Chamblee54

This is a repost from 2015. In the last nine years, Trans Awareness has mushroomed. Maybe the mushroom paradigm is the best way to view this discussion. The public is kept in the dark, and fed sh**. While Pronoun Consciousness (PC) has grown and festered, Singular They has not totally caught on as an alternative to the his/her nomenclature. The next nine years will no doubt see many changes in public gender awareness. Unscrupulous influence peddlers can be expected to exploit gender issues, with little regard for the collective mental health of the community.
A post from “Mental Floss” was making the facebook rounds. The Washington Post Style Guide Now Accepts Singular ‘They.’ The MF post recycles content from The Washington Post, The Post drops the ‘mike’ — and the hyphen in ‘e-mail’. WAPO has a way with words. “But there comes a point when atoms of language change start to form molecules.”
With increasing visibility of trans identified people, pronouns are getting attention. Many people do not like being referred to by the gender of their birth. One popular method is to use retrofit the plural “they” for use as a singular pronoun for he and she. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea.
A pronoun refers to a noun. The antecedent issue inspired a delightful comment in the WAPO. The author was an English 101 teacher, Puget Sounder. “While I may be able to catch the gist of the student commentary, the precise meaning is not always so evident, and I usually end up drawing lines from pronoun to preceding pronoun, desperately seeking the antecedent noun. Like Captain Ahab, I find a lot of candidates, but the “white whale” is often deeply submerged under the jetsam and flotsam of garbled verbiage.”
The seminal WAPO article had another noteworthy comment. This is from Doctor Dirt. “The singular “they” is far from a no-brainer. It creates more opportunity for confusion, as described below by Puget Sounder, and in other ways. They takes their chances. Bad grammar, colloquialism, or nongender-specific pronouns for a single person? How about “person” instead? Person takes person’s chances. I could get used to that faster than I could get used to “They is sitting in their chair,” and trying to figure out how many people and how many chairs are involved.”
Singular they can cause verb agreement confusion. ST can make you wonder how many butts are sitting in the chair. ST (already used as an abbreviation for Saint) can suggest that the person involved is schizophrenic, or has multiple personality disorder. Employing ST, a plural pronoun, for singular use, is opening a can of linguistic worms.
A gender neutral pronoun for third person use would be an advancement for the English language. In most cases, there is no need to specify gender. Perhaps a contraction of she and it could be used, especially with a southern accent. The sir/ma’am issue will have to wait for another day. There are other complications. … This exchange was on facebook while this feature was being posted: I’m still waiting for Singular Y’all to be approved. ~ I thought y’all was the plural of you. ~ If They can be singular, then Y’all can be singular. ~ That may be the best argument yet against Singular They.
Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The image displayed on social media is from November 16, 1951. Sidewalk outside the Piedmont Drive-In Theatre and screen. The Big Apple building is now occupied by Fader’s Barbershop, and others.