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How could one avoid "genderizing" [and thus remove references to s/he and his/her] in the following utterances:
1. Someone called but s/he didn't leave his/her name.
2. A friend of mine claimed s/he had met the Beatles.
3. My teacher promised s/he would write me a letter of recommendation.
4. The photographer forgot to bring his/her tripod.
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Steve Hewitt 1. Someone called, but they didn't leave their name.
2. A friend of mine claimed they had met the Beatlres
These two - "singular, genderless 'they'" is fine, but not in 3 or 4. I conclude from these useful examples (never having thought clearly about it before) that for me, "singular, genderless 'they'" is fine when referring to indefinites, but not definites. My native speaker intuition is quite strong on this, but it would not surprise me if usage eventually develops to include definites.
20 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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Dai Hawkins 1. "Someone called but they didn't leave their name." sounds natural to me.
2,3 and 4: You know the gender of these people, so you use he or she as appropriate, (unless *you* have an agenda).
20 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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Katherine Hrisonopulo...yes, supposing *the speaker* has an agenda...
20 hours ago · Like
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Anne Schuster I don't quite understand why there's a need to avoid "genderizing" the examples. My first question if someone were to tell me, " Someone called, but they didn't leave their name", would be, "Was it a man or a woman?". Knowing that might help me work out who it was.
20 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
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Katherine Hrisonopulo... It's a task for students of linguistics from G. Yule "The Study of Language". I'm just thinking how to rephrase the sentences in natural English
20 hours ago · Like
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Simon Edmond 1. they/their (or "Someone called but didn't leave a name")
2....claimed to have met...
3....promised to write...
4. The photographer is stupid.
20 hours ago · Unlike · 3
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Russ Goff 1. Someone called, but didn't leave a name.
2. A friend of mine claimed they had met the Beatles.
3. My teacher promised to write me a letter of recommendation.
4. The photographer forgot to bring a tripod.
20 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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Anne Schuster What Simon said.
20 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Jim McNamara In each of the examples given, the gender should be obvious. If the person who called had a voice that defied determining gender, then, "Someone called but didn't leave a name." should suffice.
20 hours ago · Unlike · 3
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Katherine Hrisonopulo The indefinite article seems attractive for "his/her"...
20 hours ago · Like
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Sarah-Jane Galbraith 1. Someone called, but didn't leave a name.
2. A friend of mine claimed to have met The Beatles.
3. My teacher promised to write me a letter of recommendation.
4. The photographer forgot to bring a tripod.
See? You don't need to use singular 'they', either. And before all the descriptivists among you get all hot under the collar... don't bother. It'll make no difference at all.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Russ Goff 1. Caller. No message.
2. Liar.
3. Promised? Yeah right.
4. Idiot.
19 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
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Sarah-Jane Galbraith Not necessarily a liar, Russ. Oh, but you and I aren't friends, are we?
19 hours ago · Like
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Simon Edmond I've met the Beatles. John told me: "Simon, promise that you will NEVER use a capital "T' when writing 'the Beatles'."
True story.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
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Russ Goff Buzzcocks.
19 hours ago · Like
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Katherine Hrisonopulo Is a participial construction possible?
1. There was a call, but no name given by the caller
19 hours ago · Edited · Like
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Sarah-Jane Galbraith Possible, yes (you just did it), but not necessarily acceptable style.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Anne Schuster What S-J said; it doesn't sound very English.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Steve Hewitt Don't like it - the first was is existential; the second would be passive auxiliary - not nice to delete the second "was" when it serves a somewhat different funtion - "There was a call, but no name was given by the caller"
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Steve Hewitt better - "Someone called, but no name was given" - that's fine.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Dai Hawkins I'm old enough and set enough in my ways to distinguish between biological gender and grammatical gender.
I may be also influenced by speaking German, where this distinction is more marked; the Grimm brothers' version of the story Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood), begins:
"Es war einmal eine kleine süße Dirne, die hatte jederman lieb. Mädchen"
(There was once a sweet little girl who everyone loved)
[Do NOT try this at home - in modern German 'Dirne' means prostitute]
Because 'Dirne' is feminine she is called 'sie' (she) at that point of the story.
