Regarding long stretches of prose without named pronominal antecedents (inspired by, but not exactly, note #2), I did wish at times that Hilary Mantel had been slightly less insistent on referring to her protagonist, over the course of the three "Wolf Hall" novels, as "he".
Indeed, the subject of Mantel and her "he"s became a fascinating (to me) tangent as I was chatting about this yesterday online, and I decided—particularly because I'd only ever read fifty or so pages of Wolf Hall before I bogged down with the problem you cite, and I think it's in bad taste to carry on about things one hasn't actually read—to save it for another day. But I'm feelin' ya.
Hah! I just finished reading Mantel's posthumously published book of essays, and she addresses this very point in an essay about the Wolf Hall trilogy. Cromwell is *always* "he," to distinguish him from all the many other Thomases. I wish I'd figured this out when I was reading those books.
I gotta say—and I'm going to get back to Wolf Hall, and I may find myself reading that essay as well—that that's an idea that sounds good on paper, as it were, but may not play out practically. There's a difference between knowing something and being able to read it.
An issue, though, is that Cromwell isn't always the only "he". It is _mostly_ clear enough, but not always. Anyway, it was a bold choice, but one wants to be paying close attention all the time.
A lot of the comments on the Mantel subject yesterday were along the lines of "I shouldn't have to work this hard to read a novel." And I'd say—again, I need to go back and reattempt to read the book—if you're getting that kind of pushback more than a little, the problem may be yours, the writer's, not the reader's.
Re "I shouldn't have to work that hard," if it's hard work, then don't bother. But I've found such work satisfying, e.g., in William Gaddis's JR, where long (PAGE-long) paragraphs go on and on, with various people speaking, and the author never deigning to identify them. It's annoying, at first, but it re-wires the brain in a unique way that I (finally) found myself enjoying. Ditto Mantel's "he," which I grew to...well, like, over the first two books. Haven't read the third.
We use the singular “they” quite a bit in conversation, I think, because we often don’t know (and don’t need to/want to ask) the gender of a subject we didn’t bring up ourselves. Consider:
“Sorry I’m late, I was visiting my friend in the hospital.”
“Oh no, I hope they’re okay.”
“I hope your friend’s okay” is too repetitive for the brief exchange, and “I hope… *pause for name* or ‘wait, is it a man or a woman?…’” is too invasive and/or just tacky. “They” flows pretty naturally in this instance.
I suppose the written form leaves less room for ambiguity—why wouldn’t you just say the name or the gender if you could? (There are good answers to this, but for the sake of argument...)—but when most people complain about how awkward or painful the singular “they” is, I don’t think they’re fighting for clarity so much as being an asshole. And in that case, bring up a “friend” and wait for the inevitable “oh, where are they from?” flavor of question. Then point out, “well that wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”
Indeed we do it in speech all the time ("Hey, when you hire a copy editor for this project, ask them to..."), but writing and speech are (however related) not the same thing, and what we can accomplish with vocal emphasis can't always be so easily accomplished on the page.
But to your point: Yeah, it's a weird thing to draw a line in the sand over.
Despite having been a linguistics major (for one year, anyway), I lack the technical vocabulary to talk about a thing I strongly suspect, which is that we opt for a sentence like "A student should be able to study whatever they like" over other possibilities that would not require a singular pronoun because something about that kind of sentence structure is easier for speakers, readers, and listeners of English for reasons having to do with some kind of deep linguistics that I might have gotten to in my second or third year of linguistics had I kept with it. In some contexts, like formal writing, a sentence structure that avoids a singular pronoun may well be more elegant or fit the overall rhythm or tone of the writing better. But for other kinds of communication, the easiest sentence structure (i.e., the one that comes most readily to mind) is likely best.
Formality of speech, formality of writing, it's a spectrum. And we make our choices as we see fit. For me, yes, "elegance" is always going to be key. Others are less concerned with that.
My grandmother’s cook had a mustache; as a child I was fascinated by it. Since said cook was also an elderly lady called Alice, I suppose the good people of Vogue would have allowed it.
Thank you for clarifying. It's hard for the oldsters (of whom I am one), who were thoroughly drilled in pronoun-antecedent agreement. We also knew how to write in cursive and diagram sentences, two more skills--among many--that aren't marketable. Being referred to as female irritates me, but I have learned to a accept it on medical forms. Oh, the compromises we make!
A few days ago I ran across a passage in which a singular wild animal was referred to as “they,” which put me on pause for several minutes. Why not use “it,” I wondered, and am still wondering, since I want to know in a sentence such as “They wandered the tundra in search of voles” whether to imagine a lone wolf or a family of wolves. “It” is as genderless as “they,” so what would you advise? I don’t wish to step on any toes or paws.
