Random grammar poll, because hey.

[jakeroot]

It just sounds silly to me to say "he" when you're not sure if they are indeed a man. It would seem that I (and inevitably, many of my peers) were not taught that "he" could be gender neutral. As a result, I don't think my generation is "revolting" against the idea of using non-gender-specific "he" to mean "unknown domain" because it might offend a woman (though many might use that reason), but rather revolting against the idea of using (what is now) a masculine pronoun to describe a neutral being.

And to many of us, it sounds just as silly to use "they" to indicate a singular person, even if you are not specifying the gender of that person.

"They" can be plural and/or singular, depending on the context. I can't think of any situation where "he", in modern 2016-era English, makes sense to describe any being of any sex. Current practice more then likely dictates that the ambiguity of singular vs plural when using "they" is preferable to the ambiguity of using "he" to mean "they". Of course, if your version of English accepts using "he" to mean "they", then by all means continue to use "he". Your just going to confuse more people than I think it's worth.

"Ask someone if they could help" (singular)
"Ask if they could help" (singular or plural)
"They did a great job" (singular or plural)
"Demand from your boss that they give you a raise" (singular)

[Duke87]

Then there are some words where people probably don't even realize that the generic masculine is in fact the masculine form. "Alumni" is the one that most readily comes to mind. (I frequently see it misused as though it were singular, as in "he is an alumni of ____," but that's a separate matter.) "Alumni" is the plural of the masculine "alumnus." The feminine singular is "alumna" and its now seldom-seen plural form is "alumnae." I can't say as I've ever seen anyone use a form like "alumni/ae" or whatever to try to be "gender-neutral" or whatever, though I've head "alums" often enough in casual speech (not normally in written English, though). People who object to the generic "he" should, on principle, object to the generic use of words like "alumni" or similar.

This is a higher level of complexity because now we're discussing gendered plural terms, which in English exist only for nouns, never for pronouns.

It is interesting, though, how it is considered normal to say "alumni" when referring to a mixed-gender group, but not to say "gentlemen" when referring to the same. If we can say "ladies and gentlemen", it logically follows that we should say "alumni and alumnae". But we don't, perhaps because in Latin this would not be considered correct.

[Pete from Boston]

I'm not motivated enough to try to break down the replies by age, but I think that might be an interesting exercise.

More interesting then breaking it down by gender, anyway.  I feel like if this was a less gender-homogenous group there might be a very different conversation going on.

[1995hoo]

It just sounds silly to me to say "he" when you're not sure if they are indeed a man. It would seem that I (and inevitably, many of my peers) were not taught that "he" could be gender neutral. As a result, I don't think my generation is "revolting" against the idea of using non-gender-specific "he" to mean "unknown domain" because it might offend a woman (though many might use that reason), but rather revolting against the idea of using (what is now) a masculine pronoun to describe a neutral being.

And to many of us, it sounds just as silly to use "they" to indicate a singular person, even if you are not specifying the gender of that person.

"They" can be plural and/or singular, depending on the context. I can't think of any situation where "he", in modern 2016-era English, makes sense to describe any being of any sex. Current practice more then likely dictates that the ambiguity of singular vs plural when using "they" is preferable to the ambiguity of using "he" to mean "they". Of course, if your version of English accepts using "he" to mean "they", then by all means continue to use "he". Your just going to confuse more people than I think it's worth.

....

Who has used "he" to mean "they"? That would sound really stupid: "I'm rooting for the Redskins on Sunday and I will be very disappointed if he lose."

What you meant to say is that people are using "he" in a situation where YOU BELIEVE "they" is more appropriate. That's a very different matter from "using 'he' to mean 'they.'"

I think the argument that using "he" as the generic form will "confuse people" is a rather weak argument. Certainly some people will dislike it or object to it, and those people are certainly welcome to their opinion. But it's hard to think of too many situations where the generic masculine, or for that matter the generic feminine, is genuinely confusing to an intelligent English-speaking person.

