New York City is fining people for ignoring pronoun orders.

[Forty Two]

For any who are interested in technical aspects of grammar, and why though the singular "they" may be a bugaboo of grammaticasters, it is in fact acceptable from a grammatical standpoint: "Singular 'they' and the many reasons why it’s correct | Motivated Grammar

It's acceptable to some grammarians. it's in dispute. The language is probably going that way, though, because English lacks a gender neutral pronoun in that situation.

[Brian Peacock]

English does lack what it doesn't need.

[Svartalf]

The perception of need depends on the language, some languages go by fairly well without terms for stuff we regard as basic, whereas English lacks any number of words and notions that an Inuk, an Amazonian Indian, or a Tibetan would take for granted and could not think properly without.

[laklak]

Yeah but fuck them. Buncha savages.

[Svartalf]

burdenofthewhitemannist

[piscator]

English does lack what it doesn't need.

I guess that "U" in neighbor slipped through the cracks of the dynamical programme?

[L'Emmerdeur]

For any who are interested in technical aspects of grammar, and why though the singular "they" may be a bugaboo of grammaticasters, it is in fact acceptable from a grammatical standpoint: "Singular 'they' and the many reasons why it’s correct | Motivated Grammar

It's acceptable to some grammarians. it's in dispute. The language is probably going that way, though, because English lacks a gender neutral pronoun in that situation.

Going that way? If you'd bothered to read the article you'd know that the singular "they" has been an accepted usage going back at least to Chaucer in the 15th century. It went "that way" a long, long time ago, and the prim wanna-be prescriptivist nitpickers have no genuine basis for sneering down their noses at this usage.

[pErvinalia]

Interestingly the etymology of "guy" is "grotesquely or poorly dressed person" from 1806. It originally wasn't associated with males. Suck on that, feminazis!!

[JimC]

Burn the Guy!

[pErvinalia]

I'm off to a guy bar.

[rainbow]

Yeah but fuck them. Buncha savages.

You did that quite a lot in the Colonial Era. Some say it is still going on.
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/al ... 57487.html

[Svartalf]

I'm off to a guy bar.

that's so gay

[rachelbean]

For any who are interested in technical aspects of grammar, and why though the singular "they" may be a bugaboo of grammaticasters, it is in fact acceptable from a grammatical standpoint: "Singular 'they' and the many reasons why it’s correct | Motivated Grammar

It's acceptable to some grammarians. it's in dispute. The language is probably going that way, though, because English lacks a gender neutral pronoun in that situation.

Going that way? If you'd bothered to read the article you'd know that the singular "they" has been an accepted usage going back at least to Chaucer in the 15th century. It went "that way" a long, long time ago, and the prim wanna-be prescriptivist nitpickers have no genuine basis for sneering down their noses at this usage.

Thanks, I was going to post that. I wasn't aware until recently that it's become politicised, but I suppose that is not surprising.

[rainbow]

...so if someone wanted to use the common pronoun, why shouldn't they?

[Scot Dutchy]

The perception of need depends on the language, some languages go by fairly well without terms for stuff we regard as basic, whereas English lacks any number of words and notions that an Inuk, an Amazonian Indian, or a Tibetan would take for granted and could not think properly without.

There are plenty of words in Dutch that are untranslatable in English.