survey of style guides. EdC (talk) 00:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

LOL. Okay, I get it. It is a joke. — Aldaron • T/C 00:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The really "amusing" thing is that I don't think EdC is joking here. I think we really need a proper re-write. It's ironic that an article about language and syntax is so badly written and poorly structured. And please don't say that such value-judgements are arbitrary and elitist – then even I would think you were joking. --Slashme (talk) 07:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Why would you think I might say that? The quality of a piece of encyclopaedic writing lies in its capacity to inform and engage the reader - difficult to measure, perhaps, but not arbitrary and certainly not elitist - and its structure similarly. To perform a full rewrite of the article, you could start at a user subpage (e.g. User:Slashme/Singular they (rewrite)) and request a Wikipedia:Peer review once you think it's in reasonable shape. Or, if you'd prefer to work with the article as it currently is, any specific critiques you may have would be very welcome. EdC (talk) 23:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What does "formally correct" mean, and how is it defined? There is no governmental Academy or Institute of the English Language to officially decree what is and is not considered correct, and Strunk and White can't serve as a replacement for such an Academy. Historical research has revealed that the prohibition against "singular they" (a somewhat misleading term, by the way) has much the same status as the prohibition against splitting infinitives and the prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition. All three were a priori type prohibitions, resulting from naïve 17th-century or 18th-century attempts to impose the grammar of the Latin language onto English, and/or amateur speculative philosophizings about language which would not be considered valid or useful by modern linguists. And empirical research has revealed that many famous English-language authors didn't consider themselves bound by such pseudo-rules -- and there isn't any reason why the results of such research can't be included in a Wikipedia article.

Frankly, it would be better if you two could come up with concrete suggestions for improving this article, backed up by solid facts and citations, rather than merely emitting some snarky sotto voce asides about what you subjectively consider to be a "joke". 23:24, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if I offended, but my question was completely serious: I thought the article might be an obscure joke. As for concrete suggestions for improvement, I'd propose replacing the entire article with something like Slashme's sentence above, as a start. I think incremental changes from its current state will only result in endless battles over peripheral details, when the thing is rotten at the core. But I'm no expert on the subject, so perhaps I'm missing something. I just know that the article struck me, as well as others who I've shown it to, as a joke (at best), and an example of Wikipedia at it's worst. — Aldaron • T/C 01:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Who has the power to decree what correct "formal" usage supposedly is? You could cite Strunk and White on one side, and I could cite Steven Pinker on the other side, but I'm not sure that the resulting clash of the sources would do much towards improving this article. That's why it's better to cite factual research on what real language usage actually is or was, rather than just bringing in dueling subjective stylistic opinions (though Pinker actually did a little research, while Strunk and White did absolutely none at all, but rather merely haughtily dogmatized about their personal preferences). Churchh (talk) 01:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that someone who is editing an article like this is still misled about the origins of the split infinitive. As for my suggestions, I have made some points above. --Slashme (talk) 01:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I haven't edited the article Singular they at all (as you could have relatively easily determined). And I think you may be misunderstanding the split infinitive article -- in pre-Old-English, the "long infinitive" was a phrase consisting of preposition + dative case form of verbal noun, and at that time inserting an element between the preposition and the noun of a prepositional phrase would have been contrary to the general rules of the language. However, beginning even in the attested Old English period itself, the long infinitive's status as a dative noun form was becoming increasingly morphologically opaque, and the whole construction could no longer really be analyzed as an ordinary prepositional phrase. This meant that a prohibition of not sticking anything between "to" and the infinitive word no longer followed from general rules of grammar concerning prepositional phrases in the language, but now had to be explained by a special prohibition specific to the infinitive construction. This special prohibition finally broke down in the 17th-century -- and when the prescriptive grammarians of the late 18th century formulated their rules against "split infinitives", you can bet that they didn't appeal to the historical facts of English language evolution (a large part of which was unknown to them), but rather to the grammar of the Latin language, and to what they called "logic" (which in the hands of late 18th century prescriptivists, had a whole lot in common with Latin grammar). Churchh (talk) 01:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Quite; and if your sole apparent suggestion - that the article be blanked and replaced with a bald prescription - were to be followed at Wikipedia's article on the split infinitive, there would be no way for interested readers to discover that the Latin-imposition history is something of a canard. EdC (talk) 16:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that wasn't my suggestion. My summary of my suggestion was "I don't think that the article should be dumped, but a thorough re-write would do a lot of good". Let me also clarify what I said above: The article should get a proper introduction that tells the casual reader that using a plural, "they", to refer to a singular individual of indeterminate gender in order to avoid "he or she" or similar constructions is incorrect grammar according to a number of authorities, but has been used in literature and in casual speech and writing for a very long time. --Slashme (talk) 13:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the article currently dives into technical issues far too swiftly, and needs to be rewritten to conform to WP:Summary style. A good WP:Lead section will certainly help; the problem will be getting the balance right between excesive detail and unsupported (and unsupportable) assertions. EdC (talk) 15:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Precisely which assertions do you believe to be unsupported or unsupportable? One man's "diving into technical issues" is another man's "not beating around the bush".

Please feel free to flag with {{fact}} anything you believe needs a reliable source to back it. As for style and technical issues, what sort of non-technical, supported statements do you feel are missing from the lead?

From my reading, the broad area of markers of indeterminacy, and their semantic analysis, poses difficult questions featuring in active research across many languages. So called "singular" they in English is only one such construction. There is considerable excellent technical material available. However, little is presented or developed here, as it ranges too far from the topic.

