<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Someone somewhere reminded us that Shakespeare (who never spelled his name that way) used 'they'as singular.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Curious tie-in - research in the mountains of TEnnessee revealed that language of S's day was alive and well there, primarily among Blacks.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">So 'they is', while sounding Black, is really Shakespearean. bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, May 3, 2023 at 11:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg757264506337838019"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="m_757264506337838019WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal">On 02/05/2023 14:28, Ben wrote:<u></u><u></u></p></div><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt"><p class="MsoNormal">>…Spike, I think you're right. Everything seems to be classed as 'hate speech' now, even the most innocent things. Actually, rather than 'neo-Victorian', I think a better term might be 'neo-McCarthyism'… Ben<br>…<u></u><u></u></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><br>Eh, there is a silver lining to this cloud Ben. I have been experimenting with language, for I have long wanted to be fully inclusive while doing away with the clumsy terminology “his or her” and “he or she,” being as this interrupts the rhythm of writing. The good old “they” and “their” replaces those awkward compound pronouns and supplies us with a new innovative awkward pronoun. The “they” path gives away singular/plural in favor of being gender non-specific. However, I discovered a way to make it work: the verb immediately following the pronoun is now tasked with specifying singular/plural. It sounds a little funny, but it accomplishes the task. For instance:<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">I saw someone walking down the street. They is gone now but they was here about a minute ago.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">That makes it specifically about one person, with unknown gender and inclusive of all the genders and letters we now have, including those who self-identify as non-humans and even those who self-identify as machines (we will be dealing with that pretty soon too: people who claim to be conscious robots.)<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Similarly we can write inclusive possessive pronouns while losing no meaning. The term “his or her” is replaced with theys, but note there is no apostrophe as in other possessive pronouns with the exception of the term its. The term its is different from the contraction it’s. Similarly theys is different from they’s, the latter being a contraction for “they is” which is now grammatically-correct gender-nonspecific singular.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">I used this form in a coupla previous posts and noticed no one squawked, even though Gates put a squiggly red line below it. The SAT-writers will need to get with the program forthwith. We can accommodate everyone here, with only minor adjustments to our thinking, and furthermore, as a bonus we note that there have been American dialects which have long used “they is” and “they was” as noted in Mark Twain’s works. Now we get to enjoy a new humility as we realize those we thought of as uneducated bumpkins were ahead of their time, they were right all along. Free humility, no extra charge, you’re welcome, my pleasure.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">spike<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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