[ExI] Language Changing Before Our Very Eyes

[Richard Loosemore]

Bill,

Didn't notice your post below until after I sent my own reply to the 
request for sources.

I was certainly paraphrasing the situation (and being a little tongue in 
cheek) by saying that it was deliberate male activism that was 
responsible for the change.

What I was trying to say was that there was a more or less common usage 
of 'they' for the GNP, at one point, and that even though this usage may 
have been technically incorrect ("bad grammar"), it does seem to have 
been fairly widespread.  Then a bunch of people (not all of them men) 
did make deliberate attempts to change it.

I notice that the disputed Wikipedia article looks as though it is 
treading a rather fine line, here, because it implies that the 
grammatical incorrectness of the they=GNP usage back in the Middle Ages 
somehow means that those folks were not really treating 'they' as being 
a valid GNP, but just not talking proper, according to them's own rules, 
like y'know?  Me, I am much more of a "language is what people actually 
speak, and damn the language lawyers" kind of person, so the fact that 
so many people did say 'they' is good enough for me to say that it was a 
defacto GNP.

Fun stuff, etymology.  Totally pointless, but fun.

Richard Loosemore.







BillK wrote:
> On 5/22/07, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Richard Loosemore wrote:
>>> Alas, History would have issues with you there:  IIRC, she would tell
>>> you that about three centuries ago, the normal, correct form of a
>>> singular, gender-neutral pronoun was "they".  This was then deliberately
>>> (?) changed by men who decided to go with the male gender for neutral
>>> references, as a more fitting reflection of their status in society.
>> I'd be interested in a source for this, if anyone knows it.
>>
> 
> Richard did say IIRC.   So he is allowed to be not exact.  :)
> 
> Technically 'they' was originally masculine plural from c.1200
> See:
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=they
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They
> 
> 
> What Richard is probably remembering is this:
> http://www.etymonline.com/columns/thee.htm
> 
> Quote:
> The pronoun of the second person in English grammar used to break down
> like this:
> Nominative singular: THOU
> Nominative plural: YE
> Objective singular: THEE
> Objective plural: YOU
> 
> In the Middle Ages, people began to use plural forms in all cases, at
> first as a sign of respect to superiors, then as a courtesy to equals.
> By the 1600s, the singular forms had come to represent familiarity and
> lack of status, and fell from use except in the case of a few
> dialects.
> 
> So what began as a clear distinction based on number turned into a
> distinction based on formality and social status.
> --------------
> 
> 
> The 'Singular they' before 1800 is a disputed discussion in Wikipedia.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
> (Nothing to do with male domination really,
> although that was assumed in ancient times)
> 
> 
> BillK