• CarrotsHaveEars@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Dear native English speakers, would you mind inventing a new word either for gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, or one for what “they” mean to foreign English speakers since you are so insisted in differing its meaning from the text books you shipped us decades ago?

    English is so inconsistent at this point. Only the third-person pronouns have gender in singular form, the plural form has no gender and now you are telling us the gender-less form can be singular now? How confusing!

    English is widespread partly because it has simple alphabet and relatively easy grammar. I don’t mind someone being in LGBT+ group at all, but could you please don’t mess with the language?

    • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      English is so inconsistent at this point.

      At this point? At this very point, specifically due to the historically valid usage of one gender neutral pronoun? Now is the time that it’s finally become an inconsistent language? Singular “they” is the thing that has pushed English over the edge from logical and sensical to arbitrary and confusing? Of all the foibles and quirks, this is the one that is simply unforgivable and must be changed?

      • CarrotsHaveEars@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I didn’t say anything you said.

        I think a more sensible way to include LGBT+ group is to just make “she/her” obsolete. We are all “he/him”, and we are “they/them” when in a group. Way cleaner than this, excuse me, shit that we foreign English speakers have to adjust to for every few years.

    • OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Others have addressed some of your other points, but

      would you mind inventing a new word either for gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, or one for what “they” mean to foreign English speakers

      We actually have that. Xe / Xem / Xyrs. It isn’t very widely used though, and is generally considered a neo pronoun.

      Honestly I don’t really expect it to get mainstream use anytime soon, in part because people are already accused to the singular They / Them / Theirs (except for when a nonbinary person asks to be refered to as such).