Pronoun confusion - no more he/she?

Sunny

Sunny

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Location
Maryland
Lately, I've been noticing a lot of changes to the pronouns used in newspaper articles and other places. Due to the transgender movement, people seem to be avoiding using "he" and "she", or "his" and "her," and referring to everybody as "they." It's like there are no separate genders; we are all sort of in an "it" category.

Traditionally, this has always been done in the English language, when we don't know the gender we are referring to. Example: "Somebody left their wallet here. Can we find them?" Unless the wallet is pink and decorated with bunnies (and not always then!) we don't know the gender of the person.

But what I find confusing is a sentence like: "Chris said that they are coming to visit next week." Let's assume that I already know that Chris is a woman. She is single, not living with anyone, no children. So why "they?" How many people are coming?

I think using a plural pronoun when speaking about a single person is ridiculous. I don't know anyone who actually speaks like this; it seems to be politically correct newspaper/TV usage. So far, anyway. Any thoughts on this?
 

Better get used to it Sunny. The world we've been living in our whole lives is changing something fierce. I don't understand how the medical world could allow for transgender things to take place but it is the world we are facing every day now. I choose to do the best I can to deal with it even if I don't agree with it. If you ever need clarification simply ask...how many shall I expect? Nothing hard about that. Right? :)
 
I really miss the world I grew up in. We had enough real problems to deal with, didn't have to go fabricating any. I'll play along but only so far and have to admit some of this new stuff is starting to weigh on my last nerve. It is what it is but I sure wish it wasn't. Don...
 

Macfan said:
I really miss the world I grew up in. We had enough real problems to deal with, didn't have to go fabricating any. I'll play along but only so far and have to admit some of this new stuff is starting to weigh on my last nerve. It is what it is but I sure wish it wasn't. Don...
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same here.
 
Instead of a plural we need to find a new pronoun for he or she. No idea what.

I know a female who is transitioning so wants to be referred to as he.
 
Think that is bad ? I, just today, saw an article describing a female hero, as a shero. Oh, come on. Give me a freakin' break. What in the world is wrong with the word... heroine ?
it's becoming such a weird world.
I personally don't give a damn about the "new" way of thinking. I'll go to my grave using she, he, hers, his etc.
 
Jules said:
Instead of a plural we need to find a new pronoun for he or she. No idea what.

I know a female who is transitioning so wants to be referred to as he.
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Bizarre world we are living in.
Let's take a hypothetical example. A person born with male *******ia, is a HE. Later "he" decides he is actually a woman and starts the long surgical procedures BUT has not yet has had his male *******s chopped off. A few months later, he (now "she") is run over while out jogging and is killed. No ID on the body. The ambulance takes the body to the hospital and a Dr confirms death. The body is shipped off to the morgue and ID'd as John Doe. Later, during autopsy, a DNA sample is taken. Naturally, it comes back as MALE.
Now, tell me was it a male or female ?
 
A boy is a boy
A girl is a girl
Those in=between are on their own
Call them as you will, not insulting, but you can see what they are (mostly).
 
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Sorry about the duplicate topic. I thought my first attempt to start this discussion was not accepted because the title was not specific enough, so I sent it a second time with the "no more he/she" part added to it. As a result, we now have two discussions going.

Is there any way to combine the discussions into one? If not, let's continue it here, and I'll ask the people who responded to the other discussion to come over to this one.
 
MarciKS said:
Better get used to it Sunny. The world we've been living in our whole lives is changing something fierce. I don't understand how the medical world could allow for transgender things to take place but it is the world we are facing every day now. I choose to do the best I can to deal with it even if I don't agree with it. If you ever need clarification simply ask...how many shall I expect? Nothing hard about that. Right? :)
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Marci, that "asking for clarification" idea only works if you are directly talking to the person who said it. In my case, what started this confusion was reading an advice column in the paper. Somebody had written in with a question about somebody's daughter, and said, "So he received an email saying that they were arriving the next week.:

My reaction was: Huh? Who else is coming? No one to ask, I had to unscramble the sentence myself, until I realized that "they" actually meant "she."'

