Them, Themself as a singular pronoun

[Puppycow]

Is it a nuance that actually needs to be preserved? It appears to be from a user manual, rather than a work of literature; I don't think much would be lost in this case.

It's actually from a patent where the general rule of translation is what is called in the business mirror translation or essentially a literal translation. Even errors in the original are typically reproduced in the translation although we always add a translator's note when that happens. And fwiw, I think there was some contextual reason why that was in there.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The problem, as any PC Feminazi can tell you, is that H/She connotes a binary choice and we have all learned that that is exclusionary.

We really simply need to promote getting back to "one" as a gender-neutral personal pronoun. I'm a bit of an old fart, and if I'm writing about my son, I'm not going to avoid using "he/him" in the next clause. I'm not staking out territory for universal political correctness. But there are a zillion needs for a pronoun to replace a noun,.... like "user", like "citizen", like "customer", etc... within the same sentence, paragraph or article. "One" fits perfectly. "Oneself" would therefore become the reflexive personal pronoun.

The problem, I feel, is in the usage in that it just seems hoity-toity. We simply have to wean ourselves of that perception. One can express oneself without having to imagine having an attack of the vapours under the grape arbor awaiting Mr. Darcy's arrival. Try saying "one" or "one's" or "oneself" without a bad Hollywood-British upper crust accent. It's not so bad, really. And your speech and/or writing is that much clearer and cleaner.

Lookit. We taught Robert Byrd, in a single generation, to get from ****** to niggra to neeee-gra-ow to negro to black to African American. We can certainly teach ourselves to recognize that unlike the speakers of Romance languages, we do not always have to attach a gender to everything. There is a tremendous need for a gender neutral PERSONAL pronoun; and I emphasize "personal" because of the ludicrous proposition I once read that we just neutralize everything and use "it" uniformly. Male/Female/Other... no person is an it.

I vote for One.

If one finds "one" too hoity-toity, one may use the folksy-Americana version which I find has a certain picturesque charm: to wit, "a body".

A body could get used to speaking like a Mark Twain character, if a body didn't mind constantly being mistaken for speaking about corpses. Which are themselves not lacking in a certain picturesque charm!

 

[Craig B]

the ludicrous proposition I once read that we just neutralize everything and use "it" uniformly. Male/Female/Other... no person is an it.

"It" is the non-gender specific pronoun currently used for babies and young children. I find this quite natural, and use it myself.

We can use the pronoun it to refer to very small children and babies when we speak generally about them, or when we do not know their gender ...

"The baby in the flat next door is always awake and it just never seems to stop crying."​

Das Kind - "child" - is neuter also in German.

 

[Belgian thought]

"It" is the non-gender specific pronoun currently used for babies and young children. I find this quite natural, and use it myself.

We can use the pronoun it to refer to very small children and babies when we speak generally about them, or when we do not know their gender ...

"The baby in the flat next door is always awake and it just never seems to stop crying."​

Das Kind - "child" - is neuter also in German.

Indeed but only if you do not know the gender of the child.

Once you have a nice neighbourhood chat and look at the little crying sprog (maybe 'sprog' should be the non-gender word since we all are), we would refer to it by its gender.

'That' child becomes 'That little annoying boy/girl, he/she is really pissing me off with his/her constant wailing', 'But I wont tell his/her Mum or Dad about it'.

'It' at my age refers to animals and objects.

 

[Craig B]

Indeed but only if you do not know the gender of the child.

Or when speaking generally about children, as also noted in my source. These are the same conditions in which we use "they" for a singular adult. We could therefore equally well use "it" for an adult in this context, but that seems disrespectful; while we are content to use "it" for children.

 

[Belgian thought]

Or when speaking generally about children, as also noted in my source. These are the same conditions in which we use "they" for a singular adult. We could therefore equally well use "it" for an adult in this context, but that seems disrespectful; while we are content to use "it" for children.

Child
Children
Difference

He She, or She He
They
Different




It's late

 

[Craig B]

Child
Children
Difference

He She, or She He
They
Different




It's late

Not too late to notice that "children" is the plural form of a noun, not a pronoun. It is the pronoun used in place of the noun "child" that in certain cases - where the sex of the child is unknown, or where the reference is to the general, rather than the particular - may be the neuter form "it".

 

[Duffy Moon]

The problem, I feel, is in the usage in that it just seems hoity-toity. We simply have to wean ourselves of that perception. One can express oneself without having to imagine having an attack of the vapours under the grape arbor awaiting Mr. Darcy's arrival. Try saying "one" or "one's" or "oneself" without a bad Hollywood-British upper crust accent. It's not so bad, really. And your speech and/or writing is that much clearer and cleaner.

I vote for One.

Now interestingly, I live in hoity-toity England and if one was to use 'one', one might find oneself mocked 'cos "that's how posh people speak".

When it is used by the riff-raff, it's usually used incorrectly.

For example, if a tabloid newspaper had an important story about the Queen buying a new hat or something, they might have a picture of Her Majesty wearing said hat, with a headline saying "One has a nice new hat, Ma'am!"

It's enough to make one swoon onto one's chaise-lounge.

 

[angrysoba]

For example, if a tabloid newspaper had an important story about the Queen buying a new hat or something, they might have a picture of Her Majesty wearing said hat, with a headline saying "One has a nice new hat, Ma'am!"

The tabloids are often written by educated people pandering to the plebs. It doesn't mean the plebs themselves think that's really how people talk before the Queen.

 

[Edward Charette]

I often find people totally ignore themselves these days

 

[arthwollipot]

"They" has been used as a singular pronoun in modern English pretty much for its entire history.

"There's someone at the door."
"What do they want?"

I see no problem with "themself".

 

[ddt]

"It" is the non-gender specific pronoun currently used for babies and young children. I find this quite natural, and use it myself.

We can use the pronoun it to refer to very small children and babies when we speak generally about them, or when we do not know their gender ...

"The baby in the flat next door is always awake and it just never seems to stop crying."​

Das Kind - "child" - is neuter also in German.

And so is "das Mädchen - the girl". Referring back to a previously introduced concept by its grammatical gender is perfectly fine in German; e.g., "Das Mädchen jetzt hat 13 Jahre; es geht ins Gymnasium" ("the girl is now 13; she goes to high school") is correct German. So is, btw, referring by the natural gender.

In various posts, "one" has been proposed as a solution. My gripe with that is that it is an indefinite pronoun, and never has been used to refer to a previously introduced object/person. For instance,

In order to make a backup. the user has to choose the menu option X. Then a window pops up, and they have to choose the directory where the backup will be stored

In this fragment, "they" refers back to "the user". For that reason, "one" is not a valid alternative in my view. Of course, one could write instead:

In order to make a backup. one has to choose the menu option X. Then a window pops up, and one has to choose the directory where the backup will be stored.

Once you use "one", you're stuck with it and cannot vary back to "the user", and it becomes very stilted IMHO.

Disclaimer: non-native English speaker/writer.