Regarding the boldfaced sentence, I assume what you meant to say is that in your opinion, you can't think of any situation where "he" is appropriate when referring to a generic person of an unknown sex? I ask because that's not what you said. The way you worded it comes across as saying "he" is never appropriate to refer to anyone. Obviously, that's absurd. Regardless of one's position on the generic, "he" is of course perfectly appropriate when referring to someone one knows to be male. (I'm not even going to touch the issue of how to refer to transsexuals or transgender people or the like for several reasons.)

Perhaps the best solution, for those people who think this is a big deal, is just to re-word the entire sentence to try to avoid the issue!

(I'm deliberately refraining from commenting on the indisputable grammatical mistakes you made because they're not directly relevant, although they do go to credibility.)



Edited to add: BTW, FWIW, I'm sure I've probably mentioned at some point that my mother was an English teacher (she's now retired), so I had grammar drilled into me for years. I'm not sure if it's a sign of a dysfunctional family, but we had some rather interesting discussions at the dinner table about comma usage over the years. Anyway, my mom once commented on the "generic pronoun" issue by noting that it posed a conundrum for her as a teacher: On the one hand, as a woman, she wasn't a fan of using "he," but on the other hand, as a grammarian, she found forms such as "s/he," "he or she," or "they" to be awkward at best and tacky or patronizing at worst. She said "patronizing" because she felt people who slavishly use things like "s/he" or "he or she" every single time are, in effect, insulting the reader by assuming the reader isn't intelligent enough to recognize that the reference could be either masculine or feminine–in other words, a noble intent (avoiding a form some readers consider sexist) that backfires (by insulting the reader).

[1995hoo]

I'm not motivated enough to try to break down the replies by age, but I think that might be an interesting exercise.

More interesting then breaking it down by gender, anyway.  I feel like if this was a less gender-homogenous group there might be a very different conversation going on.

I know of one particular poster (whom I have not met in person) I suspect would have an interesting take on the issue if said poster wanted to delve deeply into the matter.....

[Pete from Boston]

I'm not motivated enough to try to break down the replies by age, but I think that might be an interesting exercise.

More interesting then breaking it down by gender, anyway.  I feel like if this was a less gender-homogenous group there might be a very different conversation going on.

I know of one particular poster (whom I have not met in person) I suspect would have an interesting take on the issue if said poster wanted to delve deeply into the matter.....

It's just that it was pretty late in the conversation that there was questioning of the fact that what's been called "political correctness" quite a bit here might actually just be simple "fairness," a concept it's less popular to oppose.  (And to be fair, the OP did not frame it that way at the outset.)

[1995hoo]

It's just that it was pretty late in the conversation that there was questioning of the fact that what's been called "political correctness" quite a bit here might actually just be simple "fairness," a concept it's less popular to oppose.  (And to be fair, the OP did not frame it that way at the outset.)

I just looked back at the original post and I noted the comment about how "it" is not considered appropriate for referring to adult humans. I've actually read some old historical material where "it" was indeed used to refer to human beings, and the context of those makes it even weirder to consider using "it" (except when referring to an unborn child whose sex is unknown, of course). The material? Old court cases from Southern states from the early 1800s adjudicating property rights involving slaves. The judges would usually first refer to "a negro slave named ____" and subsequently refer to said slave as "it." From a property law standpoint you could view this as emphasizing the legal principle that the courts were dealing with chattels, such that using "it" recognized that a slave was, under then-current legal principles, no different from a horse or a wagon or a whiskey still or whatever. (Believe it or not, every once in a while old slave cases can still be good law from a purely property-law standpoint if you ignore the slavery aspect, but it's far better to find other case law to cite because the same principle will almost always be stated in a less-distasteful context.) You could also argue that it was the judges' way of trying to ignore the cases' posture of adjudicating the property status of human beings. Either way, encountering something along the lines of the following is downright weird and rather creepy in today's society: "A negro slave named Willie ran away from Raleigh. It was captured in Virginia and its leg was broken in the process. Its owner now seeks restitution for blah blah blah...."

