I guess 24yo white male puts me solidly in MAGA demos, and a lot of the comics I’ve been buying recently are probably more popular with women. Makes sense.
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A web browser is a cyberspaceship.
“Where’s Paul?”
“They’ve gone to the shop to get some lunch.”
“Who has?”
“Paul”
“HE’S gone to shop. Talk properly. Thought you were talking about a group.”
Lol, I feel like if any varieties of English would be natural to embrace the cadences of using they-singular it would be the UK flavors.
And miss a chance to be a twat about something? hardly.
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English really needs a singular neuter pronoun.
Edit: other than “it,” which implies inanimate or at least non-sapient objects.
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I love to advocate for the singular they. Yeah it’s a bit ambiguous on the whole how many, but context gets you immediately there 95% of the time, the other 5% it takes you an extra second or so.
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I think the singular they is far from a perfect singular neuter pronoun. It is however the one we have, and this is a collective action problem so the one with the widest adoption is a million times better than the “better” one with no adoption.
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Has a better one been proposed? Just wondering as I honestly don’t know.
Singular gender neutral they is just fine and is a perfect neuter pronoun.
It has been used in this way since the 14th century. It was only quite recently that it began to fall into disfavor. When I look around I see good people trying to bring it back into favor. The only resistance I see are from bad people, and also from good people who are sympathetic to pedantic grammatical arguments.
Just get used to using they, even if it may sound annoying to your pedantic ear.
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There have been several attempts but most of them are just not linguistically elegant and didn’t catch on, which is I think why it’s sort of settled on they/them instead of making up new words.
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@Apreche Point taken. I’ve personally used singular “they” for years in situations where I didn’t know the gender/preferred gender of an individual, even before it was a thing, so to speak. I just didn’t know it had historical usage to back it up.
@panfriedmarmot Yeah, I was thinking along the lines of some of those, but they all sound even more awkward than singular “they.”
The only reason I said it’s far from a perfect solution is preciously because it’s not widely adopted. I use it. As of very recently a close personal friend requested we use it for them and so I do.
The more people use it, the more perfect a solution it becomes. That’s… basically one of the key elements of a collective action problem.
Be the change you want to see in the world. - me, today. (probably also Gandhi)
The dictionary’s been on this corner for years.
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I am debating whether or not to run for election to the board of directors for MAGFest, they are a two year term and the more than I think about it the more it can be a good fit for me. However before making this leap, knowing me, would there be any particular objection you can see in the process that I am missing?
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I have no idea what the blyaws of MAGFest are, so I can’t say. All I can say is that you should ask the people who will be voting what they think. If you don’t have support, don’t put in the effort unless you are ok with failing.
I think ultimately, given the changes you’ve indicated wanting in Mag, you have very few options outside of this or a patron getting elected and using your ideas. I agree with scott, but the kinds of things you want to do to MagFest are the kinds of things you’re going to need that level of power for.
My snuff order from the UK came in today. Surprisingly there was no ID check or signing for it. Hopefully I can use this as a way to get nicotine without getting cancer.