Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: vallor Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: "They" (was: Re: Floppies) Date: 21 Sep 2025 23:12:11 GMT Lines: 74 Message-ID: References: <10884l7$173em$1@dont-email.me> <1089ge2$1fvl9$8@dont-email.me> <10a68ql$16tjt$1@dont-email.me> <68c6bbc5$0$402$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <10a6rp4$1d082$5@dont-email.me> <2d9jplxvcn.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <10a6t8d$1d082$8@dont-email.me> <4cnjplxbgm.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <10a8lmu$1q6g1$7@dont-email.me> <1s2mplx32v.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <68cdb6b5$0$12931$426a34cc@news.free.fr> <10alus7$57hc$1@news1.tnib.de> <68cebda5$0$3358$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <10aod61$1jd5c$7@dont-email.me> <10aogfp$1jd5c$11@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net hl23rjYqiKG3Fh5V9ftCDw7dD71xx0LpELnkVsSqzrLLgcof3j Cancel-Lock: sha1:yuBPf4OyrNKadi22Xd8aihZHsCU= sha256:KZxRFTN5GPrBYlZEUwAUmSs55UJMqK2yUDp2N+I/+jU= X-Face: +McU)#<-H?9lTb(Th!zR`EpVrp<0)1p5CmPu.kOscy8LRp_\u`:tW;dxPo./(fCl CaKku`)]}.V/"6rISCIDP` User-Agent: Pan/0.164 (UA6; fe8cfad3; Linux-6.16.8) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:74785 On Sun, 21 Sep 2025 19:06:52 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote in : > On 2025-09-21, The Natural Philosopher wrote: > >> On 21/09/2025 10:00, Richard Kettlewell wrote: >> >>> Bringing Þ back would be good. I’d like to see some of the older >>> pronouns (thou for singular ‘you’, yit and wit for ‘you two’ and ‘we >>> two’) return to common use too. >> >> Oh goodness. Don't start suggesting any more NewPronouns... > > Actually, I think we need some new pronouns, so that we can keep > existing ones intact. I'm especially referring, of course, to "they" - > which I will never accept as anything but third person plural. (Yes, > existing workarounds are awkward, e.g. "he/she" - someone once suggested > "s/h/it".) "Oh Mighty ChatGPT": For how long has "they" been used as a genderless singular pronoun? The singular “they” has a surprisingly long history — it isn’t just a modern invention. Early Usage (14th century onward) The first recorded examples of “they” used with a singular antecedent appear in Middle English in the late 1300s. Writers like Geoffrey Chaucer (e.g. The Canterbury Tales) used it naturally when the gender of a person was unknown. Shakespeare, Austen, and the King James Bible all include singular they. Example from Shakespeare (Hamlet, 1599): "There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend." _ _ _ _ _ _ _ For more information, consult your local dict(1) reference. Sidenote: English dictionaries _report_ on the usage of English; they aren't rulebooks. So, use English however you like, but don't expect other English speakers to respect it. > We could really use a third-person singular genderless pronoun. We have one: "they". ObLinux: DICT(1) DICT(1) NAME dict - DICT Protocol Client SYNOPSIS dict word dict [options] [word] dict [options] dict://host:port/d:word:database dict [options] dict://host:port/m:word:database:strategy DESCRIPTION dict is a client for the Dictionary Server Protocol (DICT), a TCP transaction based query/response protocol that provides access to dictionary definitions from a set of natural language dictionary databases. Exit sta‐ tus is 0 if operation succeeded, or non-zero otherwise. See EXIT STATUS section. -- -v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090Ti 24G OS: Linux 6.16.8 D: Mint 22.2 DE: Xfce 4.18 NVIDIA: 580.82.09 Mem: 258G "I thought I was mistaken but I was mistaken."