[jakeroot]

(I'm deliberately refraining from commenting on the indisputable grammatical mistakes you made because they're not directly relevant, although they do go to credibility.)

Fair enough. I probably owe my glaring grammatical errors more to writing on an iPhone while at work (attention to detail level: 1/10).

As for what we've been talking about, once I begin to sound like an idiot, it kind of kills my stamina. Probably just not going to post in this thread anymore. I can't seem to get my point across properly.

[1995hoo]

Fair enough. I probably owe my glaring grammatical errors more to writing on an iPhone while at work (attention to detail level: 1/10).

....

Heh, I hear you there. I typed my last few posts on my iPad using the touchscreen keyboard (I have an external Bluetooth keyboard, but it's upstairs somewhere) and I feel like I'll wear out the "backspace" location on the screen from correcting so many of my €Â£^% typos!

[jakeroot]

Fair enough. I probably owe my glaring grammatical errors more to writing on an iPhone while at work (attention to detail level: 1/10).

....

Heh, I hear you there. I typed my last few posts on my iPad using the touchscreen keyboard (I have an external Bluetooth keyboard, but it's upstairs somewhere) and I feel like I'll wear out the "backspace" location on the screen from correcting so many of my €Â£^% typos!

The worst occurs when I turn on low-battery mode. When I'm typing, the words appearing on the screen lag behind my typing. I'll be well into the next paragraph before I spot spelling errors (that may explain my terrible grammar in some posts).

[jeffandnicole]

Fair enough. I probably owe my glaring grammatical errors more to writing on an iPhone while at work (attention to detail level: 1/10).

....

Heh, I hear you there. I typed my last few posts on my iPad using the touchscreen keyboard (I have an external Bluetooth keyboard, but it's upstairs somewhere) and I feel like I'll wear out the "backspace" location on the screen from correcting so many of my €Â£^% typos!

The worst occurs when I turn on low-battery mode. When I'm typing, the words appearing on the screen lag behind my typing. I'll be well into the next paragraph before I spot spelling errors (that may explain my terrible grammar in some posts).

I have a new android phone that has a not-so-user-friendly auto-correct.  Even when I spell the word correctly it sometimes thinks I meant another word.  And when I use any sort of punctuation, it cancels out the spellcheck feature.  There's probably some sort of setting I have to modify, but I haven't bothered to look for it yet.

As much as I try to keep an eye on what I write, I usually don't catch it until I re-read my post later on, or catch my quoted post in someone's response.

[dcbjms]

*Be it PC, be it the Brits who do not like Americanizing tendencies like -ize, rather than -ise, bawlderisation/euphemisms, dislike of dialect/slang, etc.

Someone forgot about the OED and Hart's Rules (and even then the OUP is inconsistent on this).

[Pete from Boston]

Fair enough. I probably owe my glaring grammatical errors more to writing on an iPhone while at work (attention to detail level: 1/10).

....

Heh, I hear you there. I typed my last few posts on my iPad using the touchscreen keyboard (I have an external Bluetooth keyboard, but it's upstairs somewhere) and I feel like I'll wear out the "backspace" location on the screen from correcting so many of my €Â£^% typos!

The worst occurs when I turn on low-battery mode. When I'm typing, the words appearing on the screen lag behind my typing. I'll be well into the next paragraph before I spot spelling errors (that may explain my terrible grammar in some posts).

I have a new android phone that has a not-so-user-friendly auto-correct.  Even when I spell the word correctly it sometimes thinks I meant another word.  And when I use any sort of punctuation, it cancels out the spellcheck feature.  There's probably some sort of setting I have to modify, but I haven't bothered to look for it yet.

As much as I try to keep an eye on what I write, I usually don't catch it until I re-read my post later on, or catch my quoted post in someone's response.

