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To: SoCal Pubbie

Specifically male singular: He, him, his.

Specifically female singular: She, her, hers.

Might be male, might be female, not sure or no need to specify, singular: ???????

Sex not relevant or neuter/neutral singilar: It, it, its.

This is a particular weakness of the English language.

Most other languages don’t suffer from this weakness because they have a designated set of singular pronouns for situation #3.

Some, deliberately wishing to avoid disclosing the sex of a particular person under discussion have used “made up” pronouns.

I saw this circa 2000 in an online discussion: Em, em, ems. Weird at first, but got used to it. The individuals carrying on the conversation were determined not to have readers suss out the identity of the presin whose comings and goings they were discussing. Using sex-nonspecific singular pronouns was nothing but a means to that end. They weren’t virtue signaling or any thing like that.


19 posted on 05/06/2021 1:01:13 PM PDT by one guy in new jersey
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To: one guy in new jersey

Of course it’s virtue signaling. We can’t default to the assumption of male identity, can we? As I demonstrated, the English language easily accommodates gender neutrality without all the nonsense.


20 posted on 05/06/2021 1:24:53 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: one guy in new jersey

“Most other languages don’t suffer from this weakness because they have a designated set of singular pronouns for situation #3.”

You mean like all the Romance languages that assign a gender to very word? Or the woke Latinx that the native speakers refuse to adopt?


21 posted on 05/06/2021 1:27:23 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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