We had a family simcha this weekend. The Rabbinic great and good, and the assembled, ever-disputatious congregation had no difficulty in celebrating a B’nei Mitzvot. Cool.
I do, in fact, know one individual whose pronoun of choice is "it." Which feels extremely weird in my mouth, so I just avoid talking about said individual in third person.
If a person expresses a wish to be referred to as they, then why would a reasonable person not comply? Contrarian is a word that's slightly misspelt.
A perhaps unrelated query: did the use of the word actor to denote role-players of any gender arrive at the same time as the singular they? Choosing to use the masculine form seems a bit regressive after reading the fine essay above.
“Actor” is taken to be gender-neutral, as any other -or or -er ending would be for a person who does something (advisor, adviser, player, doer, shoemaker, etc.). Walking away from “actress” is like walking away from “poetess” and “executrix.” And I suspect that the motivation to do that came largely if not entirely from women.
I'm not objecting to the gender-neutral "actor" at all. I think I simply blinked once and got on with life when I first became aware of it's arrival. "Actress" never had a negative implication of which I was aware, beyond apparently indicating a SW centuries ago, but if it's gone now, it's gone.
Are we keeping dominatrix for the time being?
I'm guessing an executrix never actually wielded a hefty blade?
If you're going to be a dominatrix, you should wear that "trix" proudly. How could you not? And "actress" will not ever fully go away till the Oscars and Tonys people decide to dispose of it; moreover, it's worth noting the few stage awards that are attempting to do away with gender separation are having, it seems, a rough time of it.
I doubt any executor ever wielded a hefty blade, either (at least for work purposes), as, contra Kenner Toys*, an executor and an executioner are not the same thing.
*Darth Vader's ship in Star Wars is named the Executor; when the toy version was made, Kenner refused to use that name, apparently unaware of the distinction between the two words, and so it was released just as "Darth Vader's Star Destroyer."
Thank you for this: "One cannot reasonably expect people who have been trained never, ever, ever to do something—the present something being to use the singular “they”—to suddenly throw up their hands, chucklingly exclaim “Fine, to hell with it!,” and turn on a dime." A little grace and understanding go a long way as people adapt to any change.
It's very easy, I realized anew today, for people whose responsibility extends no further than yelling into the air to state their absolutes and pat themselves on the back. Some of us actually have to work with other people.
When you searched through 20th-century fiction, did you look at original manuscripts or edited material? Authors who used singular 'they' might have had their choice overruled by editors. Also, some authors might have self-edited to avoid being overruled. I don't know they answer; I'm just speculating.
When the "he or she" ship sank, did anyone mourn it? (No.) I'm so glad that time is over. It was super awkward and introduced its own problems (both editorial & societal, imo).
No. 3: "Readers mind names less than I think you think." Yes. Readers *do* mind, it turns out, having to read the same four sentences repeatedly (and with growing irritation) to figure out (as you say) whose penis is whose (I've edited copy that appears to have scenes similar to what you discuss).
No. 7: I am thrilled this book is in your life. The 1956 copy of *Etiquette* by Emily Post that I read in high school certainly set me up well for college, what with its sections on "When Wrong Clothes Spell Failure," "Don't Keep Him Waiting," and "Some Proprieties Have Been Repealed." (I do continue to enjoy this book, though, especially when I come across conversational advice such as "Simple Anglo-Saxon Best." Plus, the life it imagines for its readers is just...fascinating. I love the very specific window it opens into the mid-century.)
Thanks to you, I am now literally addicted to Substack. I am full of hope that you will one day touch upon the use of “since” to mean “because.” (As in “Since they like their grammar with a dash of humor, I directed them to Benjamin Dreyer’s Substack.”) i tell myself that after reading that, I shouldn’t be able to sleep with myself in a mirror, and yet, i find myself sleeping like a baby on Benadryl. I’m betting if we all work together and use it incorrectly at least once in every post, we could get M-W to support the change. Evolving with the times, and all that. I thought if I could recruit you to my side, our chances of achieving this win would skyrocket. But no pressure.
Well, that's an easy one. "Since" has been used to mean "because" for a few hundred years, and no one can responsibly object to it. And M-W is happy to endorse it enthusiastically.
Regarding long stretches of prose without named pronominal antecedents (inspired by, but not exactly, note #2), I did wish at times that Hilary Mantel had been slightly less insistent on referring to her protagonist, over the course of the three "Wolf Hall" novels, as "he".
Indeed, the subject of Mantel and her "he"s became a fascinating (to me) tangent as I was chatting about this yesterday online, and I decided—particularly because I'd only ever read fifty or so pages of Wolf Hall before I bogged down with the problem you cite, and I think it's in bad taste to carry on about things one hasn't actually read—to save it for another day. But I'm feelin' ya.