Autocorrect is a devil's deal.  I keep it off.  I see people send professional communication with obvious autocorrect errors all the time and it makes me cringe.  Nothing replaces human proofreading.

[dcbjms]

Fair enough. I probably owe my glaring grammatical errors more to writing on an iPhone while at work (attention to detail level: 1/10).

....

Heh, I hear you there. I typed my last few posts on my iPad using the touchscreen keyboard (I have an external Bluetooth keyboard, but it's upstairs somewhere) and I feel like I'll wear out the "backspace" location on the screen from correcting so many of my €Â£^% typos!

The worst occurs when I turn on low-battery mode. When I'm typing, the words appearing on the screen lag behind my typing. I'll be well into the next paragraph before I spot spelling errors (that may explain my terrible grammar in some posts).

I have a new android phone that has a not-so-user-friendly auto-correct.  Even when I spell the word correctly it sometimes thinks I meant another word.  And when I use any sort of punctuation, it cancels out the spellcheck feature.  There's probably some sort of setting I have to modify, but I haven't bothered to look for it yet.

As much as I try to keep an eye on what I write, I usually don't catch it until I re-read my post later on, or catch my quoted post in someone's response.

Autocorrect is a devil's deal.  I keep it off.  I see people send professional communication with obvious autocorrect errors all the time and it makes me cringe.  Nothing replaces human proofreading.

Mom's Kindle is the same way, and I cringe.  There are some areas where the Kindle spell-check is useful, and other times where it isn't.  What makes me laugh is that when I use two different languages on my laptop (and it functions similarly in both browsers, but is more apparent on Chrome) is that if I use the English dictionary, any foreign-language stuff is flagged as being spelling/grammatical errors; when I switch to a foreign language (French, for example), then all the English text is marked likewise.  It's very interesting to see.

---

For the most part, when I was taught English in school, somehow we never got around to talking about gender-neutral pronouns - all that we learned for the 3rd person was "he", "she", "it", and "they", with "they" taught as always plural.  There was, of course, a single 2nd-person pronoun, "you", though when delving into history of English literature mention was made of "thou" as an archaic pronoun.  When I started learning French, however, my big holdup was not in the 3rd person (where either "il" or "elle" is used depending on the gender of the word) but in the 2nd person.  OK, I get it that "tu" is singular and "vous" is plural, but "vous" as a formal pronoun?  Spanish was much worse - you have "tú" (2nd person singular informal), "usted" (2nd person singular formal but grammatically 3rd person singular), "vosotros" (in Spain only, 2nd person plural informal), and "ustedes" (3rd person plural, either general [Latin America] or formal [Spain]), and even then in several countries in Latin America (Argentina and Nicaragua, for example) "tú" is replaced entirely by "vos" - the old 2nd person plural and formal pronoun (and the origin of "vosotros").  Yet the T-V distinction is such a constant part of human language, even elaborate distinctions like in Asian languages, that I wonder how much of it is natural and how much of it is forced.

Compare that with, say, Esperanto.  When devising the pronouns, Zamenhof not only had a plural "vi", but also singular/informal "ci" /tsi/ and formal "Vi"; modern Esperantists discard this in favour of "vi" in all cases.  Zamenhof also had "ĝi" /dji/ serve not only the function of English "it", but also as the gender-neutral pronoun in cases where the gender is unknown or in mixed company.  Apparently modern Esperantists don't feel that way (unless if it's children) and hence use a demonstrative instead.  But it does open up a few ideas.  The most outlandish and interesting being for an Esperantido, Universal:
http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/univers.html
Now here's an elaborate pronominal system indeed.
*1st person singular: mi "I", ami "I" (masc.), mai (fem.)
*2nd person singular informal: ti "tu/tú/thou", ati "thou" (masc.), tai (fem.)
*2nd person singular formal: vi "you", avi "you" (masc.), vai "you" (fem.)
*3rd person singular: li "s/he", ali "he", lai "she", lo "it"
*1st person plural: imi "we", mimi "we" (exclusive), timi "we, thou/ye and I" (inclusive, informal), vimi "we, you and I" (inclusive, formal)
*2nd person plural: iti "ye" (informal), ivi "you" (formal)
*3rd person plural: ili "they", alali "they" (masc.), lalai "they" (fem.)
Has your head spun yet?

