singular they: Everyone loves their mother. generic feminine: Everyone loves her mother. coordinate pronouns: Everyone l
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Are nonbinary pronouns and singular they ruining the language or making English great again? Dennis Baron
Everyone loves ________’s mother.
generic masculine: Everyone loves his mother. singular they: Everyone loves their mother. generic feminine: Everyone loves her mother. coordinate pronouns: Everyone loves his or her mother. impersonal one: Everyone loves one’s mother.
John Lyly, A Short introduction of grammar, 1567, rpt 1765, p. 4
Stan and Jan Berenstain, The Berenstain Bears, No Girls Allowed, 1986.
Some early common-gender coinages: ou 1792 ne, nis, nim ca. 1850 en, han, un 1868 se 1874 um, ita 1877 e 1878, 1890 hesh, hiser 1879 thon, hi, ip, le, hiser, hersh, hae 1884 (thon possibly as early as 1858)
tha, zyhe 1885 ir, ze, de 1888 ons 1889 hi 1890 hizer, ith, zie 1891 hoo, en 1895 he’er, his’er, him’er 1912
Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary, 1913
Webster’s Second New International Dictionary, 1934
Chicago Tribune, Jan. 7, 1912
(Harper’s Weekly, 27 January, 1912, p. 5
Complaint about the “error”:
The retort:
The Bedford, MA, Medley, 1794
"An act to shorten the language of bills used in Parliament," 13 Victoria ch. 21, sec. 4, 1850
41st Congress, Session III, ch. 71, sec. 2; now part of 1 U.S.C. 1.1, 1871
Why not let the women’s-rights women coin one?
The Washington Post, 12 Nov., 1916, p. 6, cites
Alexander Bain, Higher English Grammar, 1879, p. 310
“Influence of language,” in Lucifer The Light Bearer (Chicago, IL), 25 Sept., 1902, p. 290,
masculine, han, feminine, hon, nonbinary hen
French proposal for gender-neutral pronouns: iel or ille iels or illes and celleux or ceulles Practical Guide for Nonsexist Writing French Ministry of Families, Children, and Women’s Rights
With the growing formal acceptance of singular they, we face more contextdependent acceptance issues. It’s reasonably uncontroversial when truly generic, as in Everyone loves their mother. But when the referent is a specific individual, and more narrowly, a named person, people may be more hesitant to use the form: If a student wants to change major, they should contact an advisor. If a student wants to change their major . . . Meet Dylan. They prefer the pronouns they, them, and their. Dylan prefers their burger medium rare. Dylan prefers their burger medium; they want ketchup, but no onions.
George Fox, A battle-door [i.e., a textbook] for teachers and professors to learn singular & plural. 1660.
Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar, 1762:
Lindley Murray, English Grammar, 1794.
The advantages and disadvantages of invented pronouns Advantages: • They fill a gap in the pronoun paradigm • They are high profile, calling attention to the emerging politics of the nonbinary • They recognize a person’s right to control how they’re spoken or written about Disadvantages: • They are high profile, calling attention to the emerging politics of the nonbinary o in a more positive light, they’re useful for now, but when gender nonconformity becomes more ordinary, politicized pronouns may just get in the way • They are unfamiliar, hard to pronounce. • They can be perceived as strident, or a waste of taxpayer dollars • There are a lot of them, rather than just one, and there’s no clear mechanism for selecting a finalist, or even a short list.
The advantages and disadvantages of singular they: Advantages; • It’s a natural pronoun with a long history. • Those who object to singular they use it when they’re not paying attention. • Objections to its ungrammaticality are easy to ignore, since it’s pretty universal. • It’s easier to use when referring to an unidentified specific person or a person in general. • But increasingly, it’s appearing as a referent for named persons as well.
Disadvantages of singular they: • It drives the sticklers nuts. (that may actually be a plus) • People aren’t so comfortable using it for specific, named, individuals, especially when the referent is in the same syntactic unit as the pronoun.
Are nonbinary pronouns and singular they killing the language or are they making English great again?
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No pronouns were harmed in the production of this talk.