Perhaps the way forward is to write an article covering indeterminacy. That way, those wishing further sources addressing the technical issues in depth can simply follow a link to an article which will provide such development. The technical issues covered atm are only the ones best understood and directly relevant to English usage of they. Alastair Haines (talk) 21:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thought i would say

Just a quick note - congratulations AlastairH, et al, this article is now looking quite good. (Maybe I am too close to the material.) The choice of quotes, and the ordering of the material combine to make the article as readable, as it has ever been since I first looked at it. And, the references, which were always pretty reliable, have been made even more helpful. Well done! Newbyguesses (talk · contribs) 14:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! And thanks to you too Newbyguesses, for considerable helpful input. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 20:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

A couple of things that I thought I would point out: 1. Someone might want to tone down the linguistic jargon or at least work into it. I'm in linguistics, so something like "In neither case is "singular" they unambiguously a semantic or morpho-syntactic singular. What it actually agrees with is the plurality implicit in the indeterminacy of generic antecedents" is comprehensible to me, but I can't imagine the general reader being able to make much sense of it. 2. One of the quotes is attributed to Plutarch, but Plutarch wrote in Greek -- since this is an article on English usage, the reference must be to an English translation of Plutarch (I assume the Dryden?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.180.45.200 (talk) 21:58, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's funny, just thinking through that sentence again, it summarises very concisely a lot of reading and thinking. But that's the trade-off isn't it? Short and sweet is easy when you share conceptual categories and terminology. Communication takes more space and time while you're getting those things up to speed.

Hmmm, in layman's language, we're saying:

Although often called "singular", singular they takes plural forms of verbs.

Example: Consider a typical bricklayer, they get up before daybreak. not *they gets up

More importantly, singular they typically refers to all members of a class -- an implied plural referent.

Example: Anyone can do this job, they only have to apply.

Example: A good professional keeps current research on their reading list.

How many applications are we talking about? Singular or plural? Both -- one (singular) application, per (plural) persons.

How many reading lists are we talking about? Singular or plural? Both -- one (singular) list, per (plural) good professionals.

As far as the they goes, though, they are plural.

And then we can mention the Sumerian dedli suffix meaning each individual! ;)

The introduction would be a lot easier if the title was Generic they.

The "grammatical problem" is not "getting permission" to use they as a singular although it takes plural verbs. The problem is insisting that anyone and such like are singular because they take singular verbs. In fact, they is more "regular" and intuitive than anyone ... unless the issue is clouded by calling generic uses singular!

Alastair Haines (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

No quotes around "singular"

The quotes should be removed from "singular" (to match the title of the article), and both words in the phrase should be italicized, viz: singular they. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this polite and thoughtful suggestion.

One standard use of quote marks is to indicate that something is "so-called" such-and-such.

• The so-called "war on terror".
• The manufacturer has released a new "sports-car" model.

Such uses are often pejorative in popular press contexts, however they are common in academic literature when adopting the neutral point of view (NPOV).

I think there are several ways we could present the term at issue here in the article. Reference to the word they needs to be in italics. So "singular they" would seem a bare minimum. I'd be uncomfortable with "singular they". Since singular modifies they, it is not part of a word being used as a word.

This article is about a class of uses of the pronoun they, not about the term singular they (which is only one term used to describe the uses we're interested in).

Quotes, like italics, are inappropriate for the title. Oxford English Dictionary is happy to have the title in full, yet use an abbreviation throughout the article. So I don't think we're bound to absolute consistency. We do what is clearest in the text, and keep the title as simple as possible.

The reason singular is placed in quotation marks is because the best, recent references don't think there's anything particularly singular about "singular" they. I guess it's a bit like tidal wave. Many tidal waves look like rapidly rising tides (many don't), there's nothing tidal about tidal waves, so tsunami is used instead. This is only because English speakers don't register the meaning as "harbour wave", although tsunami are not limited to harbours either. For good or ill, tidal wave is out and tsunami is in. Wiki redirects tidal wave to tsunami. Were the Tidal wave heading retained, many editors would feel "tidal wave" or "tidal" wave would be appropriate references within the body, irrespective of the heading.

If we were to be super-pedantic, I think this article ought to be called Generic they. Throughout the text it would be called "generic they". A note in the lead would point out epicene they is a special type of generic use of they; and the informal name most widely used in literature is "singular they", by which "not-necessarily-plural they" is intended.

I'm sure there's no "right" answer here (only some wrong ones). I'm unsure as to if there's a realistic "best" answer either. Personally, my taste is to keep the entry heading as it is, since it is by far the most common term. But a redirect is often used at Wiki. Bombay redirects to Mumbai (but Bollywood does not redirect to Mollywood yet).

My main concern is that if Singular they is the title, we write everything from that perspective -- it's the subject of the article. However, the single most significant thing to grasp about this English usage is that singular in the term is clearly a misnomer in the vast majority of cases. Arguably, it is never actually singular, only indefinite or generic. The gender neutral uses are never singular, that's the whole point of them, they are inclusive -- more than one possible type of referent.

Additionally, using the term singular in a language entry sounds deceptively like a grammatical description, but the best grammatical analyses simply point out the usage (whatever we call it) is long standing and not singular.

Using quotes seems a fair compromise (to me at least), to do justice to what is definitely the popular name, while marking that the name is non-technical.

If I could have my way, we'd just move the page to Generic they, redirecting from here. The contrast between generic they and generic he would stand out all the more clearly then too.

Alastair Haines (talk) 13:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. I couldn't follow your discussion. What are you suggesting? In friendship, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Singular they is rarely singular.

To call generic they, singular they is to beg a lot of linguistic questions, that are well known in the linguistic literature. In other words, singular they is actually a sort of POV term, in and of itself.

The way to use singular they, and be neutral about it, is to put singular in quotes -- like "tidal" or "harbour" wave, for example.

Most examples of historical use of "singular" they, and proposals for current use, would not be described as grammatically singular by those who write academic journal articles. I'm documenting sources on the broader issues at donkey pronoun. The linguistic issues are rather complicated, but true none-the-less; and, more importantly, published in reliable peer-reviewed sources. Wiki should not appear to be ignorant of these.

