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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Non-sexist language (historical)
Message-ID: <341@spar.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Jun-85 03:55:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.341
Posted: Thu Jun 20 03:55:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 00:39:07 EDT
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Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
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Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
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Xref: watmath net.women:5983 net.nlang:3225

>>Instead, I think a new word is in order.  The problem is,
>>new words have a hard time getting accepted for
>>normal use.  I think the reason behind that is
>>the lack of planning when inventing the word. -- Bryan Coughlan

>Does anyone have information on the success of attempts of 
>"conscious" linguistic change?  Obviously such things as brand names
>have changed our vocabulary, but I am thinking of linguistic changes whose 
>goal is to change attitudes, as described in the article quoted above,
>which proposes inventing a new gender-neutral animate pronoun.
>-- Henry Polard

    Henry's comments are most appropriate to this discussion.

    The worst problem with invented pronouns like (zhe, co, per..) is
    precisely their artificiality. Very few people will understand those
    using such words at first; worse yet, it would seem to require a very
    conscious effort on the part of some group to bring them into wide
    use. Those who resist, and there would be many, will understandably
    scream about Big-Brotherism.
    
    They/their/them has a big advantage over invented pronouns because
    it has been used in colloquial speech for almost precisely the
    desired purpose for centuries. 

    Where I differ from Henry's viewpoint is the reason for any the
    gender-neutral generic. There may be some who claim it is some kind of
    Orwellian plan to manipulate societal attitudes. In fact, the major
    reason is to provide a way, for those who care, to say exactly what is
    meant.

    Modern English usage evolved at a time when there were fewer contexts
    where the generic he/his/him could cause problems.  As our society has
    changed, the old generic he/him/his came to be felt awkward and
    unclear, at least to many speakers, who have naturally hit upon the
    time-honored colloquialism they/them/their.

    Generic he/his/him has been maintained artificially by prescriptive
    grammarians for centuries. Newer texts need only add a paragraph
    affirming the existence of a generic singular they/them/their to
    sanctify a handy colloquialism.

-michael