/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21249657]

>singular 'they'

[Anonymous No.21249664]

>op

[Anonymous No.21249669]

>>21249657
Some lunatic blew a red light and they almost hit me

[Anonymous No.21249673]

>singular they
We already have a word for that: It. I will call you an It now whether you like it or not

[Anonymous No.21249679]

>>21249669
some lunatic blew a red light and he almost hit me

[Anonymous No.21249687]

Shakespeare did it, chud.

[Anonymous No.21249729]

why does the squirrel talk in that retard voice when she is perfectly capable of talking and singing like a normal person?

[Anonymous No.21249749]

>>21249657
The main problem with singular they is that people end up switching from is/has to are/have when talking about the same subject. Especially jarring when it happens in the same sentence.

[Anonymous No.21249769]

Singular they is fine when referring to an indeterminate individual. Nonsense when discussing a specific person though.

[Anonymous No.21249770]

>>21249657
In russian to call a person in neuter gender is an extreme insult. You virtualy can't insult someone more than that, even purposefuly calling man a woman or otherwise is not on the same level.

[Anonymous No.21249782]

>>21249657
Are you retarded? It's completely normal if the gender of the person is unknown, or the person is anonymous.

[Anonymous No.21249868]

>>21249657
I will continue to use singular they because you used a vtumor picture in your attempt to stop me from using it.

[Anonymous No.21249974]

>>21249657
Are you retarded? It's completely normal if the gender of the person is unknown, or the person is anonymous.

[Anonymous No.21249985]

>>21249657
>heh I hate tranny speaking but I also love vtubers aka trannies favorite thing in the world i am not the ultimate contrarian 4chanbros?? Yes I also go to the gym so I'm not a tranny btw I'm manly af

[Anonymous No.21250023]

>>21249974
>or the person is anonymous.
Mods should change the default name from "Anonymous" to "They."

[Anonymous No.21250033]

>>21249673
I'M A HUMAN BEING!

[Anonymous No.21250062]

>>21249782
>if the gender of the person is unknown, or the person is anonymous.
Yeah if it was actually that. Now tell me the pronoun of this man right here

[Anonymous No.21250070]

>>21249974
I would argue that even in these cases saying "he or she", or "one", or simply the singular pronoun that you wish to use, is more elegant and sensible.
The problem is that the modern use of they has become completely pozzed, go on youtube and you'll notice that it's been normalized to say "they" when referring to specific persons of known gender, I suppose out of retarded sense of genderfluidity, or plain fear of getting cancelled.

[Anonymous No.21250075]

>>21249770
so that's why putin hates the west

[Anonymous No.21250078]

>>21249657
Not an issue and even if it was, thought /lit/ of all places would understand language isn't absolute and constantly changes and evolves.

[Anonymous No.21250079]

>>21250070
God I miss gender neutral he.

[Anonymous No.21250087]

>>21250062
“Cunt”

[Anonymous No.21250396]

>>21250062
yid/jud

[Anonymous No.21250546]

>>21250070
>The problem is that the modern use of they has become completely pozzed
No it hasn't you dumb cunt.

[Anonymouṡ No.21250727]

>>21249657

A sex-neutral singular pronoun would be useful. ("They" is no good because it clashes with the plural.) It's nonsense to say "the language has to grow organically; you can't force anything like that". You absolutely can. A few committed people changed the popular meaning of "gay", for example. [Obviously, you need three words: subject ('he-or-she'), object ('him-or-her') and possessive ('his-or-hers').]

"Xe" never caught on, perhaps for want of concerted effort, but more likely because it doesn't sound right. It's just too weird. You need a very boring word, almost invisible in the sentence, like 'and' or 'the'. It can't draw attention to itself, the way a word beginning with 'X' does. Perhaps "Xe" would lose its weirdness with continual usage. I'm not convinced, though.

The very fact that so-called 'progressives' haven't made any serious attempt to fill this gap shows they're not sincere about wanting to solve the problem. They want the problem to exist so they can go on bitching about it. It's a bit like the replacement of "man" with "person" (e.g. "spokesperson"). These neologisms are so hideously ugly it's clear the people who promote them don't sincerely want to make the world a better place. If they did, they would find a substitute for "man" which would allow such words to be altered euphoniously. (To start with, it has to be a monosyllable, to preserve the rhythms.)


One other point. A sex-neutral pronoun would be useful, but in general I'm in favour of using 'he', for exactly the reason the feminists hate.

