Random grammar poll, because hey.

[english si]

And while I'm posting youtube videos, here's Tom Scott

Who points out that Shakespeare did it!

[empirestate]

Worse yet, as I've mentioned, is when singular "they" is used for subjects of known gender: "Not every woman who marries chooses to take their husband's name."

This isn't inappropriate use of singular "they", it's inappropriate pluralization.

Think about it - if the speaker fails to recognize the use of the infinitive "to take" in the complex verb construction, the fact that it says "take" rather than "takes" can easily be mistakenly interpreted to imply plurality. Especially since realizing that the subject "every woman" is singular requires thinking about it for a second, the speaker's gut might say it's plural since it's talking about a group of people.

I'm thinking about it, but I guess I don't see the distinction you're making. Do you mean that people would be less likely to say "Not every woman who marries takes their husband's name" because "takes" is more likely to suggest "her" instead of "their"? I wouldn't think that would be so, but I'll try and look out for this situation and see what I observe.

[dcbjms]

That's interesting, because I don't find it posh-sounding.

That probably relates to the upper classes, and in particularly Her Majesty the Queen (who doesn't really use the Royal 'We' anymore), using it instead of I.

Ah, I see.  In my case,as I mentioned, it's probably a conscious transfer from French (which has 3rd person indefinite/generic "on") considering how sometimes I catch myself saying stuff like "side by each" (which was VERY popular among us kids, and not just because my city historically had high amounts of French-Canadian immigration), but interestingly not registering stuff like "throw me down the stairs my laundry" (French grammatical transfer to English instead of "throw my laundry down the stairs" and very common among the old folks 'round here) since I know better than that.

Certainly it's formal language, which tends to have posh connotations in the UK.

The way I use it, I also use it in informal situations as well, so in my case "one" has become register-neutral - thus, consequently, context-neutral.  Only in writing when it would be awkward would I resort to s/he.

I've also been known when speaking to deliberately use the slang "em" with no consonant sound at the beginning because this can be interpreted as meaning either "them" or "him" by the listener.

In English English, that's what gets used as the generic in speech.

Same here, though everyone who grew up watching (or got obsessed with) the 1990s film Clueless have picked up the habit of using "like" as the generic filler.  I didn't watch the film, but acquired it through osmosis due to being around people who did watch it.

This is as, if not the important thing, when speaking informally, we don't really say the filler words but make noises that sound similar (Americans tend to emphasis the key words with volume instead).*

Not always, as noted above.

[Pete from Boston]

Same here, though everyone who grew up watching (or got obsessed with) the 1990s film Clueless have picked up the habit of using "like" as the generic filler.  I didn't watch the film, but acquired it through osmosis due to being around people who did watch it.

I think you may be giving this movie too much credit.  People were abusing "like" well before it came out.

Lest we forget:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl#Sociolect

[wxfree]

I generally use "he" and "his" for generic gender-neutral references.  It isn't technically correct, but it's simple and effective.  For formal purposes, I like the way the Texas legislature has been rewriting the statutes, removing genders.

"A person commits an offense if the person..."  They use the terms "person," and, when needed, "actor."  It's clear, precise, and accurate.  Of course, it doesn't make for good informal speech.

I dislike singular "their"s and "they"s.  I really hate "theirself."  I even more hate "themself."

[empirestate]

I generally use "he" and "his" for generic gender-neutral references.  It isn't technically correct, but it's simple and effective.

Isn't it technically correct? I've never read that it's incorrect, only that it's socially objectionable.

[jakeroot]

I generally use "he" and "his" for generic gender-neutral references.  It isn't technically correct, but it's simple and effective.

Isn't it technically correct? I've never read that it's incorrect, only that it's socially objectionable.

Well, if the person's identity is unknown, it's technically incorrect to label them as a "he" when you're not actually sure they are. At best, I'd say using masculine pronouns is neither right nor wrong, just "accepted".

[wxfree]

I generally use "he" and "his" for generic gender-neutral references.  It isn't technically correct, but it's simple and effective.

Isn't it technically correct? I've never read that it's incorrect, only that it's socially objectionable.

Well, if the person's identity is unknown, it's technically incorrect to label them as a "he" when you're not actually sure they are. At best, I'd say using masculine pronouns is neither right nor wrong, just "accepted".

I agree with this reasoning.  It's accepted, in my words "simple and effective," but is not correct for the reason you describe.

[english si]

Well, if the person's identity is unknown, it's technically incorrect to label them as a "he" when you're not actually sure they are. At best, I'd say using masculine pronouns is neither right nor wrong, just "accepted".

But, like with many languages, English uses (or used to use) the masculine as a stand in when gender is unknown.