This article can either take a popular prescriptivist approach and say, "generic he is out and singular they is in" (or the reverse). Alternatively, it can describe the history of usage and the various grammatical analyses. I prefer the second, which means no question begging, and cautious use of casual terms. But I'm just one editor.

If that's hard to follow. Please just interact with the first sentence. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't resist this:

• Every singular they just must be understood as singular. Mustn't they?

<wink> Alastair Haines (talk) 09:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Use vs. usage

Not sure about the recent addition of a section marked "Use." How does this differ from "usage?" Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm with you 100% on this one George.

I like the extra section, helps the reader not feel overwhelmed by the Basque!

But calling it Use when there's another section called Usage introduces a different issue.

I think the way forward is as simple as finding a new name. The section isn't actually about Use, but Analysis. However, there's a section called Grammatical analysis too!

Perhaps we could call the section Description. That's what it's aimed at -- categorising the phenomenon into major subclasses and placing it in the context of languages generally. Overview might be another option. Actually, that's why it was in the lead to begin with, it's all summary and context material. Would Summary work as a heading?

Alastair Haines (talk) 13:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

A Cheeky Prediction

I predict Barbara Partee will simultaneously solve academic confusion regarding singular they and donkey pronouns, by pointing out that Every farmer who owns a donkey beats them is much more amenable to regular interpretative systems. Alastair Haines (talk) 09:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Another random note: I said something that amused me when I looked back on it today. I asked a man for directions in part of Sydney I'm unfamiliar with. No sooner did he speak than I recognized a northern English accent. I thanked him and commented, "a north country man!" To give a sense of casual warmth, and passing explanation, I added, "... like my mother." It took me a while to realise what I'd said. Any prescriptivists around to fine me for my transgression? ;)

PS Sloppy identity looks like it's another pronoun article that needs to be written.

Alastair Haines (talk) 07:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

As to Any prescriptivists around to fine me for my transgression? ;) A fine is extracted, a small one, for luck, though no transgression has occurred. No good deed goes unpunished. Or so they say, once. Cheers! --NewbyG (talk) 07:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

A fascinating example of generic they and generic he in the same sentence

• The facultie of famenene is so, Vnto thair freind to be his fo. — Alexander Montgomerie, A Regrate of his Vnhappie Luve, 1605

Note:

• the definite singular, but abstract subject faculty
• the explicit feminine
• friend is singular
• their is singular generic
• their refers neither to faculty nor faculty of feminine
• friend is also generic
• his does refer to friend
• his is a bound variable [X:friend(X)]foe(X)

Context (see title) is poem of unrequited love. His is both specifically masculine and singular.

I think his is also a donkey pronoun—Every feminine that has a friend, becomes his foe.

I hope I'll not be alone in appreciating this example. Alastair Haines (talk) 18:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

They, but is it singular?

You do not have to like an editor as a person to appreciate that they are also working for the good of the project. If you do not like a fellow editor, try not to hold that fact against them. -- WP:CIV

Consider : Two examples of 'singular they' in use, (note 'fellow editor' here is nominally masculine, I would think). Singular and plural are slippery concepts though, sometimes. Cheers! --NewbyG (talk) 01:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice example. LoL, I hadn't ever thought about it, but yes, editrix (or editoress) is the exclusive feminine form of editor. Inclusive masculine forms penetrate English more than we are consciously aware of. Author is another. I have no qualms whatsoever about calling women writers authors. Interestingly, there are many feminist works that speak of women authors or of female authors, which "sexes" or "genders" them, though I think authoress would be rare or non-existant.

But more to the point, the "singular" they in these examples seems to be in agreement with determiner phrases with indefinite articles, i.e. generic antecedents. Alternatively, both sentences would normally be interpreted as equivalent to bound variables (in Pinker's sense).

• For all editors E, you do not have to like E to appreciate E is also working for the good of the project. How many editors sentence wide?
• For any editor E, if you do not like E, then try not to hold that fact against E. How many editors sentence wide?

Pullum's grammatical prescription (based on history of usage, to be sure) notes: bound variable instances of "singular" they are grammatical, others are not (or words to that effect).

Just recently, I've found a number of examples of generic he at Wiki also. The classic was in the Trolling article — "a troll ... he ..." I didn't remove this as sexist, since I understand generic he, mind you, perhaps it was sexist? ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 06:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

PS I was actually thinking of you before you posted! The very point you raise was crossing my mind. "Singular" they is just not singular in many (if any) uses; it's closer to "non plural", but even that doesn't work, because it usually seems to permit plurality. I really think generic they and epicene they are helpful clarifying terms.

If only we could prescribe that people don't use the term singular they. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 07:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Just an aside, to comment on "note 'fellow editor' here is nominally masculine, I would think". Fellow, relating to a person in the same situation or condition as oneself, or a equal or peer (Chambers on-line) is not a gendered term, and could be substituted with "co-editor". The colloquial use of "fellow" as in "for he's a jolly good fellow" may imply gender (although that ditty also gets sung for women), and the academic use, such as "she is a Fellow of the Royal Society" can be applied to either gender. MortimerGraves (talk) 22:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting comments.

I may have misread my "fellow editor's" comments. I thought his point was that editor was nominally masculine (cf. editrix) and the obvious choice in reference to a known editor of known sex. I thought the implication was just how little masculinity attaches to the word editor, though. With editrix having long been virtually redundant, the language no longer perceives an opposition by which masculinity could otherwise be inferred. The word author, in my opinion, tends in this direction also: while authoress is probably much more attested than editrix, it has become sufficiently unpopular to render author at least firmly inclusive, and probably even neutral. Even so, Wiki seems to desire to risk no inadvertant exclusive masculinity, recommending writer rather than author.

