Pronoun confusion - no more he/she?

Sorry, fmdog, I don't get the connection between the planet burning up, and discussions about ridiculous language changes. And where the murder rate fits in.

These are all valid subjects for discussion, on different levels of importance. Is there no room for more than one subject?
 

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.

My boat is called "SHERO" and it is a hero/shero for taking us clear across the world. No problems there :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Language is constantly changing, probably we use words that were weird to our parents. And think how hard it is to try to read Shakespeare. Here is some info I found googling:

"Girl once meant a child or young person of either sex. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer says of the summoner, “In daunger hadde he at his owene gise/ The yonge girles of the diocise.” In modern English, that’s, “In his own power had he, and at ease/ Young people of the entire diocese.”"

"Nice entered English via Anglo-Norman from classical Latin nescius, meaning ignorant. Then it wandered off every which way. From the 1300s through 1600s it meant silly, foolish, or ignorant....By the 1500s, “nice” came to mean meticulous, attentive, sharp, making precise distinctions. By the 18th century, it acquired its current (and rather bland) meaning of agreeable and pleasant..."

"In Old English, “pretty” meant crafty and cunning. Later, it took on a more positive connotation: clever, skillful, or able. ... by the 1400s, the meaning diverted to its present sense: good-looking, especially in a delicate or diminutive way."

"Originally, awful and awesome were synonymous, but by the early 19th century, awful absorbed the negative aspects of the emotion and the word was used to mean frightful or exceedingly bad. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for awesome meaning “marvelous, great; stunning or mind-boggling” is from the Official Preppy Handbook, 1980."
 

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?
I think the world is going crazy. I have a niece that is gay and recently
got married to another woman. I am still trying to figure out if she should be called the husband or the wife.
 
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.
And that's fine for me. I have no problem referring to someone by the pronoun they request. If I know it. But I also don't want to be put down, berated, hauled in the office at work or any other negativity if I make a mistake. And neither should anyone else. I said it in another thread, not my priority.
 
I won't post it, contains plenty of profanity but if you go on YouTube and search "gamestop transgender" Prepare to watch the insanity.

Believe me, I've been called way worse than this individual could ever imagine and never behaved like this.
 
The other day on the news
a college student was giving a speech about a departed friend

it went something like this-

"Sally Jones was a friend to us all. Unfortunately,
last Friday they were killed in a car accident. Let us keep their family in our prayers."

It just sounded so weird and really pointed out that Sally was transgender. So, I don't know if Sally would have wanted to blend in or stand out.
 
I won't post it, contains plenty of profanity but if you go on YouTube and search "gamestop transgender" Prepare to watch the insanity.

Believe me, I've been called way worse than this individual could ever imagine and never behaved like this.
Whoa! I took one look at yada-yada and closed the browser window without even hitting play. I opened it incognito mode so it wouldn't show up in my video history. Yuck.
 
Whoa! I took one look at yada-yada and closed the browser window without even hitting play. I opened it incognito mode so it wouldn't show up in my video history. Yuck.
LOL. Yes. This was horrible. I didn't want to post it in the thread. This is not normal behavior in any lifestyle.

@Jules, I felt so bad for that young clerk. Seriously that individual cares nothing about anyone else. All about them. Can't diagnose of coarse but it's screaming some personality disorder IMO.
 
I think the world is going crazy. I have a niece that is gay and recently
got married to another woman. I am still trying to figure out if she should be called the husband or the wife.
Another example of the problem with binary thinking. Not everyone is either this or that. There are lots of shades of gray in between black or white. Maybe you could just ask them. Or how about "significant other"? Or "partner"?
 
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This brings up the issue of androgyny. I have several friends who consider themselves androgynous, that is they identify as neither male nor female. They shy away from public settings, especially restaurants, where people (especially older people) will rudely stare trying to figure out if they are male or female. Why is it so important to identify the sex/gender of strangers?! Time to get over it! It's frankly none of anyone's business. Thankfully, many of the younger generation are more evolved, more open-minded and less bothered by how other people look.
 
This brings up the issue of androgyny. I have several friends who consider themselves androgynous, that is they identify as neither male nor female. They shy away from public settings, especially restaurants, where people (especially older people) will rudely stare trying to figure out if they are male or female. Why is it so important to identify the sex/gender of strangers?! Time to get over it! It's frankly none of anyone's business. Thankfully, many of the younger generation are more evolved, more open-minded and less bothered by how other people look.
Quite true. People need to MYOB.
At one place, I worked 25 years ago, a new woman started & I was training her in the shipping & receiving dept. She was really cute, around 26. I liked her UNTIL someone walked by our station. It was difficult to tell if he was male or female for certain; he looked more male. I smiled at him & said "Hi."
The woman had a disgusted look on her face & she asked me (intentionally loud enough for him to hear), "Is that a boy or a girl?"
I replied, "Why don't you ask him?"
She made a nasty face at me. That was fine with me; I hope she thought about it later, but I doubt it.
 
I'm probably too "old fashioned" to deal with all this "gender" stuff. IMO, whatever physical body parts a person is born with determines their lives. If they can't handle that, their problem is most likely centered between their ears.
 
I'm probably too "old fashioned" to deal with all this "gender" stuff. IMO, whatever physical body parts a person is born with determines their lives. If they can't handle that, their problem is most likely centered between their ears.
Uh, Don.......One of the many birth defects some people have is body parts that didn't come out right.
Ya know, missing limbs, etc. And one of those body parts that don't always come out right is *******s.
So the problem is not always "centered between their ears;" sometimes the problem is centered between others' ears.
 
I know that a lot of times I will not refer to a person as he or she and instead say or type in the first name of the person I am refering to.
 


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