[english si]

It's just that it was pretty late in the conversation that there was questioning of the fact that what's been called "political correctness" quite a bit here might actually just be simple "fairness," a concept it's less popular to oppose.  (And to be fair, the OP did not frame it that way at the outset.)

I believe I have maintained a difference between PC and "fairness" - fairness is understanding that "he" might cause offence, but not thinking it is wrong because of that. PC is about saying it's wrong on non-moral levels because of that perceived offence. A generic 'he' might be insensitive (fairness), but it is not incorrect (PC).

I'd also argue that fairness would understand that 'he' is not always understood as a exclusively masculine pronoun and not to insensitively think it wrong or archaic, but merely raise questions about its suitability given the recent shifts in language and society. Fairness would also understand that the main candidate for replacement of the generic 'he', "they", is fighting a lot of people's hard-wired grammar concepts (in the same way that the generic 'he' is totally alien to jakeroot, though those people tend to be a bit more flexible on the validity of using the singular 'they'), and the other alternatives (except 'one', which has its own, different, problems) are a load of tosh.

----

Compare these various Bible translations of 1Cor 15:6, from different time periods. The original uses the generic male (ἀδελφός) in the Greek, but is describing a mixed gender group.
KJV (1611) "After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep."
TLB (1971) "After that he was seen by more than five hundred Christian brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now."
GNT (1992) "Then he appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died."
NIV (2011) "After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep."

Which is the most inclusive? Other than the GNT, with "followers" (which is somewhat lacking as a translation, but we'll leave that aside), it's probably the KJV - brethren is considered an archaic term for 'brothers', but still means 'fellow members' (see dictionary.com). The TLB is a bit confusing if you are under ~25, as it suggest only males, but if you were alive in 1971, you would know that it didn't mean just the men. I'd argue that NIV is the least inclusive as it demands a binary view of gender by rejecting the notion that 'brothers' can be gender-neutral and inclusive of all, and feeling that adding 'and sisters' covers all bases of exclusion - excluding those who don't feel they fit in that binary system - yet it was a version (rehashing the older 1974 NIV that had 'brothers') which prided itself on 'inclusive' language.

I utterly reject 'he/she' or similar as being valid alternatives to a generic 'he'. I'm very happy with 'they' though, but I don't think it works as a direct subsitute for the generic 'he' all of the time, and I know others aren't au fait with a singular 'they', and so I use 'one' and (rarely) 'he' as alternatives on occasion.

----

*Be it PC, be it the Brits who do not like Americanizing tendencies like -ize, rather than -ise, bawlderisation/euphemisms, dislike of dialect/slang, etc.

Someone forgot about the OED and Hart's Rules (and even then the OUP is inconsistent on this).

Not at all - for said Brits, the OED has got it wrong. I'm not one of them, I had it completely backwards which way was which until really recently.

[vdeane]

It is interesting, though, how it is considered normal to say "alumni" when referring to a mixed-gender group, but not to say "gentlemen" when referring to the same. If we can say "ladies and gentlemen", it logically follows that we should say "alumni and alumnae". But we don't, perhaps because in Latin this would not be considered correct.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that many prestigious universities were all-male until the 60s?  "Alumnae" wouldn't have been used nearly as often as "alumni", so some people might have started to use "alumni" for everyone without knowing there was a distinction (I don't recall a distinction before this thread, actually) and it caught on?

[freebrickproductions]

I tend to try to use "they/them" for gender-neutral pronouns when someone's gender isn't known, but I still sometimes say "he/him" in the same situation.