A New English Dictionary (OED1, Vol 4. "F and G", 1901, pp. 143–45) claimed "the academic use of" fellow had "never before been correctly explained in an English dictionary". It concluded its description of academic usage thus: "When a distinguished man vacates his fellowship, he is often elected an honorary fellow." I'm unsure as to whether there had ever been a woman fellow in 1901.

Fellow is of Scandinavian etymology, the principle sense being financial partnership—fel from words for "money", low from words for "lay down"—hence its wide Christian use fellowship to render koinonia, with similar sense in the Greek. OED1 notes the primary use to be obsolete, also that usage in an extended sense of "association" was "less frequently" used of women, but sometimes even of animals or things. This extended sense was also obsolete already by 1901.

"Jolly good fellow" has its own entry, followed by "mate", "that which makes a pair, counterpart" and "that which resembles, match". These uses are clearly specifically applicable either to the male or to the female, including Homo sapiens.

It is only at definition 9 that OED provides us with "familiar synonym for man, male person". The final usage is for a "common person", often "contemptuously", but now obsolete.

Latin socius and Old English fæl (dear one) are also mentioned in various places.

Thanks for launching that quick exploration. I now have ammunition for fellowship in Christian translation of the Greek New Testament being a fossilisation of a now obsolete English usage of that word. Alastair Haines (talk) 08:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, well, it's always possible I mistook Newbyg's meaning. As a job title editor is so gender-neutral (in my experience) that the possibility of it being the item in question rather rather than fellow never occurred; I cannot recall seeing editrix or editress in recent use except in a deliberately ironic or anachronistic sense. MortimerGraves (talk) 22:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was the word "fellow" that caused me to note some ambiguity as to number and gender. Thank you both for the interesting discussion. --NewbyG (talk) 02:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll throw in a last curiosity regarding inclusive language. Indonesian is pretty gender neutral, but in press journalism, men used to do all the work and the language only had wartawan, 'newsman', so adopted wartawati to better describe 'newswomen'. The suffix -man in English appears to be more gender-specific than the solo noun, and congresswoman sounds more "respectful" than policewoman, but how on earth you could measure such things beats me. Aren't the irregularities of language wonderful? I wonder what proportion of communicated meaning rests on common understanding of irregularities almost inscrutible to the systematician. We've gotta love the human-ness of language, haven't we? :) Alastair Haines (talk) 08:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Example question

“They are the only person who …” – would that be correct usage? —Quilbert (talk) 08:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Great question, yes, that is an example of a common usage "singular" they in ordinary speech.

I have probably used it myself.

It is grammatical, meaningful ... but it is not normal/default.

It is an example of epicene they (non-specific gender), not generic they (non-specific number).

It would be considered odd usage if the gender of the person were actually known.

1. *Where is Superman? They are the only person who ...

However, the following would be quite common.

1. Mum, I've got a new flat-mate. They are the only person who ...
2. There is someone I would like you to meet. They are the only person who ...

The last two work for dramatic effect, or for privacy, the audience would know the gender is being hidden, it is not natural to use they if the gender is known.

In fact, in many cases generic he would not even be an option, because the construction is not intrinsically generic.

One specific individual is in mind, number is definitely singular.

It is significant that the speaker would normally know the gender, but the audience may not.

The last case (3) is a classic example of the referent being an indefinite pronoun—someone—hence finding a natural agreement with the indefinite they.

Now, the above is pretty standard.

However, Geoffrey Pullum, a top-flight English scholar, if I remember rightly, gave a broad comment that when third person personal pronouns express bound variables "singular" they is grammatical, when they are "pronouns of laziness" they are not.

Your example is a counter-example to Pullum's casual (again if I remember rightly) comment, because they in your example does not express a bound variable.

Bound variables are always generic, hence generic he or generic they are both grammatical options.

However, even free variables permit epicene they in contexts like the one you have provided.

So, to do credit to Pullum, who knows more than I do, I suspect by "singular" they he actually means generic they, which is, of course, not singular at all.

When they is unambiguously singular, it is always epicene. It works in English grammar because it agrees with the indefiniteness of the gender rather than the indefiniteness of the number.

Please let me know if any of the above was helpful (or not), I've deliberately written the answer using the ideas in the article. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 13:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your big effort. After some consideration I understand what you’re saying. I agree that, strictly speaking, in my example “they” represents a free variable, since the sentence conveys two statements: “There is only one person who …, and that person is them.”, where the first “person” represents a bound variable, while the second “person” and the identified “them” represent free variables. Now, is that reformulation still grammatical? By Pollum, it would not.

I see this as the special case where a free variable is born out of a bound one. Now this is really a special case as that can only happen with the $\exists !$ quantor, so this might be a border case. I assume Pollum mainly meant that for example “There will be a certain Li; I do not know their gender, though.” would be ungrammatical. I suppose that would also extend to the border case above. But I further suppose that the grammaticality of these examples is debated and that Pollum just took a stand.

Then there still remain cases where the syntax doesn’t determine the boundness, as in the example from the article “A very good friend of mine said that they …” I would suppose that every indefinite article creates a bound variable, but I confess it also could be viewed as free variable. On the other hand, I claim that on closest inspection, free variables don’t exist. I remain fairly unsettled here. —Quilbert (talk) 10:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you can help me with an analogous phrase in German. Are the following possible?

• Er ist der einzig Mensch der kann uns hilfen.
• Sie ist der einzig Mensch die kann uns hilfen.
• Der ist der einzig Mensch wer kann uns hilfen.
• Der ist der einzig Mensch daß kann uns hilfen.
• Das ist der einzig Mensch wer kann uns hilfen.

German gives many additional syntactic clues and inflectional options to indicate singularity but indeterminacy regarding natural (rather than grammatical) gender. I just don't know it well enough to be sure how it works. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 00:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Possible are the following:

• Er ist der einzige Mensch, der uns helfen kann.
• Sie ist der einzige Mensch, der uns helfen kann.
• Er ist die einzige Person, die uns helfen kann.
• Sie ist die einzige Person, die uns helfen kann.
• Er ist der einzige, der uns helfen kann.
• Sie ist die einzige, die uns helfen kann.