Hah! I just finished reading Mantel's posthumously published book of essays, and she addresses this very point in an essay about the Wolf Hall trilogy. Cromwell is *always* "he," to distinguish him from all the many other Thomases. I wish I'd figured this out when I was reading those books.
I gotta say—and I'm going to get back to Wolf Hall, and I may find myself reading that essay as well—that that's an idea that sounds good on paper, as it were, but may not play out practically. There's a difference between knowing something and being able to read it.
For some reason it never seemed like a problem in the audiobook versions (which are terrific).
An issue, though, is that Cromwell isn't always the only "he". It is _mostly_ clear enough, but not always. Anyway, it was a bold choice, but one wants to be paying close attention all the time.
A lot of the comments on the Mantel subject yesterday were along the lines of "I shouldn't have to work this hard to read a novel." And I'd say—again, I need to go back and reattempt to read the book—if you're getting that kind of pushback more than a little, the problem may be yours, the writer's, not the reader's.
Re "I shouldn't have to work that hard," if it's hard work, then don't bother. But I've found such work satisfying, e.g., in William Gaddis's JR, where long (PAGE-long) paragraphs go on and on, with various people speaking, and the author never deigning to identify them. It's annoying, at first, but it re-wires the brain in a unique way that I (finally) found myself enjoying. Ditto Mantel's "he," which I grew to...well, like, over the first two books. Haven't read the third.
I'm here for that "grew to...well, like."
👍🏻
We use the singular “they” quite a bit in conversation, I think, because we often don’t know (and don’t need to/want to ask) the gender of a subject we didn’t bring up ourselves. Consider:
“Sorry I’m late, I was visiting my friend in the hospital.”
“Oh no, I hope they’re okay.”
“I hope your friend’s okay” is too repetitive for the brief exchange, and “I hope… *pause for name* or ‘wait, is it a man or a woman?…’” is too invasive and/or just tacky. “They” flows pretty naturally in this instance.
I suppose the written form leaves less room for ambiguity—why wouldn’t you just say the name or the gender if you could? (There are good answers to this, but for the sake of argument...)—but when most people complain about how awkward or painful the singular “they” is, I don’t think they’re fighting for clarity so much as being an asshole. And in that case, bring up a “friend” and wait for the inevitable “oh, where are they from?” flavor of question. Then point out, “well that wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”
Indeed we do it in speech all the time ("Hey, when you hire a copy editor for this project, ask them to..."), but writing and speech are (however related) not the same thing, and what we can accomplish with vocal emphasis can't always be so easily accomplished on the page.
But to your point: Yeah, it's a weird thing to draw a line in the sand over.
Right—the yet-to-be-identified subject. I’m surprised that instance doesn’t come up more in writing, in that same non-non-binary context.
Here, here, for footnote seven!
Despite having been a linguistics major (for one year, anyway), I lack the technical vocabulary to talk about a thing I strongly suspect, which is that we opt for a sentence like "A student should be able to study whatever they like" over other possibilities that would not require a singular pronoun because something about that kind of sentence structure is easier for speakers, readers, and listeners of English for reasons having to do with some kind of deep linguistics that I might have gotten to in my second or third year of linguistics had I kept with it. In some contexts, like formal writing, a sentence structure that avoids a singular pronoun may well be more elegant or fit the overall rhythm or tone of the writing better. But for other kinds of communication, the easiest sentence structure (i.e., the one that comes most readily to mind) is likely best.
Formality of speech, formality of writing, it's a spectrum. And we make our choices as we see fit. For me, yes, "elegance" is always going to be key. Others are less concerned with that.
The mustache rule is amazing.
And it goes utterly unexplained, as if it had always been the case and would always be the case and had been determined by God.
As per my reply to @DH above.
Now my vocation is clear.
My grandmother’s cook had a mustache; as a child I was fascinated by it. Since said cook was also an elderly lady called Alice, I suppose the good people of Vogue would have allowed it.
😳
Most moustache-matters are, indeed, amazing.
Thank you for clarifying. It's hard for the oldsters (of whom I am one), who were thoroughly drilled in pronoun-antecedent agreement. We also knew how to write in cursive and diagram sentences, two more skills--among many--that aren't marketable. Being referred to as female irritates me, but I have learned to a accept it on medical forms. Oh, the compromises we make!
A few days ago I ran across a passage in which a singular wild animal was referred to as “they,” which put me on pause for several minutes. Why not use “it,” I wondered, and am still wondering, since I want to know in a sentence such as “They wandered the tundra in search of voles” whether to imagine a lone wolf or a family of wolves. “It” is as genderless as “they,” so what would you advise? I don’t wish to step on any toes or paws.
