Current Events > Jim Sterling asks you to please use they/them pronouns

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sure, that's easy enough to remember

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Like I'm struggling to think of a scenario where it creates confusion. It's not impossible but in most of the contexts I can think of any pronoun would be confusing.

"Jim, Dan, and Joe came by earlier, man they suck" is unhelpful but no less or more than just saying he.


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Are we gonna get "Jim Sterling is non binary" topics" every week now?

Like every time somebody realizes it's not a gag they post a topic

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Balrog0 posted...

Like I'm struggling to think of a scenario where it creates confusion. It's not impossible but in most of the contexts I can think of any pronoun would be confusing.

"Jim, Dan, and Joe came by earlier, man they suck" is unhelpful but no less or more than just saying he.

People like to pretend language is some kind of perfect set of rules where any deviation from the formula ruins it, instead of the sum of Millenia of fucking around.

It's not math. English was literally shit already.

If you can handle "I could care less" you can handle this.

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Balrog0 posted...

Like I'm struggling to think of a scenario where it creates confusion. It's not impossible but in most of the contexts I can think of any pronoun would be confusing.

"Jim, Dan, and Joe came by earlier, man they suck" is unhelpful but no less or more than just saying he.

It's because they is a subject marker, which follow certain rules and conventions. The issue of confusion arises when the singularity or plurality of a statement matters, which is going to be contextual.

Most examples where people say it isn't problematic take simple example sentences which are often rigged to make sense because they follow established conventions or are fairly easy to parse.

If however you attempt to interchange They/Them with singular pronouns in a large research report or study that has many individual and group subjects (linguistic subject) you might find that the subject becomes confusing or ambiguous, or it becomes difficult to differentiate between when the subject is a known individual or a group. It'll also cause issues where there are multiple people in a conversation and you want to refer to a individual person but end up applying the subject to all people. OFC there will be times when it doesn't matter, but there are times when it becomes messy or confused.

OFC, if people continue to use they/them then this is something we just have to deal with, but it doesn't make those who point out that a new pronoun might be preferable ignorant.

Being a progressive doesn't prevent you from being able to enter dialogues about implementations, thats not regressive, especially when ideas are fairly new in mainstream discourse. What is regressive is to say that the intents of people who want a non binary pronoun are wrong.

I pulled up that languages have lots of exceptions, which some then go on to say "well yes, we deal with this all the time", which we do, but its a learned skill. Anyone who has studied Spanish or Japanese will understand how what may appear fast and loose with rules often isn't so fast and loose. There are established conventions that make the exceptions work, these conventions can often be a case of learning them on a case by case basis or studying lots of complex rules. Ser and Estar or and being prime examples.

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Fizaga posted...

It's because they is a subject marker, which follow certain rules and conventions. The issue of confusion arises when the singularity or plurality of a statement matters, which is going to be contextual.

Most examples where people say it isn't problematic take simple example sentences which are often rigged to make sense because they follow established conventions or are fairly easy to parse.

If however you attempt to interchange They/Them with singular pronouns in a large research report or study that has many individual and group subjects (linguistic subject) you might find that the subject becomes confusing or ambiguous, or it becomes difficult to differentiate between when the subject is a known individual or a group. It'll also cause issues where there are multiple people in a conversation and you want to refer to a individual person but end up applying the subject to all people. OFC there will be times when it doesn't matter, but there are times when it becomes messy or confused.

OFC, if people continue to use they/them then this is something we just have to deal with, but it doesn't make those who point out that a new pronoun might be preferable ignorant.

Being a progressive doesn't prevent you from being able to enter dialogues about implementations, thats not regressive, especially when ideas are fairly new in mainstream discourse. What is regressive is to say that the intents of people who want a non binary pronoun are wrong.

I pulled up that languages have lots of exceptions, which some then go on to say "well yes, we deal with this all the time", which we do, but its a learned skill. Anyone who has studied Spanish or Japanese will understand how what may appear fast and loose with rules often isn't so fast and loose. There are established conventions that make the exceptions work, these conventions can often be a case of learning them on a case by case basis or studying lots of complex rules. Ser and Estar or and being prime examples.

That was a lot of words to not give a single example where it might matter. I can't think of a large research report where it would be appropriate to use either he/she or them, but using them would cause confusion but he or she wouldn't.

It's also probably true that this particular issue with gender identity wouldn't come up much if ever in that format anyway.

In what large group conversation is he or she going to be less confusing than they?

I don't identify as progressive, this has nothing to do with ideology, I'm being totally transparent about my reasoning. Which is that it's hard for me to see when it would matter. And which your post didn't dissuade me from thinking

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https://webmshare.com/play/0oM6d

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Jabodie posted...

I first looked it up formally when my 9th grade English teacher said there was no such use back in 2009.

Lol, I bet that came back to bite the teacher in recent years.

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