You can set in der da (that guy) / die da instead of er/sie. Since there is no epicene, if you do not know the gender you have to say something like:

• Er oder sie ist die einzige Person, die uns helfen kann.

If (and only if) you are pointing out someone on a photo or list (engl.: That is …), you can say:

• Das ist die einzige Person, die uns helfen kann.

—Quilbert (talk) 13:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Danke vielmals, Quilbert! :)

I see I got the inflexion of einzig and the infinitive helfen wrong, and didn't move the finite verb to the end of the relative clause.

I see also that einzige can be used substantively--Mensch is redundant (or reinforcing or elaborative).

Person can be used as a synonym of Mensch.

Daß and wer are not acceptable to introduce the relative clause?

Could one say, Es gibt nur einzige, wer uns helfen kann?

I think your last example is the closest to the English. They are the only person who ....

Finally, I guess English permits what German forbids, that one cannot say, Sie sind die einzige Person, die uns helfen kann.

I have another question for you. English allows both I answer every man, when he writes to me and I answer every man, when they write to me. Is something similar possible in German? Alastair Haines (talk) 05:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you get the right conclusions. Dass (written that way since the German spelling reform of 1996) and wer are indeed not acceptable. I’ll clarify:

• der/die/das, welche(r/s) introduce attributive clauses (relative clauses):

Das Haus, das ich gesehen habe, war schön. – The house that I saw was beautiful.

• wer, was and dass introduce subject and object clauses: with dass the substituted subject or object is a fact:

Dass ich das Haus gesehen habe, war schön. – It was nice that I saw the house.

• With was the substituted subject or object can be a thing characterized by the clause:

Was ich gesehen habe, war schön. – What I saw was beautiful.

• With wer and was the substituted subject or object is / can be a question:

Was ich gesehen habe, weiß ich nicht mehr. – What I’ve seen, I don’t remember.

Wer das Haus gesehen hat, spielt keine Rolle. – It doesn’t matter who saw the house.

So der/die/das ↔ that, which, who; was ↔ what; wer ↔ who; dass ↔ that.

The plural form einzige is not correct, since that would mean only ones (*“There are only only ones who …”). Maybe you didn’t mean plural? Then it would correctly be:

• Es gibt nur einen einzigen / eine einzige, der / die uns helfen kann.

There is no singular they in German, whether generic or epicene. But remarkably, there is smoething that can easily be confused with it: the polite second person pronoun. The sentence

• Sie sind die einzige Person, die uns helfen kann

is correct – but it would mean “You are the only …” with the polite form of you (Sie).

So, concerning your last question, no such generic or epicene construction is possible. —Quilbert (talk) 16:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again Quilbert. You have really helped me understand the differences between English and German here.

There is one thing to add to the English use of they in "I answer every man, when they write to me". This is not necessarily epicene, it is primarily generic or indeterminate. It works because singularity or plurality is somewhat ambiguous in distributives.

So, I sell each house when it is built or I sell each house when they are built can mean the same thing. Precise usage sometimes prefers the first, because the second could mean the houses are sold only after all are built. But in many cases there is no difference in meaning, just preference in style; for example, every brick in its place or every brick in their place. Although the first sounds "nicer" in isolation, if context makes plurality more natural, writers sometimes use it. Say, a context like:

"It was a mosaic of different coloured bricks. Each of them contributed something special to the overall impression. They were hand crafted bricks, each had a unique character, but they were intended to work together to please the eye. They were all special, but they were all only parts of a more impressive whole. They were not truly appreciated until they were seen side by side—the contrasts of their texture, their colour, their location—every brick in their place."

It works because the discourse subject shifts from the collective singular "mosaic" to the plurality of bricks which makes up the mosaic. Although "every brick in its place" would work to conclude the paragraph, and is generally the prefered option, in the example above, style makes repetition of their quite nice. It is grammatically permissible, logically meaningful but can be seen to be slightly "artistic" expression. Obviously, epicene usage does not apply to bricks.

I hope the above clarifies rather than confuses. Alastair Haines (talk) 05:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes thanks, I understand. —Quilbert (talk) 12:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

In English, Everybody took their money and Everybody took his money would mean the same. In German, Jedermann nahm sein Geld and Jedermann nahm ihr Geld would mean something totally different. The first would be the translation for the English sentences, the second would mean: everybody took their (=somebody else's) money.

That's a very helpful example, imo. Actually, in English Everybody took their money is ambiguous. Most often it means the same as the German Jedermann nahm sein Geld. However for centuries, it can mean the same as Everybody took his money. Of course, Everybody took his money is also ambiguous. It can also mean Jedermann nahm ihr Geld. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 14:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Disputed section

This:

The relevant person here is Becky Sharp. Thackeray has Rosalind using their as a polite circumlocution, perhaps avoiding the directness of she, and generic he in a context involving only women.

is good in its illustative nature, however, given it is the subject of dispute, would need to be referenced to avoid inferences that it may be OR. I feel that leaving it in facilitates referencing rather than it not being there. The same could be said for the parenthetical segment immediately preceding it two lines up.

I'd say a few weeks is as good a length of time as any to find sourcing. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have added fact tags to assist this process ... the more I read this article the more it seems riddled with OR Abtract (talk) 05:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me. I was musing on adding the tags myself to highlight what needed referencing. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I wonder where we could find a source that says whether Becky is refered to here, or that the context only involves women. Any thoughts? Alastair Haines (talk) 16:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"A language may completely lack nominal expressions for 'somebody' and 'something' and resort to an existential circumlocution instead." Martin Haspelmath (in Haspelmath et. al. eds, "Indefinite pronouns", chapter 46 of The World Atlas of Language Structures, Oxford University Press, 2005) notes that indefinite pronouns are associated with circumlocution in English, where Austronesian languages more typically use existential statements.

