Could someone explain the whole pronoun thing,
cause to my mind, it doesn’t really make sense.
I’ve been at conferences where people are wandering around with badges / lanyards showing their preferred 3rd-person pronouns.
And yet, this is completely useless information.
When you talk to someone, you use the 2nd-person.
“You”
This is a genderless pronoun.
And for obvious, historical reasons.
Human languages being far more sophisticated than I think most people give them credit for.
Languages have long, long ago solved the situation where you’re talking to an unknown or unseen person.
Hence why the 2nd-person is completely genderless.
I just don’t get what all the fuss is with 3rd-person pronouns.
They’re not at all relevant, except in some very narrow (and highly specialised) situations.
I can think of only one scenario where knowledge of 3rd-person pronouns is helpful.
When you’re speaking through an interpreter.
I can imagine there would be instances where the interpreter, when translating, may have to refer to the speaker as he/she.
There may be other corner-case situations, but the fact of the matter is, people almost never speak to each other in the 3rd-person.
It’s always amused me when you start talking to someone at a conference.
You look at their lanyard, and quietly think to yourself
“That’s great and all, but I can absolutely guarantee that this conversation will not be conducted in the 3rd-person.”
It’s something that I’ve never understood, or gotten a straight answer to.
Thanks.
One thing that genuinely confuses me is why some pronoun listings show a person’s preferred possessive pronoun separately. The possessive is derived from the third person pronoun. (ie if you use ‘her’ then ‘hers’ is the correct possessive).
Does anyone actually break this rule and go by he/him/theirs or she/her/his for example? It’d seem like an especially strange sensitivity to say that you don’t like to be referred to as male/female specifically when people are talking about your property.
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People get offended by a trying these days…
Inb4 the comments get restricted
It/that/those
Could someone explain the whole pronoun thing,
cause to my mind, it doesn’t really make sense.
I’ve been at conferences where people are wandering around with badges / lanyards showing their preferred 3rd-person pronouns.
And yet, this is completely useless information.
When you talk to someone, you use the 2nd-person.
“You”
This is a genderless pronoun.
And for obvious, historical reasons.
Human languages being far more sophisticated than I think most people give them credit for.
Languages have long, long ago solved the situation where you’re talking to an unknown or unseen person.
Hence why the 2nd-person is completely genderless.
I just don’t get what all the fuss is with 3rd-person pronouns.
They’re not at all relevant, except in some very narrow (and highly specialised) situations.
I can think of only one scenario where knowledge of 3rd-person pronouns is helpful.
When you’re speaking through an interpreter.
I can imagine there would be instances where the interpreter, when translating, may have to refer to the speaker as he/she.
There may be other corner-case situations, but the fact of the matter is, people almost never speak to each other in the 3rd-person.
It’s always amused me when you start talking to someone at a conference.
You look at their lanyard, and quietly think to yourself
“That’s great and all, but I can absolutely guarantee that this conversation will not be conducted in the 3rd-person.”
It’s something that I’ve never understood, or gotten a straight answer to.
Thanks.
One thing that genuinely confuses me is why some pronoun listings show a person’s preferred possessive pronoun separately. The possessive is derived from the third person pronoun. (ie if you use ‘her’ then ‘hers’ is the correct possessive).
Does anyone actually break this rule and go by he/him/theirs or she/her/his for example? It’d seem like an especially strange sensitivity to say that you don’t like to be referred to as male/female specifically when people are talking about your property.