[empirestate]

I'm just gonna keep this simple. This is what I was taught at school in the early 2000s:

1) An unknown male (of any domain) is a "he"
2) An unknown female (of any domain) is a "she"
3) An unknown-gender domain is "they"

Ah–now I know where you're coming from! This is the bit of information I needed to understand your view of a "technically correct" usage of "he"; I was missing the actual "technique"–the specific set of rules or facts–that you were comparing against.

No "technique" I've ever seen goes so far as to prohibit the use of "he" for subjects of unknown gender; it's only stated to be objectionable to some listeners. So that's why I questioned why you said it was prohibited. Now I see that it's because you were taught a technique that prohibits this.

Of course, as has been made more than clear by now, since languages are flexible, there is never one single set of rules that supersedes all, so even if there is a usage that goes against one set of teachings, it can never be assumed to be an ultimatum. I'm a bit surprised that you weren't taught these rules with that caveat–but then again, I don't remember learning much in the way of pure grammar and syntax in school myself, either. It's largely been through absorption and assimilation as I've gone through life.

[GaryV]

"Ask someone if they could help" (singular)

That could be plural.  My first reading of that sentence is, "Ask someone [e.g. Bill] if they [e.g. Tom, Dick and Harry] could help."

"Demand from your boss that they give you a raise" (singular)

Wouldn't you know if your boss was male or female?  (Or at least "identifying" as such.) 

[empirestate]

"Demand from your boss that they give you a raise" (singular)

Wouldn't you know if your boss was male or female?  (Or at least "identifying" as such.) 

Yes, but the person telling you to demand something of your boss mightn't.

[GaryV]

Another thought - if they is singular, shouldn't you say "they is"?   

[jakeroot]

Another thought - if they is singular, shouldn't you say "they is"?   

"They" is not always singular. Didn't we already cover this?

[english si]

Looks like word of the year 2015 is singular 'they'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/donald-trump-may-win-this-years-word-of-the-year/

[1995hoo]

I thought of this thread during Sunday night's Capitals—Senators game because Caps play-by-play man Joe Beninati at one point used the word "they" or "their" in the singular when referring to NHL players (I don't remember the exact context of what he said, though). That was a situation where I thought even the people who are the most strongly against the "generic masculine" ought not object to using "he" or "his" for the simple reason that it's inherently correct–there are no female players in the NHL, so it cannot be incorrect to use the masculine.

As I type this I find myself wondering whether anyone here object to terms like "manhole cover" to refer to the places on the street with the metal covers that were famously exploding in DC a few years back.

[empirestate]

Bringing up an old (-ish) thread, but I wanted to add something because of a Facebook conversation I was having yesterday that made me think differently about this.

I had mentioned that I think the fairest option is for speakers to use their own gender to refer to subjects of multiple or unknown genders. A friend of mine had said that "he" denotes the male gender, and that using it to refer to subjects of both genders was unacceptable because of its prejudicial roots. His solution was to use "he or she" or "she or he".

I agreed that "he" means male gender, but I added that it has a second meaning (as many words do) which is neuter.  Since I also recognize the prejudicial roots, I propose adding that second meaning to "she" as well. I said that his method was also perfectly fine, just a little awkward, but then it also struck me that my solution is actually more "progressive", for two reasons.

First, my method actually requires a slight change to the lexicon–it adds a sense of meaning to "she" and related pronouns–whereas his solution leaves the language unchanged. (Which is also perfectly fine, but those with more progressive motivations typically prefer seeing an evolution of the "system" rather than accepting the status quo.)

Second, my method can be seen as more empowering to the female gender, because it affirms that "she", used alone, can carry the same breadth of meaning as "he" always could. His solution, on the other hand, requires "she" to appear alongside "he" in order to have its full strength; "she" on its own cannot refer to everyone under that system, whereas "he" still can (even though you may reject that usage).

So there you have it! If gender equality is truly your aim, then "he or she" is a false flag. Only when "she" stands alone as an equal to "he" will we have truly progressed as a society.