I guess I find it annoying because I think the purpose of language is to communicate ideas, not to strain the language almost to the breaking point, to avoid using gender-related pronouns.
 
Sunny said:
Marci, that "asking for clarification" idea only works if you are directly talking to the person who said it. In my case, what started this confusion was reading an advice column in the paper. Somebody had written in with a question about somebody's daughter, and said, "So he received an email saying that they were arriving the next week.:

My reaction was: Huh? Who else is coming? No one to ask, I had to unscramble the sentence myself, until I realized that "they" actually meant "she."'

I guess I find it annoying because I think the purpose of language is to communicate ideas, not to strain the language almost to the breaking point, to avoid using gender-related pronouns.
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Sunny no offense but if it's just an article in a paper and not pertaining to you personally does it really matter?
 
This is a pet peeve of mine-the he/she thing. 'Everyone should eat "his/her" dinner.' We need a pronoun for a person, whose gender is not known. 'A person came into the shop, and "he/she " said.........' I hate that "he/she" nonsense.
 
It would certainly make matters easier for writers if there was a gender neutral pronoun. I still think 'yada-yada' would work.

If, after receiving the covid-19 vaccine, the recipient observes an anomalous appendage growing from yada-yada's forehead, yada-yada should go see a doctor.
 
MarciKS said:
Sunny no offense but if it's just an article in a paper and not pertaining to you personally does it really matter?
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It’s just a talking point for a topical discussion.

If I know someone’s preferred gender, I’ll use that pronoun or name unless I accidentally forget. If you’ve used one term/name for the person’s whole life, it’s not always easy to remember.

Instead of the LGBTQ+ group being vocal about the pronoun, it would be nice if they could find a new term to help us help them. Over in the other thread about this someone suggested it be based on the sound. I rather liked ze (zee) and maybe zen or zed instead of his/her for a neutral term.

(Can @Matrix combine threads?)
 
Must be difficult being an English teacher these days ..

iu
 
Jules said:
Instead of the LGBTQ+ group being vocal about the pronoun, it would be nice if they could find a new term to help us help them. Over in the other thread about this someone suggested it be based on the sound. I rather liked ze (zee) and maybe zen or zed instead of his/her for a neutral term.
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Thanks for mentioning my "ze" idea.

Zen and zed are already in use, zen being a religion and zed meaning the letter z (mostly in British usage I think). But I would welcome anything short and easy to say coming into common usage.

It was a similar situation decades ago before "Ms" came into use as an alternative to "Miss" and "Mrs."
 
Jules said:
It’s just a talking point for a topical discussion.

If I know someone’s preferred gender, I’ll use that pronoun or name unless I accidentally forget. If you’ve used one term/name for the person’s whole life, it’s not always easy to remember.

Instead of the LGBTQ+ group being vocal about the pronoun, it would be nice if they could find a new term to help us help them. Over in the other thread about this someone suggested it be based on the sound. I rather liked ze (zee) and maybe zen or zed instead of his/her for a neutral term.

(Can @Matrix combine threads?)
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We had a patient that was in transition to womanhood and I didn't know. I took his tray in and called him Sir on the way out and he jumped me about it. He was dressed like a dude with no female parts yet. How was I supposed to know? They don't share that information with tray passers. Oh well. You just do the best you can I guess.
 
MarciKS said:
Sunny no offense but if it's just an article in a paper and not pertaining to you personally does it really matter?
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Marci, it's not a matter of huge importance to me, it's just a language annoyance. The purpose of language, particularly in a news article, is supposed to make things clearer to the readers, not to be deliberately vague and confusing. And the word "they" has always been plural in English, to the best of my knowledge. Saying, "They are coming over" is confusing and sounds (to everyone, I suspect) as if more than one person is coming over.

We need another non-gender word for a single person. If someone does not want to be referred to as a man or a woman, he/she/it needs a new singular pronoun.
 
The planet is burning up and we have concerns about crap like this?! We get more ridiculous every day. Small wonder the murder rate is growing.
 

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