The only reason why we don't think it correct it any more is this happens whenever one uses it:


He who uses 'he' for unknown gender would not have the PC police on them if one had used 'one' instead. (and yes, I use three different pronouns there, just to wind up everybody!)

[Duke87]

I'm thinking about it, but I guess I don't see the distinction you're making. Do you mean that people would be less likely to say "Not every woman who marries takes their husband's name" because "takes" is more likely to suggest "her" instead of "their"? I wouldn't think that would be so, but I'll try and look out for this situation and see what I observe.

In this example the not-obviously singular subject "every woman" remains, so there's still that.

The real test would be to listen for something more along the lines of "A woman takes their husband's name when they get married". If you hear that, then my previous assertion that it's improper pluralization is clearly incorrect.

As I think about it more, though, I can see a reason why even this might happen - because of the anonymity of the subject. When we don't know the subject's gender, we usually also do not know the subject's identity. If we're trained to say "they" when the subject's gender is unknown, it's easy to overcorrect and say "they" whenever the subject's identity is not known, even if the subject's gender is known.

Compare, for example, the sentence "Jane got married and took their husband's name". That sounds just weird and you will probably not hear anything like it.

But, like with many languages, English uses (or used to use) the masculine as a stand in when gender is unknown.

The only reason why we don't think it correct it any more is this happens whenever one uses it:

Right, but the reason the PC police will go after you for it is because of the very real impacts of it.

Remember when I said before that I presume all other drivers on the road to be male until proven female? This has the very real effect that when I notice that the person driving a car is a woman, it seems surprising and unexpected - it shouldn't, because probably close to half the cars on the road are driven by a woman, but since I don't make eye contact with 99.9% of other drivers it makes it look like only 0.05% of them are female (that is, half of the 0.1% whose gender I actually confirm).

The practice of defaulting to male pronouns is not just a matter of language, it is part of a broader psychological phenomenon of assuming that an unidentified person is male, which in turn creates the perception that women live on some sort of quantum plane where they don't exist until observed.

[empirestate]

I generally use "he" and "his" for generic gender-neutral references.  It isn't technically correct, but it's simple and effective.

Isn't it technically correct? I've never read that it's incorrect, only that it's socially objectionable.

Well, if the person's identity is unknown, it's technically incorrect to label them as a "he" when you're not actually sure they are. At best, I'd say using masculine pronouns is neither right nor wrong, just "accepted".

That's only if you consider "he" to be exclusively masculine. If "he" is also neuter in some contexts, then it's also correct to use "he" when the gender is unknown.

Part of the problem comes from trying to know what's "technically correct" in the usage of a language, since languages are flexible and mutable enough that there often isn't a strict enough set of rules by which one can determine what's "technically correct".

In this example the not-obviously singular subject "every woman" remains, so there's still that.

The real test would be to listen for something more along the lines of "A woman takes their husband's name when they get married". If you hear that, then my previous assertion that it's improper pluralization is clearly incorrect.

Indeed, I do hear constructions like that as well; less often, but I do hear it. (Take again the Facebook example, but I also hear it from living speakers.)

But I'd still consider that improper pluralization; I guess the only thing I didn't get was the difference between that and the incorrect use of singular "they".

[leroys73]

If referring to one of our "fearless" politicians I use idiot. 

[english si]

Right, but the reason the PC police will go after you for it is because of the very real impacts of it.

Sure, but those seeking to gentrify language* do not control what is correct language (at least as far as English goes).

Does using 'he' as a neuter 3rd person pronoun cause negative impacts? One can certainly make a case for that. But that doesn't make it incorrect English, merely insensitive English.

And if the using 'he' as a neuter 3rd person pronoun was politically correct (ie had no perceived issues), no one would be thinking it bad grammar.

As such, my point - that the PC sirens sounding when you use it is the only reason why people think that 'he' as a neuter generic is wrong - is correct.

*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.

[Brandon]

But, like with many languages, English uses (or used to use) the masculine as a stand in when gender is unknown.

The only reason why we don't think it correct it any more is this happens whenever one uses it:

Right, but the reason the PC police will go after you for it is because of the very real impacts of it.

Remember when I said before that I presume all other drivers on the road to be male until proven female? This has the very real effect that when I notice that the person driving a car is a woman, it seems surprising and unexpected - it shouldn't, because probably close to half the cars on the road are driven by a woman, but since I don't make eye contact with 99.9% of other drivers it makes it look like only 0.05% of them are female (that is, half of the 0.1% whose gender I actually confirm).

On those, I usually default to a wonderful neuter pronoun we have in English: "it".  If I do not know the gender, I use the term "it" for them.  Of course, on bad drivers, "fucker" works as well.