When this whole issue really came to a head (in the second half of the twentieth century) feminists argued that using 'he/him/his' was wicked because it implicitly put man centre-stage and cast woman as the 'other'. Conservatives, by and large, fought back by saying either 'no, it doesn't', or 'yes, ok, it does, but it's too much bother to change'.

The conservatives lost, as they always do, and I think one reason was that people saw the feminists were right — male-centred pronouns *do* cast woman as the 'other'. They just didn't realize that's a good thing. Civilization is built on the subjugation of women. As Dr. Johnson said: "Nature has given woman so much power, that to give her any more via the law is to give her too much."

Patriarchal language subjugates women, and if you want nice things (the rule of law, running water) that's essential. Men's reproductive instincts build civilization; women's reproductive instincts destroy it.

Needless to say, the chances of getting anyone to believe this are zero, which is why Western societal collapse is a) on-going and b) unstoppable.

[Anonymous No.21250754]

>>21250075
Who would have thought that the war in Ukraine which has killed up to 200,000 people already was caused by some autistic misunderstanding about grammar.

[Anonymous No.21250760]

>>21249782
>>21249974
Stop doing that.

[Anonymous No.21250770]

>>21249657
I never realized how much this triggered people. I've always naturally used "they" in the singular sense, and I also think trannies will never be women. Get filtered, read more Shakespeare, touch grass, dilate, etc.

[Anonymous No.21250775]

>>21250727
have sex incel lmao

[Anonymous No.21250861]

>>21250727
I've heard that gender neutral "he" caused some legal clusterfucks because it made it impossible to tell if a law applies to everyone or only to men

[Anonymous No.21250868]

>>21250861
>People being that retarded
Only a lawyer could be mischievous. We should all read Chaucer, "hang all the lawyers," hang the Jews for good measure.

[Anonymouṡ No.21250942]

>>21250861
Yes. A legal document, where you can't assume good faith in the reader (many will actively try to misinterpret the author's intentions) is a good example of where you might want a gender-neutral pronoun. You could argue that in a legal document aesthetic concerns are unimportant, so the clunky "he or she" etc will suffice. I'm not convinced. Ugly language does harm, wherever it is, just as ugly buildings do. The Greeks were right.

[Anonymouṡ No.21250954]

>>21250868
>Chaucer, "hang all the lawyers,"

"The first thing we do, let's hang all the lawyers" is in Henry VI part 2, isn't it? It's a guy in Jack Cade's peasant rebellion.

[Anonymous No.21251005]

>>21249657
ummm respect my pronouns nazi chud

[Anonymous No.21251027]

>>21249679
Did you just assume that it was a man?

[Anonymous No.21251037]

>>21249974
No, singular they is used informally. He/she aren't gender; they're related to sex identifiers and people act completely disingenuous about this.

Now, if you called them masculine/feminine without knowing them, then you'd have a gender issue.

[Anonymous No.21251151]

>>21250861
>>21250942
Such problems are easily fixed.

[Anonymouṡ No.21251191]

>>21251151
Well, "fixed" to an extent. A piece of writing which needs a preliminary caveat to be understood correctly isn't ideal. One obvious difficulty is that if you quote it on its own, where people might not know about the preliminary warning, it's going to give the wrong message. Sure, malicious people can always take things out of context for malicious ends, but still, if you do this, you're really asking for trouble. All text should be as stand-alone as possible.

[Anonymous No.21251224]

>>21250954
Tbh I can't remember. Been a while and all that. Either way it's the truth.

[Anonymous No.21251433]

>>21251005
kys faggot

[Anonymous No.21251453]

>>21249974
There is no such thing as "unknown gender". Gender is not real. Pronouns are based solely on objective biological sex. The only proper usage of singular "they" is to refer to an unknown person. You will never be a woman.

[Anonymous No.21251535]

>>21251453
brainrot

[Anonymous No.21251592]

>>21251535
Yes, your sophistry-fueled ideology is pure brainrot.

[Anonymous No.21252681]

>>21251592
projection

[Anonymous No.21253198]

>>21251037
>>21249687

[Anonymous No.21253216]

>>21250770
This is all just tranny pilpul.

Everyone uses singular they when it's an unknown, nobody thinks this is controversial. Defaulting to he or using 'he or she' is just stupid.

This kind of linguistic quirk doesn't mean it's heckin valid to call someone they when they're standing right in front of you and don't want a binary gender option