No, sorry, I draw at the line at anxiety about misgendering animals. An animal I've not been formally introduced to is an "it."
We had a family simcha this weekend. The Rabbinic great and good, and the assembled, ever-disputatious congregation had no difficulty in celebrating a B’nei Mitzvot. Cool.
Thank you, Benjamin!
I do, in fact, know one individual whose pronoun of choice is "it." Which feels extremely weird in my mouth, so I just avoid talking about said individual in third person.
And I guess we’ve just run into the limits of my open-mindedness.
If a person expresses a wish to be referred to as they, then why would a reasonable person not comply? Contrarian is a word that's slightly misspelt.
A perhaps unrelated query: did the use of the word actor to denote role-players of any gender arrive at the same time as the singular they? Choosing to use the masculine form seems a bit regressive after reading the fine essay above.
“Actor” is taken to be gender-neutral, as any other -or or -er ending would be for a person who does something (advisor, adviser, player, doer, shoemaker, etc.). Walking away from “actress” is like walking away from “poetess” and “executrix.” And I suspect that the motivation to do that came largely if not entirely from women.
I'm not objecting to the gender-neutral "actor" at all. I think I simply blinked once and got on with life when I first became aware of it's arrival. "Actress" never had a negative implication of which I was aware, beyond apparently indicating a SW centuries ago, but if it's gone now, it's gone.
Are we keeping dominatrix for the time being?
I'm guessing an executrix never actually wielded a hefty blade?
I know. Too many questions.
If you're going to be a dominatrix, you should wear that "trix" proudly. How could you not? And "actress" will not ever fully go away till the Oscars and Tonys people decide to dispose of it; moreover, it's worth noting the few stage awards that are attempting to do away with gender separation are having, it seems, a rough time of it.
I doubt any executor ever wielded a hefty blade, either (at least for work purposes), as, contra Kenner Toys*, an executor and an executioner are not the same thing.
*Darth Vader's ship in Star Wars is named the Executor; when the toy version was made, Kenner refused to use that name, apparently unaware of the distinction between the two words, and so it was released just as "Darth Vader's Star Destroyer."
Thank you for this: "One cannot reasonably expect people who have been trained never, ever, ever to do something—the present something being to use the singular “they”—to suddenly throw up their hands, chucklingly exclaim “Fine, to hell with it!,” and turn on a dime." A little grace and understanding go a long way as people adapt to any change.
It's very easy, I realized anew today, for people whose responsibility extends no further than yelling into the air to state their absolutes and pat themselves on the back. Some of us actually have to work with other people.
When you searched through 20th-century fiction, did you look at original manuscripts or edited material? Authors who used singular 'they' might have had their choice overruled by editors. Also, some authors might have self-edited to avoid being overruled. I don't know they answer; I'm just speculating.
When the "he or she" ship sank, did anyone mourn it? (No.) I'm so glad that time is over. It was super awkward and introduced its own problems (both editorial & societal, imo).
No. 3: "Readers mind names less than I think you think." Yes. Readers *do* mind, it turns out, having to read the same four sentences repeatedly (and with growing irritation) to figure out (as you say) whose penis is whose (I've edited copy that appears to have scenes similar to what you discuss).
No. 7: I am thrilled this book is in your life. The 1956 copy of *Etiquette* by Emily Post that I read in high school certainly set me up well for college, what with its sections on "When Wrong Clothes Spell Failure," "Don't Keep Him Waiting," and "Some Proprieties Have Been Repealed." (I do continue to enjoy this book, though, especially when I come across conversational advice such as "Simple Anglo-Saxon Best." Plus, the life it imagines for its readers is just...fascinating. I love the very specific window it opens into the mid-century.)
Thanks to you, I am now literally addicted to Substack. I am full of hope that you will one day touch upon the use of “since” to mean “because.” (As in “Since they like their grammar with a dash of humor, I directed them to Benjamin Dreyer’s Substack.”) i tell myself that after reading that, I shouldn’t be able to sleep with myself in a mirror, and yet, i find myself sleeping like a baby on Benadryl. I’m betting if we all work together and use it incorrectly at least once in every post, we could get M-W to support the change. Evolving with the times, and all that. I thought if I could recruit you to my side, our chances of achieving this win would skyrocket. But no pressure.
Well, that's an easy one. "Since" has been used to mean "because" for a few hundred years, and no one can responsibly object to it. And M-W is happy to endorse it enthusiastically.
It’s since of comments like that, that I’m a paid subscriber. Thank you. 😁
Oh dear. 😉
Happy to be subscribing .
I’m happy about it too!