New York City is fining people for ignoring pronoun orders.

[laklak]

Nobody ever figured our if Pat was male, female, or other.



<gratuitous Saturday Night Live reference>

[pErvinalia]

It's like me and Caddy Shack. I could never work out if it was Mr Zesterhaus or Mrs Esterhaus. It sounded more like the latter, so I laugh. It works for me...

[Forty Two]

Nobody ever figured our if Pat was male, female, or other.



<gratuitous Saturday Night Live reference>

You'd never see that sketch made today. Too problematic now. It's offensive to trans people and genderqueer or non-binary people, or people of ambiguous sexual characteristics. It's a horrible, various-phobic sketch. It's probably considered hate speech today.

[Forty Two]

It's like me and Caddy Shack. I could never work out if it was Mr Zesterhaus or Mrs Esterhaus. It sounded more like the latter, so I laugh. It works for me...

That's Caddyshack II, isn't it? You should fined for making a Caddyshack II reference....

[JimC]

"Pat went out drinking with his mates. Later, they bought cigarettes"

Well, that confuses me, but maybe I'm easily confused...

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, but that wasn't the example. In that case, if you wanted to refer to Pat, you would write "Pat went out drinking with his mates. Later, Pat bought cigarettes".

[JimC]

Yeah, but that wasn't the example. In that case, if you wanted to refer to Pat, you would write "Pat went out drinking with his mates. Later, Pat bought cigarettes".

Some in this thread have been arguing that you can always replace he or she with they without causing confusion. I've shown that there at least some cases where that is not possible. From that, I'm not implying that it would always be confusing, either...

Overall, I don't think that the singular "they" is a good answer to those relatively rare occasions where he/she is problematic.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, but that wasn't the example. In that case, if you wanted to refer to Pat, you would write "Pat went out drinking with his mates. Later, Pat bought cigarettes".

Some in this thread have been arguing that you can always replace he or she with they without causing confusion.

Have they? I thought it was always in the context of a singular subject.

[JimC]

Yeah, but that wasn't the example. In that case, if you wanted to refer to Pat, you would write "Pat went out drinking with his mates. Later, Pat bought cigarettes".

Some in this thread have been arguing that you can always replace he or she with they without causing confusion.

Have they? I thought it was always in the context of a singular subject.

Singular or plural?

[pErvinalia]

[Brian Peacock]

They would say that though wouldn't they?

[pErvinalia]

It should be:

They - singular

Theys - plural

[JimC]

Now the real butchering of English has begun...

[pErvinalia]

Well, we use "youse" here in Straya...

[JimC]

But to criticise that would be to be ethnically discriminatory!