whizzball1

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Legend>

The more you do it, the easier it is to do just that.

<Snipped quote by Mammalia>

*Shrugs*

@Heroic

-Maddie- Oh well! Want some sweet iced tea?

Myriad Reality

Night.

@Extra

Nini.

@whizzball1

I'm mainly talking about your first sentence in that post. 8P

@Heroic

but
but
science
that's got to be more interesting than politics
(mathematics too and grammar)
EDIT: After all, are you aspiring to be a politician or an astronomer?

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

I didn't mean about that part, but you are right about that.

@Heroic

I was only being semi-serious when I said "the latter actually gets somewhere." Notice my silly face. =P

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

I beg to differ, but am so mentally fatigued right now that I won't jump into the fray myself.

@Heroic

I said hardly anybody. =P I know you certainly do, and so do David and I.

<Snipped quote by Heroic>

It's the worst.

<Snipped quote by Extra>

I just want to know why.

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

The French have already done it.

<Snipped quote by souleaterfan320>

English.

@Legend

I was happy when I learned about how the French had done that. At least they have that luxury, because they don't have big leftover frays that speak their language, and the government is more involved in linguistics than other governments for some reason. The French really like their language, I guess.

Myriad Reality

You guys are still going on about this?

What about political debates? I'm better with that sort of thing.

@souleaterfan320

But political debates are much less interesting than scholarly debates. The latter actually gets somewhere. =P Anybody can debate politics, but when it comes to intellectual matters, you actually have to do your unbiased research and really think about your position. (Hardly anybody ever actually does unbiased research or think about their position in politics.)

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

I guess.

@Extra

Nah. It's a fact. I mean, I don't think you're dumb for getting annoyed at our debates, and I don't think David thinks so either, because we understand. No worries.

Myriad Reality

I am just being dumb by getting mad over something stupid.

@Extra

Hey, we all get irritated over things that seem small from others' perspective sometimes. It's all just a subjective matter, so having a different opinion doesn't make you dumb.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

Refer to your second paragraph to answer this question.

When I make an argument about older Englishmen, using "we" places me within their time. Yes, the concept applies.

My point exactly. Though to match you there, I can't argue with actual examples because I don't read Middle English books. Regardless, this is close enough to discussed out in my eyes if it makes Blitz uncomfortable.

@Legend

Neither do I; I just searched for citations, and then I looked for Middle English texts that were searchable and looked for the relevant personal pronouns, before comparing them to the translated version. However, I didn't get very far before I gave up, because the oldest Middle English text I could find (Brut) had 16,096 lines and I wasn't going to bother finding every single usage of every single relevant personal pronoun just to prove my point, heheh. But yeah, I think it's just about time to end this discussion. Maybe one day one of us will find an example.

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

Which is why we need one board of English speakers.

<Snipped quote by Extra>

Please?

@Legend

But then all the big factions will cry out, saying that it should have representatives from their ranks, and then we'd be back to the same problem, because it involves choosing one dialect or faction as superior to all the others, a choice which would inevitably be considered biased. The only way I can think of to choose it without bias at all would be to train one or several children from birth in the styles of all factions without bias toward any, let them choose their favourite choice from each controversy, and then use the majority rule. But that's an insane idea and I don't even know how I thought of that. =D

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

I still wish we had a Foundation of Grammar that defines what is correct and incorrect in English. I don't like fluidity.

@Legend

So do I. But because there are so many factions, contradictions abound, especially in this case, where Oxford, Cambridge, and Chicago support the usage of "they" as a GNSP, but the American Psychological Association, Purdue University et al. oppose it. Every faction seems to contradict every other faction in some part of their styles.

Myriad Reality

<Snipped quote by Heroic>

What now?

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

First correction: no uses that you are aware of. An all-encompassing blanket statement is often false. My point is that I'm not going to dig through old books to find it because it's not worth the effort, and people actually did put in the work to find "they" in older literature. But if you can only account for one or two instances, it is likely that the rest are the alternate form. If it happened to be common throughout those works, nobody would bother to go and find each instance because they would be abundant.

As I said and cited, it corresponds to "his," despite being neutral. The neutral term merged with a masculine one.

Previous statement.
There's an issue with that argument. In the case that's mentioned, the gender is known, rendering the gender neutral term useless. However, if it's related to someone who made a food, it would be understood that the term is gender neutral if, for example, the statement was "Give my regards to whoever made the food, for he did a good job." If we knew that the host's wife made it, we wouldn't use he, similar to why we don't use it when referring to childbirth.

@Legend

But if "he" was common throughout those works as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, as in the usage you mention at the bottom of your post, then it would certainly be mentioned at some point, because it is definitely relevant to the debate about GNSPs. However, in my searches, I haven't found anyone saying that "he" was used when the gender was unknown.

Now that I fully understand what you're trying to say here, that is definitely interesting. My citation from Wagner is still relevant, that "him" said nothing about gender (except that it isn't feminine).

I notice that you keep saying "we". Yes, we, in Modern English, would use that, because that became natural to us after it was pushed in the nineteenth century. But the issue we're debating is--did they of Middle English use that?

Um. I would have continued writing that paragraph, but at this exact moment I have just realised that, in light of what you just noted, my citation from Wagner basically means that it's likely that, in Middle English, they used "him" if they didn't know the actual gender. The problem still remains that we don't have any literary references from that time attesting to this, and this understanding is an inference based on the personal pronouns of that time, but it's enough to make me rethink my position, as I mentioned in my response to Blitz, because I can't reasonably contradict you without stretching my interpretation of my citations.