I can think of a classic example in Indonesian—taat cuma kalo ada yang liat. But I'd imagine he's not alone in observing this, and he indicates he observed yet another strategy for indirect circumlocution in the languages sampled in his Indefinite pronouns (Oxford, 1997).

But the point here is that one of the common uses of indefiniteness is circumlocution: the pronoun one, the indefinite article--a person, or indefinite quantifiers like some. The problem here is not original research, it's selecting from a wealth of sources that describe usage of pronouns. I like Haspelmath, but others may prefer another source.

Since I presume we're all interested in this subject, which sources are we consulting? I've shown you mine, can you show me yours? ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 16:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Good choice of scholar. You may want to consider asking User:Haspelmath at his talk page. Harold Philby (talk) 16:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The Benefit?

The article would benefit from having some information describing the benefit in not having a singular they. I found this page from a link on a users page who apparently doesn't like singular they. Not being a linguist, I cannot for a second understand the benefit to humanity in not having a singular they and cannot imagine a scenario where the inability to determine the plurality cannot be resolved by the context where it would have any practical implication.

The language used in the article is also for some reason very hard to read. I had to employ far more concentration to understand this article than any other article I can recall coming across in Wikipedia. Maybe linguists didn't consider that their usage of English there is "technical" since we are all supposed to know English, but you don't need to know all the rules and technical grammar words and descriptions to use English for communication anymore than you need to understand the physics of a gun to fire one.

If I recall making articles inaccessible to those not familiar with the subject is something wikipedia generally frowns upon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.132.136.205 (talk) 10:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm personally guilty of providing some of the material that you (and others) find difficult to follow (and I'm not entirely happy with it yet myself). In fact, I find the proper treatment of quantification requires concentration as I read about it. This article is a work in progress, like all articles, and we can hopefully smooth things over time.

To address a couple of issues raised. There is a popular userbox that allows editors to indicate their personal taste regarding "singular" they—for or against. All pages using the box, whether "for" or "against", link here. This article is neither for, nor against, it explains both PsOV from the NPOV based on the reliable linguistic sources. (But perhaps is not yet "translated" sufficiently into ordinary English, as it needs to be.)

You, dear Mr/Mrs/Ms/Dr/Fld Mrshl... Anonymous, ask the reasonable question, "how could the human race benefit by exclusion of singular they". One quick answer is that the majority of the human race do not even have a plural they, because they speak languages other than English, and most languages do not have comparable issues to what is very specific to the pronoun system current in English usage.

Another quick answer is that English has a singular we (rare) and a singular you (standard), but it does exclude things like a plural I, plural he, she or it. Languages can do what they like, but eventually agreed constraints are precisely what make them work. Were I to decide to say "dog" where others would say "cat" and vice versa it would not only be rather perverse, but would lead to misunderstandings. The ordinary meaning of "dog" excludes cats, and this benefits the human race (or at least those who speak English, which is not quite everyone I think).

Search everyone! If any passengers have bombs bring them here. [How many bombs do we think we're dealing with here?]

Search everyone! If any passenger has a bomb bring him here. [Are we only to search male passengers?]

Is it more important to reduce alarm about possible threats, or more important to ensure we don't communicate sexist assumptions that women cannot be skilled terrorists?

Well, most things can be said in more than one way, so language often communicates the world-view of the speaker. The row over "singular" they is, in part, over whether it is reasonable to make speech acts involving pronoun use (a reasonable fraction of language) a test of people's healthy appreciation of gender issues. Let's grant (for the sake of argument) that we should police people's thought and what they say, are there any "plausible defences" for using "illegal" language (like generic he)? On the other hand, are there non-ideological justifications for using generic they in perfectly standard English? The answer to both questions is, in the best sources, thankfully, "Yes". So we don't actually need to fight political battles at this page, though we should faithfully record that they exist (from the NPOV), without dwelling on them, since the explanation of why both "singular" they and generic he are good options involves some solid (but intricate) linguistic analysis.

Dear me, I hope I've not made things worse by being so frank. The sources (already on the page) say the same thing much better. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

a simpler way of putting things

maths

$a.x^{2}+b.x+c$

In the quadratic expression above:

$x$ is a variable (it can have many values);

$a,b$ and $c$ are unknown constants (they can each have only one value).

Both $x$ and $a$ are pronouns, different types of pronoun.

philosophy

$\forall x({\mbox{Man}}(x)\rightarrow {\mbox{Mortal}}(x))$

$\,{\mbox{Man}}(a)$

$\therefore {\mbox{Mortal}}(a)$

In the valid argument above:

$x$ is a variable, it ranges over all "men" (including women?);

$a$ is an unknown constant, it intends reference to only one man, say Socrates.

Both $x$ and $a$ are pronouns, different types of pronoun.

computing

for i=1 to 100

let Man(i).mortal="True"

next i

print Man(42).mortal

end

output="True"

In the pseudo-code above:

Man is an array, Man(i) is a variable holding a record (the array holds many—indexed—values of the variable);

Man(42) is a specific record, a constant (the field "mortal" has only one value).

Both Man(i) and Man(42) are pronouns, different types of pronoun.

generic he and generic they are each both singular and plural

linguistics (English)

Consider any man, THEY[1] are mortal.

Socrates is one of those men, so he's mortal.

*Socrates is one of those men, so THEY[2] are mortal.

