theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
It doesn't augur well, does it?
I think we all know the drill.
It doesn't augur well, does it?
I think we all know the drill.
As a Finn - with no claim to particular excellence in English - I would say that "they" in this context does sound very confusing to a non-native speaker. Why not just a coin a new, neutral pronoun? The Swedes are increasingly going with "hen" in addition to han and hon. Surely a word could just be invented?
There are fewer Swedes than there are people following Paris Hilton on Twitter. There are over a billion English speakers, propagating a new pronoun would be a difficult task just from the numbers alone, nevermind all the other reasons already mentioned in this thread.
Interesting. In what way is it confusing?As a Finn - with no claim to particular excellence in English - I would say that "they" in this context does sound very confusing to a non-native speaker.
Natural languages don't really work that way. Outside of new technical jargons, invented words don't tend to stick. Much more common is for a word to emerge from some actual linguistic need.Why not just a coin a new, neutral pronoun? The Swedes are increasingly going with "hen" in addition to han and hon. Surely a word could just be invented?
Interesting. In what way is it confusing?
Only until you get used to it. And once you start looking into the word and its usage, the use of "they" gets rather less specific than you might at first think.What would you think - it already has a very specific meaning and used as a gender neutral pronoun at least for a foreign speaker it really sounds weird and, well, wrong.
Oh please someone point out that Chinese doesn't differentiate plural from singular!
I don't know if anyone has posted this Oxford English Dictionary article yet. It covers the history of singular 'they'.
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/
"they can apply and receive a ticket" seems much more streamlined. It has everything that's needed and nothing that's not.
Just from the perspective of natural language evolution, "he or she" was never going to last.
"they can apply and receive a ticket" seems much more streamlined. It has everything that's needed and nothing that's not.
Just from the perspective of natural language evolution, "he or she" was never going to last.
As well as delivering a nice little bitch slap to all those prissy High School AP English teachers.
I prefer unnatural language use.
Not that there's anything wrong with being on the wrong side of history.