I suppose it would be futile to attempt to convince you to use singular ‘they’ as a gender-neutral pronoun that wouldn’t completely derail my train of thought from the actual (interesting) subject matter when encountered two-thirds into the article?
I agree: LW already has a problem because is uses too much idiosyncratic terminology. Please don’t make the problem worse: many people reading “ze” in an article will just think you’re batshit crazy.
Ah, but surely Yvain has high enough status in this particular community that we can consider him (her? zim? zer? What z-pronoun goes here?) as a groundbreaking visionary instead?
If you’re going to be an iconoclast, do so in one dimension only, for if you try to be novel and controversial in multiple dimensions, the resistance/drag factors stack up for each independent dimension of controversy.
Robin has a great post on this, but I can’t find it. An upvote to the first finder.
I prefer Ve, because that was the first one I came across. I forget which one Eliezer uses, but I have seen him use one, so we are ground breaking in a number of different directions. I’d like to standardise if possible and they (sing) is not sufficient.
Singluar they is strongly attested all up and down the language.
See: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1601 and the rest of Language Log in general for wonderfully informative linguistic commentary.
It always derails me a bit, and then I realize it’s a gender neutral singular and move on. “They” has been adopted for this purpose, and my brain is used to understanding “they” as gender neutral singular. Sure, it’s overloaded, but it’s not that big a deal, and it has the momentum on it’s side.
I suppose it would be futile to attempt to convince you to use singular ‘they’ as a gender-neutral pronoun that wouldn’t completely derail my train of thought from the actual (interesting) subject matter when encountered two-thirds into the article?
I agree: LW already has a problem because is uses too much idiosyncratic terminology. Please don’t make the problem worse: many people reading “ze” in an article will just think you’re batshit crazy.
Ah, but surely Yvain has high enough status in this particular community that we can consider him (her? zim? zer? What z-pronoun goes here?) as a groundbreaking visionary instead?
If you’re going to be an iconoclast, do so in one dimension only, for if you try to be novel and controversial in multiple dimensions, the resistance/drag factors stack up for each independent dimension of controversy.
Robin has a great post on this, but I can’t find it. An upvote to the first finder.
Zir or hir. According to wikipedia)
I prefer Ve, because that was the first one I came across. I forget which one Eliezer uses, but I have seen him use one, so we are ground breaking in a number of different directions. I’d like to standardise if possible and they (sing) is not sufficient.
I always thought ve was limited to transhumans.
“Ve” was supposed to be for actual gender-neutral entities, transhuman or otherwise. In any case I gave up and started using “they” or “it”.
In my book, ey/em/eir is the only semifeasible option, because it’s memorable.
I thought it was a reference to a Dutch obsession with status.
Singluar they is strongly attested all up and down the language. See: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1601
and the rest of Language Log in general for wonderfully informative linguistic commentary.
Enough with the nonce pronouns.
When I read that paragraph my first reaction was “what, is this some sort of tricky joke about Yvain’s own status-seeking? I’m not sure I get it.”
Agree 100%.
It always derails me a bit, and then I realize it’s a gender neutral singular and move on. “They” has been adopted for this purpose, and my brain is used to understanding “they” as gender neutral singular. Sure, it’s overloaded, but it’s not that big a deal, and it has the momentum on it’s side.
Upvoted out of agreement. Could we have a top-level post for debating & voting on the house style for singular pronouns?
Thank you for being our canary.