[jakeroot]

Well, if the person's identity is unknown, it's technically incorrect to label them as a "he" when you're not actually sure they are. At best, I'd say using masculine pronouns is neither right nor wrong, just "accepted".

But, like with many languages, English uses (or used to use) the masculine as a stand in when gender is unknown.

Didn't Tom Scott just say that we don't use masculine/feminine anymore (outside of rare situations like Blond/Blonde, which isn't even English anyways)?

The only reason the PC police get onto you is because it makes no sense to label someone who could be a she as "he".

Part of the problem comes from trying to know what's "technically correct" in the usage of a language, since languages are flexible and mutable enough that there often isn't a strict enough set of rules by which one can determine what's "technically correct".

If languages are so flexible, you should be able to understand why using "he" is out-of-date.

[english si]

Didn't Tom Scott just say that we don't use masculine/feminine anymore (outside of rare situations like Blond/Blonde, which isn't even English anyways)?

No, he said that we don't have grammatical gender for things like the French, etc anymore. We still quite clearly do masculine/feminine wrt people (and animals) and Tom Scott doesn't like doing that for an unknown person and feels that we need a different approach and promotes a singular 'they' (used by Shakespeare, no less) over other proposed alternatives.

The only reason the PC police get onto you is because it makes no sense to label someone who could be a she as "he".

Didn't you just say that Tom Scott just said we don't use masculine/feminine anymore. Why, then, should using 'he' matter as surely then no words are gendered?

Using "he" only makes no sense if one holds that 'he' is exclusively masculine - which it has only been to a sizeable enough amount of English speakers for about 15 years, if that. It makes sense to people speaking outside of various fringe movements and college campuses pre-2000ish that 'he' for an unknown person is not assuming masculinity because they know that is the convention of most Indo-European languages rather than impute some sort of slight against women onto the speaker's motives.

While we are still transitioning away to a less flexible definition of 'he', we need to not exclude those who still also hold the older, less binarist (not explicitly encouraging the either/or model of gender that the more modern definition does) definition of a generic 3rd person of whatever gender. 15 years isn't a long time in linguistic changes - 'gay' also means 'happy' to some who haven't let go of the old definition of the word, for instance, and that is about 30 years down the line.

As you say - languages are flexible. For instance, empirestate and I are using 'flexible' in a sense of an allowance for multiple definitions for a word, with new ones coming and old ones going (if they go) organically: bendable, stretchable, pliable, malleable - there's no such thing as out-of-date, just putting the word into a position it might not have been for a while. You mean it in a sense that it's constantly changing and you have to keep up with the one meaning allow: fluid? about to go over a waterfall in a straight-jacket?

Like how you struggle to see a generic non-gender specific definition of he, I am struggling to see how your definition of flexible can possibly be a use of that word (but as I hold a flexible approach, I can't say it is wrong - just very very different). I see the way you are using it and think of antonyms: rigid, unforgiving, unyielding (my definition or else). Rather than variable, you have varying, but worse - rather than language being compliant to and shaped (in context) by those communicating, those communicating must comply to and be shaped by the language.

There's a reason why PC is basically a endless stream of micro-aggressions (though obviously, those excluded by PC would never use those words) to some - like all gentrification, it makes better by excluding the 'undesirable'*: old, old-fashioned, non-trendy, less-well educated, what we call in the UK the working class, the poor, etc.

Now, sure, there is an issue with a generic "he" as enough people have started only using it as part of a binary model of gender (oddly as the culture moves away from such notions) that it causes confusion and discomfort and normally isn't the best fit. However the issue - especially for those transitioning to the new definition - is that there is no consensus on what to use instead: obviously there is 'one' there and waiting with that generic 3rd person singular pronoun definition for centuries, but once more it fails to get traction over another pronoun (in the past 'he', now 'they') that also is a pronoun used for a different scenario; artificial constructs from '(s)he' and 's/he' to 'xe' and 'je' are ugly and haven't taken off; 'he or she' is just clunky; 'they' gets people on your back for similar reason to 'he' (the other definition). Without an alternative that doesn't raise some eyebrows (if not start an argument), let alone a consensus, how can the person using the genderless generic 'he' change his word choice if there is no word to actually change it to!

*Take, for instance the case of British Boxer Tyson Fury, who was catapulted into the public eye last month. Of Irish Gipsy descent, and very recently converted to Christianity, he was asked a set of questions designed to expose him as a bigot (and so smear both Christians and Gipsies by association for no other reason than allow certain people to feel superior) and then the mob descended on him for not being a middle-class, well-educated, media-savvy, articulate and nuanced, guy that grew up in a house rather than travelling around and doesn't get his head bashed in for a living. While Fury's words were far from excusable, that doesn't excuse the PC mob's flat out xenophobia in hounding him.