In the natural language syntactic compositions above:

THEY[1] is a variable (it can have many values)

THEY[2] is a constant (it can have only one value)

THEY[1] is also special because it indicates many taken one at a time. It does not refer to any specific man, it is not singular; it does not (necessarily) refer to all the men at once, it is not plural. It is "in between" it is generic. Speaking somewhat loosely:

{generic} = {singular} ∩ {plural}

Well, that's what I've read in books, journal articles and at academic websites. It is a summary. Do we want a summary? Do we want only verbatim quotes? Perhaps my summary is adrift somewhere? But perhaps we want to keep it simpler than the sources? The only solution is for other people to read the books and confirm what they say and that the summary is fair. In the mean time, we're stuck with being pretty technical, 'cause at least that can be verified visually, without requiring 100% comprehension. For the time being though, simpler stuff like the above, is awaiting input from other source reading editors. I'll be happy to vouch for others who attempt to read and summarise the sources. Alastair Haines (talk) 06:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I wrote the original comment in this section. Obviously I was wrong to assume all linguists are sitting around tugging their e-penis about knowing some rules a bunch of fussy-pots came up with just a couple of hundred years ago and trying to force natural language into them. Alternatively, if a bunch of feminist warriors want to hijack the singular they and assign their ideology to it, who cares? I didn't swallow their ideology by choosing to use a singular they, it was just the first word which occurred to convey the concept I wanted. We happen to agree that singular they and generic he are both useful.

As for your examples above, regarding the bombs in the first instance it would be apparent that the person issuing those instructions does not know how many bombs there are and also meant to include women. It's a bomb scare not the sexual equality clinic, HE (you see what I did there?) just wants you to search all the passengers and bring HIM any bombs you find.

It is my suggestion (only half tounge-in-cheek) that the entire article content is deleted and replaced with the picture above with the overlapping circles, that explains everything perfectly. 82.132.136.202 (talk) 12:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

style books

Without references to the relevant rules in the English standardized Style books, (Associated Press, NY Times, Chicago, MLA, US Government Printing Office, etc.) this article is utterly worthless. It reads like a bunch of grumpy college students trying to rationalize their bad habits. It doesn't matter what improper grammar use in a handful of old books does. This article requires references to the style books, the most important and far reaching standardizing documents in modern English. Every newspaper, magazine, etc. is standardized against theses documents. 76.190.223.60 (talk) 03:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, an intersting and important point of view.

Perhaps you missed the quote from the Chicago Manual of Style, it's buried somewhere in the fourth or fifth sentence I think.

Several other style guides are quoted later in the article, but your perception seems right to me, they play second fiddle to college stuff.

I don't know if Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, Willard Quine, Richard Montague, Barbara Partee, Peter Geach, David Lewis, Hans Kamp, Irene Heim, et al. were particularly grumpy, whether they had any bad habits, or whether they felt a need to rationalise anything other than the semantics of natural language. But it is certainly true that they were (or have been) studying in college for an awfully long time. ;)

Anyway, yes, I take your point, do we run with academic explanation as a standard, or with the final pronouncements of various other authorities? Currently, the article attempts to document both. Should we consider sticking to just one or just the other? We could always content fork the article if we agreed that would better serve readers.

Anyone else have an opinion? Alastair Haines (talk) 05:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is my opinion. This whole idea of a singular they is absolutely ludicrous. All people who use it is idiots. --93.106.216.200 (talk) 20:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Confusing topic or confusing article?

An editor recently provided a tag suggesting he didn't understand the article. However, because he didn't tell us which parts he didn't understand it is hard to know where we need to add more material to help make things clearer.

Ironically, he also left a tag suggesting the article is too long. Actually, I don't think that's quite right, something like 50kb is a recommended standard for an article, and this article is less than that. Now that's a good thing, because it means we have room to clarify any parts that are still unclear.

The article has been stable for a long time at the current length. However, I think there are a few places we could trim out duplicated material. I'm reluctant to do it in certain places, because I remember the people who worked hard to provide sourced material that explained their own questions. They aren't my questions, so I don't engage with that part of the article much. But they are questions many readers may have, so I'd prefer we take some time discussing deletions or starting new articles with existing material before we actually do it.

But back to the main point. I have maintained for some time that this article should be called something other than Singular they. Liguists and grammarians have known for a very long time that what is commonly called singular they is not actually singular. Is it any wonder that people find it confusing to be presented with reliable sources on Generic they, when they expect to find out whether singular they is grammatically OK or not?

I think there is now enough reliably sourced information for people to reference check the article and provide informed suggestions regarding a better title. Anaphoric they strikes me as most precise, and would have the advantage of alerting readers to the fact that there's likely to be a fair bit of new and technical information for them to digest if they want a grip of the topic.

Alternatively, we can keep the current title, because it is certainly the most common name; however, it would appear that in that case, some readers will end up being surprised that such an ordinary seeming feature of language has actually received so much attention.

Perhaps a first step in addressing concerns of confusion would be to see if anyone would like to present reliable sources that show that distribution is not a key issue in discussion of singular they. Additionally people may like to provide sourced explanations of distribution that are clearer or more tailored to the topic. Improvement is always possible, but it also always requires specific and reliable steps. Questions can be a good start, fire away! :) Alastair Haines (talk) 09:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not that it's a confusing topic. There is nothing confusing about the topic. Every native English speaker knows what you mean when you employ he or they in the generic or singular sense, just like everyone knows Panda's do not carry firearms permits or have ballistics training so that whole "a panda eats shoots and leaves" argument was a waste of a book too. Sorry grammar people but it's true! Such a sentence on it's own is just a fragment and does not provide any useful picture, it would never occur in isolation as it does not make any useful sense alone. You can always tell from context, that's why we don't when talking to one another have to say "comma" or "apostrophe". You can even do away with the full stops/periods and paragraphs but it helps to stop the eye becoming lazy to keep those.

The confusing part is it's couched in a bunch of jargon words which are technical grammar terminology. Even linguists don't seem to agree on proper grammar usage half the time, and frankly (no offence) the rest of us understand each other just fine thank you very much and don't need to be told by a doctor how we can or cannot use words, even the proper meaning of double negatives is resolvable by context.

