this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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Dear native English speakers, would you mind inventing a new word either for gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, or one for what "they" mean to foreign English speakers since you are so insisted in differing its meaning from the text books you shipped us decades ago?
English is so inconsistent at this point. Only the third-person pronouns have gender in singular form, the plural form has no gender and now you are telling us the gender-less form can be singular now? How confusing!
English is widespread partly because it has simple alphabet and relatively easy grammar. I don't mind someone being in LGBT+ group at all, but could you please don't mess with the language?
At this point? At this very point, specifically due to the historically valid usage of one gender neutral pronoun? Now is the time that it's finally become an inconsistent language? Singular "they" is the thing that has pushed English over the edge from logical and sensical to arbitrary and confusing? Of all the foibles and quirks, this is the one that is simply unforgivable and must be changed?
I didn't say anything you said.
I think a more sensible way to include LGBT+ group is to just make "she/her" obsolete. We are all "he/him", and we are "they/them" when in a group. Way cleaner than this, excuse me, shit that we foreign English speakers have to adjust to for every few years.
Mate, english is my second language too and this is not that confusing.
Singular they/them has been here for hundreds of years and using it as a gender neutral alternative to she/her and he/him isnt shit, its part of the english language.
We agree. We make he/him obsolete and we're all she/her, as there are more female people on the planet, so less people have to adapt
"he/him" probably isn't he/him in their non-gendered language. In some languages there's no he or she, there's only a pronoun that means "that person"
Armenian, Persian, Tagalog, Finnish, Georgian, Turkish, Swahili &c
That's true, but you can't help but notice that when people coming from this background are taught English, they are usually taught that 'male' pronouns are the default.
If anything, I would support the removal of 'he/him' for all the backlash it will generate.
in france "they" invented "iel", a gender neutral pronoun, to replace "il" and "elle". Young people (some?) adopted it rapidly and were using it naturally but the state banned the use of "inclusive language" on all official communications (which includes schools)
i remember thinking that inventing a new pronoun, like they did, was a better solution than choosing one of the two as gender neutral
I'm working in (local) French public service. We've developed apps with basic gender inclusive language (not iel, more like including genders in form titles and messages), a while before the government banned it from official communication.
As of now, nobody has done anything to remove that from the apps, because we don't see the point and we have way more important things to do to actually improve services.
thanks for not doing anything then 😁
Outright banned, I'm guessing because blindly following rules by the book, but I think it's not a move in the right direction.
In Spain people are trying to make neutral words by placing
@wherea/oshould go in the gendered words, I think it never made to any documentation but it wasn't banned yet, at least.As the comic shows, "they" ("their," in this case) was already used as a singular when the gender was unknown. The only change is it's now also used if the person's gender is known and isn't "he" or "she."
Don't blame native speakers that your textbook is outdated
Others have addressed some of your other points, but
We actually have that. Xe / Xem / Xyrs. It isn't very widely used though, and is generally considered a neo pronoun.
Honestly I don't really expect it to get mainstream use anytime soon, in part because people are already accused to the singular They / Them / Theirs (except for when a nonbinary person asks to be refered to as such).
There's more than one option, I for one prefer Elverson which is Ey/Em/Eirs
Naw.