[cl94]

I keep it gender-neutral, especially if I know I will be talking to an audience of mixed gender. I wouldn't really say that masculine is "default" because we have a well-defined system of neutral pronouns. Contrast that with Spanish, which only has "masculine" or "feminine" pronouns and every word is masculine or feminine. There, masculine is default because something has to be.

[Duke87]

On those, I usually default to a wonderful neuter pronoun we have in English: "it".  If I do not know the gender, I use the term "it" for them.  Of course, on bad drivers, "fucker" works as well.

Only if you assume "fucker" to be gender neutral. The term is not typically used to describe someone known to be female and I would argue it's implicitly masculine. But now I'm picking nits here.

Of course, there are other cases where a nominally masculine term is generally used to describe anyone, male or female, who meets the qualifications. For example, a woman who obtains a college degree would in theory properly be referred to as a Spinster of Science or Arts rather than a Bachelor of such, but this isn't done, possibly due to negative connotations associated with the term "Spinster". I suppose "Bachelorette" could be used instead, but that term is a neologism which is newer than most institutions of higher education in the US.

Likewise, you'd think a woman with a graduate degree should be a Mistress of Science or Arts, but the term Master is used, and the female equivalent once again has negative connotations associated with it.

Certainly says something about how society treats women that we turn what should be innocuously feminine terms into insults, doesn't it?

[jakeroot]

Didn't you just say that Tom Scott just said we don't use masculine/feminine anymore. Why, then, should using 'he' matter as surely then no words are gendered?

Touché.

<clipped>

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"

And I do want to be very clear here: I am not trying to be politically correct (I'm not quite sure if you are labelling me as PC or not). 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.

While we are still transitioning away to a less flexible definition of 'he', we need to not exclude those who still also hold the older, less binarist (not explicitly encouraging the either/or model of gender that the more modern definition does) definition of a generic 3rd person of whatever gender. 15 years isn't a long time in linguistic changes - 'gay' also means 'happy' to some who haven't let go of the old definition of the word, for instance, and that is about 30 years down the line.

Let me put it this way: the style of English taught at school (in the current year) ought to be what is considered correct (for whatever country you're in). There are plenty of historical changes to English. All I'm saying is that, at this point in time, "he" is no longer gender-neutral for new English speakers. Is it wrong to use "he" to mean "they"? Technically (if that word can even be used in the context of linguistics), no, but you're gonna confuse more people than I think it's worth.

Though, I think there is a slight difference between "gay" meaning "happy" and "he" meaning "they". There are many, many adjectives in the world, so much so that you could get away with not saying "happy" or "gay". It's really, really hard to get away with ignoring pronouns. In essence, I think it's pretty important that the meanings of pronouns be more rigid than the meanings of adjectives (if only because of the number of each -- very few vs many).

[1995hoo]

On those, I usually default to a wonderful neuter pronoun we have in English: "it".  If I do not know the gender, I use the term "it" for them.  Of course, on bad drivers, "fucker" works as well.

Only if you assume "fucker" to be gender neutral. The term is not typically used to describe someone known to be female and I would argue it's implicitly masculine. But now I'm picking nits here.

Of course, there are other cases where a nominally masculine term is generally used to describe anyone, male or female, who meets the qualifications. ....

....

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.

I think the real issue is people looking for a "problem" where none exists.

At least nobody in this thread has engaged in some of the bizarre behavior that existed in academia 20 years ago, where some people objected to the use of "person" and "history" because those words contain "son" and "his" (even though those letters aren't used in the masculine sense in those words). That sort of silliness seems to have died a quick death, thankfully. I do think that's one reason (just one, mind you) to be wary of jakeroot's idea of "whatever is the current fad in school should be deemed correct." Educational fads change constantly.

[vdeane]

I was taught similar to jakeroot, but my district preferred to use he/she instead of they (never mind that they as a singular pronoun was perfectly acceptable until some Victorians pulled a rule out of their rear ends, just like the with ending a sentence with a preposition thing).  I do not think of he as possibly meaning gender neutral; when I see the word "he" in a sentence, I think of a man, period.

[1995hoo]

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

[empirestate]

Part of the problem comes from trying to know what's "technically correct" in the usage of a language, since languages are flexible and mutable enough that there often isn't a strict enough set of rules by which one can determine what's "technically correct".

If languages are so flexible, you should be able to understand why using "he" is out-of-date.

Of course I do; I mentioned it in the very first post. But your assertion was not that it was out-of-date, but that it was technically incorrect.

[GaryV]

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.

[kkt]

There's ample precedent for using the singular "they".  Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc.

I used "he" when I was younger but more recently I have been consciously using "they" in casual speech or "him/her" in formal speech or recasting the sentence.