But words ending with -chen (little) are always neuter, so that when when Rotkäppchen is mentioned by name, she become 'es' (it):
Rotkäppchen schlug die Augen auf, und als es sah...
(Little Red Riding Hood opened here yes, and when it saw...)
I have always regarded 'he' as the default common gender:
"If someone drives with due care and attention, he shouldn't complain if he gets a hefty fine."
19 hours ago · Like · 2
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Katherine Hrisonopulo I see, thank you!
19 hours ago · Like
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Steve Hewitt But I actually prefer "Someone called, but they didn't give a/their name."
19 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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Anne Schuster IMHO, there is absolutely no need to avoid gender in these examples. Why, for example, would I need to keep a caller's or friend's gender a secret?
19 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1
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Steve Hewitt But in the cases of 1 or 2, where you actually don't know the gender?
19 hours ago · Like
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Steve Hewitt or don't want to specify it?
19 hours ago · Like
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Anne Schuster Why would I not know whether my friend is male or female? And please let's not get into the whole transgender thing here. And one can normally guess whether it was a man or woman on the phone; else one says so. The examples are silly ones.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
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Dai Hawkins Research into spoken language is notoriously difficult, because people often don't report what they actually say spontaneously. When investigating the language of upper middle class Viennese ladies, the linguist Eberhard Kranzmayer found that they denied, to a man, using a word they thought was 'ordinär' (common/vulgar). But when he eavesdropped in coffee shops, he found them all using it regularly.
I suspect that most of us here might, in the flow of conversation, when we're not thinking about language usage, but just using language, not necessarily express ourselves as we indicated here, and may well use different constructions on different occasions without knowing why.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Katherine Hrisonopulo The examples are from the mentioned manual. There is some rationale behind all study questions. Students just learn how to rephrase utterances in different contexts
19 hours ago · Like
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Dai Hawkins But if by rephrasing utterances they thereby render them unnatural, I don't see the point.
19 hours ago · Like · 2
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Anne Schuster I agree with Dai.
19 hours ago · Like
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Steve Hewitt Quite, but I don't think "Someone called, but they didn't give their name" is unnatural at all. I say it, and I hear lots of other people say it.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 3
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Simon Evans People have been using ‘their’ for centuries with someone/a person and the like, it´s not a recent invention to avoid his or her. It´s quite likely from the French influence.
19 hours ago · Like
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Steve Hewitt I think there are examples in Shakespeare.
19 hours ago · Like
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Dai Hawkins Yes, it's very natural, but I can't quite work out when you would say it:
"Someone from the monastery called, but they didn't give their name"
"Someone from the monastery called, but he didn't give his name"
"Someone from the convent called, but they didn't give their name."
"Someone from the convent called, but she didn't give her name."
"Someone from HSBC called, but they didn't give their name."
"Someone from HSBC called, but he didn't give his name."
"Someone from HSBC called, but she didn't give her name."
I'm going to tap all your phones and find out what you all *really* say when you're not thinking about it.
This stuff does my head in.
19 hours ago · Like · 1
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Anne Schuster I would probably say, "A woman from your bank called, but didn't give her name", especially if it was actually a man from the furniture store - just to throw the recipient of my message off the scent.
19 hours ago · Like
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Sarah-Jane Galbraith Simon, I've just looked at Ringo's drum kit and I stand corrected. The fact that the "the" is there at all is behind my reasoning; they have always been known as "the Beatles", not merely "Beatles" — hence, to my mind anyway, the need for the u/c T.
19 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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Dai Hawkins Blackjack > the Quarrymen > Johnny and the Moondogs > Beatals > the Silver Beetles > the Silver Beatles > the Beatles.[
18 hours ago · Like
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Stuart Duncan A singular 'they' for the first two and what Russ said in his first post for the other two.
17 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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