So I don't think the topic is as complex as you would like it to be. On the other side of the fence you might look at my barbarian attitude as lacking sophistication, but nobody ever has no problems (see what I did there?) understanding what I mean, so the topic is a big waste of energy for those gigantic frontal lobes of yours. May I suggest solving world hunger or something? It's easier than verbal gymnastics and won't give your readers a headache.

Move the circles in the "a simpler way of putting things" section to the top of the article! :)

And (I started a paragraph with and!) the whole point of English is to be able to communicate with one another not to make linguists look clever while the rest of us stand around staring blankly. Someone once told me a psychologist is someone who says what everyone knows in words nobody understands. You could swap psychologist for linguist there and still be mostly right. I guarantee ebonics has a higher penetration rate around here than any style manual you care to come up with, ebonics users never tried to dictate to everyone how to use the language though they simply employed English the way they wanted to and others learned by imitation, and context. 82.132.136.202 (talk) 12:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

You aren't honestly claiming that "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shoots, and leaves" are indistinguishable when spoken, are you? Powers ^T 14:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Scare quotes

Scare quotes imply a distancing from the term and that the term is somehow incorrect or not accepted. The term "Singular they" is popularly accepted as how to refer to the concept; popular use does not scarequote the word "singular" in the context of the term. Although perhaps not academically precise, that's no reason imply the term is downright incorrect through the use of scare quotes. Certainly, the fuller academic/technical explanation should be presented, but that's not a justification for biasedly deprecating the term. See also my edit comment about how style guides discourage encyclopedia use; per NPOV, we should not be taking a side as to the term's propriety. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your original thinking. What we need now is a reliable source that backs your point of view.

Cybercobra says generic usage of they in English is singular usage. Good for Cybercobra!

Mind you, the Chicago Manual of Style, Pinker, Pullum and everyone else I, for one, have read disagree with you.

But that's no problem, there's lots of books out there, and we should express all their PsOV here, including yours, so long as you have a reliable source to back you.

Even if we find one though, Wiki needs to distance itself from common terminology if adopting it begs the question being considered.

It is very confusing to ask if singular they is singular.

However, we can ask if "singular" they is truly singular.

So, it seems you are offering to find a source that says generic they is actually singular, validating informal terminology, which would then need us to use quotes, or some other terminology rather than common usage, so we could retain neutrality in discussing the two views. Either way though, the quotes, or alternative terminology, are needed.

Really I think it's a lot simpler than that, no reliable source thinks generic they is singular, the singular in "singular they" is incorrect: it is like tidal in "tidal wave", the wave may look tidal in some circumstances, but is propagated in quite a different manner.

Please provide a reliable source to back your point of view that generic uses of they are singular. Alastair Haines (talk) 11:34, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

You misinterpret me. I'm not in any way arguing that singular they is truly/technically singular; I'm merely arguing that the term "singular they" is used quite commonly to refer to the grammatical phenomenon in question (heck, it is the article title), and thus scare quote usage is not appropriate. Using your own example, I doubt the tidal wave article puts "tidal" in quotes in its text, regardless of how technically inaccurate it is. --Cybercobra (talk) 17:06, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

On further consideration, forget the whole thing. It's simply not worth the trouble. --Cybercobra (talk) 18:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

You say: '"singular they" is used quite commonly to refer to the grammatical phenomenon"'

I agree: Yes, so that's our title.

You say: 'I'm not in any way arguing that singular they is truly/technically singular'

I agree: Yes, so that's why we use the standard technique of quotes to indicate "singular" is only a manner of speaking.

We agree, it's no big deal. It's just a matter of clarity.

I'll see if we can use alternative expressions to <<singular they>> or <<"singular" they>> in some places.

Thanks for talking through the issue. Alastair Haines (talk) 23:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think "singular" needs to be in scare quotes, because it *is* technically correct -- singular they is plural in syntax and morphology, but singular in semantics. Therefore it is both singular and plural, and therefore of course it is singular. Or in other words, it is both singular and not singular, depending on which sort of singularity we are talking about. --SJK (talk) 10:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I concur. I hate the singular use of the "they" but I also hate overuse of scare quotes. Powers ^T 18:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that historical usage of the pronoun has been identified as denoting anaphoric reference to semantic variables, and thus is indeterminate in number, not singular. One variable, to be sure, but who knows how many instances? Right at the top, the boffin calls it plural anaphoric they. How can we seriously call it singular contra the boffin? "Scare" quotes is a standard way of doing that. Seems fine to me. Is there an easier way? I suppose we could just say nice and simple at the top, like, "singular they is called "singular" in popular speech, but ain't considered singular by da pundits". But scare quotes seems more gracious an approach than using a club like that myth-busting sentence.

• Anyone with symptoms should get themselves checked.

How many people are we talking about: zero, one, many? We don't know. It is unspecified, inclusive of many possibilities. I can get behind that kind of explanation of the usage. Kind of convenient. Says something. It's got a place in the language for a reason. So-called "singular" they is actually, "not-necessarily-singular" they, or "possibly-plural" they. It's got a kind of "who knows"-ness to it. Tying it down to singularity feels to me like violence to this subtle feature of English. So I'm for the scare quotes, it allows the poor thing to be itself: hard to describe, loved by some, loathed by others, but a rare peculiar beast with a delicate fascination for the reflective person. Harold Philby (talk) 11:02, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Whatever pronoun is used there must be singular because "anyone" is singular. If "themselves" is plural in that usage, we have number disagreement. (And an excellent demonstration of why "singular they" is a bad idea -- "themselves" is clearly plural, what with the "s" on the end!) Powers ^T 13:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Sir.

Anyone is both singular and plural (or kind-of neither), according to the boffins. A kind of animal they call generic. How very like boffins to invent peculiar and unbelievable creatures like that.

Is that an unacceptable position for them to take, in your opinion? A "bad idea", perhaps?

Or perhaps we can improve the article by explaining this in more detail.

Harold Philby (talk) 11:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)