I was asked, at great length, a question yesterday that I tried to read as other than "I get that nonbinary people want to use their pronouns of choice, but do the rest of us have to honor that?"
And I couldn't.
So: Yes. The rest of us do.
"But it's confusing!"
Pronouns are always confusing. Try copyediting a sex scene between two men.
AU: Not sure whose penis "his penis" is here. Can you clarify?
Joking quite towardst one side:
Yes, the use of they/them/their for one person at a time poses an editorial challenge in terms of clarity.
So just toss it onto the pile with the rest of the editorial challenges you have to rise to.
Indeed. And for the non-fiction editor, there is no possible way that using they/them could be more awkward than having to enforce “he or she” or “his/her” or “s/he”—all of which are journal house styles I had to follow earlier in my career—and then argue with the author about it.
And, happily, all the "he or she" variations are now the deadest ducks.
And if you're still using "he" as a pronoun for unspecified theoretical single people whose gender is either unknown or irrelevant:
Knock it off.
When I started copyediting in the early 1990s, authors were in the thick of avoiding the epicene "he" with all manner of "he or she" variations.
Because I was trained so strictly not to use the singular "they," I often edited to dispose of a pronoun altogether.
Which is not that hard.
Of course you'd pluralize a noun whenever you could so you'd have "Students should study whatever they want" rather than "A student should study whatever" etc.
But sometime in the last few years we (departmentally) agreed never to challenge or edit around an author's use of the singular "they."
Query for inconsistency or lack of clarity? Sure.
But the era of receiving a ms. that uses the singular they and thinking you have to do something about it is over.
Here’s something I was thinking about the other day: do you think we’ll see the emergence of “they” combined with the usual singular present, i.e. “they walks to the store”? It feels too awkward to catch on, but some strict prescriptivist might try to make it.
Yes, that sounds familiar! I’m so glad we have (mostly) moved past that “rule.”
“Recast the sentence to avoid it” is also an excellent way of not getting into arguments with that one author who would otherwise die on the hill of the split infinitive “rule.”
Writerly fads used to sweep the newsroom with wearying regularity. A few were useful while many others were grotesque coinages never used in actual speech and faded ... eventually. 'Spokesperson,' 'chairperson' and (I swear) 'chair one,' when perfectly good gender-neutral terms already exist.
I’m a freelance sensitivity reader and my biggest repeat client is a college textbook publisher, and I still correct on average between 100-500 pronoun usages towards the gender inclusive “they” per text. It’s exhausting.
And by the time I get it, the manuscript has already been through several rounds of editors if not multiple published editions with “he or she” or singular “he” for general nonspecific use intact.
There was one journal I edited whose preference was to alternate default pronouns—e.g., the hypothetical defendant was “he” in section I(A) & “she” in section I(B). I didn’t hate the idea, but it was a PITA to keep track of—and of course way less inclusive than we thought at the time.
I was genuinely shaken when I saw Gore Vidal, in one of historical novels, use “he” as a pronoun to describe two people, one of whom was a woman. It just manifestly doesn’t work.
As I was digging around in this subject once, I noted that Anna Freud and (of all people) Peg Bracken both used the epicene "he."
It was incredibly engrained back then in the twentieth century, and people who assert now that it wasn't are not paying attention to reality.
I remember a guest speaker in one of my uni classes talking about gendered language in French; her example of the ridiculousness was this: « Trois mille femmes et un cochon sont passés, e accent aigu s ». The gender of the 1 male pig overrides the gender of the 3000 women, because of course it does🙃
I was taught "he" was the default. Made me mad even in grade school. Women identified as "Mrs. John Doe", is one of the reasons I didn't change my name when I got married, and because it was my name from birth.
I was taught the generic "he" in grade school (late '60s-early '70s). Along around the mid- to late '70s there was a push toward "he or she/his or her."
I've gotten better about letting go of my wish that we had come up with a different term, and accepting singular "they".
As used by others.
But when I'm talking about a generic person (not a specific individual who prefers "they" themselves ;)), I will spend much effort recasting the sentence.
this is a comment and not a presumption or accusation: please try to be mindful to only do this for generic ppl in text
i say this because it is common for a trans person’s pronouns to default to “they” out of fear of being wrong and/or hesitance in asking, which isn’t great to receive
Oh, sure. I tried to make that clear in my previous comment: if a specific individual wants to use whatever pronoun, I have no problem respecting and observing that choice.
I *was* speaking about the generic case.
And only one prominent American refers to himself in 3rd person. He/she/they are for us to say, not the person in question, who I hope uses the pronoun I.
All joking aside, I really enjoyed "Wolf Hall" but found Mantel's quirk about using characters' names only once (when the character - including her protagonist - is introduced) quite frustrating to read. Page after page of "he", "he", "he" and only an occasional clue to specify which "he" is which.
I just re-opened "Wolf Hall" (should have done that before posting!) and it's not as bad as all that: it's just the protagonist whose name never appears unless another character addresses him by it. Other characters ARE identified; it's still occasionally rough going.
I suppose I'd have to go back and start to reread (and I might well, as I might want to write about it), but I'm already uncomfortable with this excerpt, including too much unattributed dialogue.
But I need a lot more context before I start pontificating.
The idea that the reader will always know that "he" means Cromwell and only other people need to be identified by name is the sort of thing that sounds sound theoretically but may not actually work in the read, I'm thinking.
I put off reading it for ages because I’d heard it was ‘difficult’ but in fact I barely noticed this particular issue and tore through the whole thing in three greedy and delighted days.
I'm reading at the moment. This issue tripped me up occasionally but Mantel makes abundant efforts to clarify. The use of present tense was surprisingly noticable.
All that said, I ADORE IT.
My experience, for what it's worth, was the opposite: the theory seemed iffy to me—I'd never recommend the technique in the abstract to someone—but in practice it worked wonderfully. It does require some trust in the flow, though. If you stop every sentence to parse, it will quickly get frustrating.
Obviously the reader CAN work out which "he" is doing the kicking and which "he" is falling in the Thames and nearly drowning. But by the blood of creeping Christ, why set this puzzle for the reader in the first place?
Two protagonists named Thomas. Calling to each other by name isn't going to clarify much.
Cromwell interviewing More, imprisoned in the Tower for not accepting the king's religious authority. C wants M to soften his stance to save his own life.
Their words should be enough to identify each of them.
The setting and topic seem really up my alley, but this page isn't inspiring me. I might just need another viewing of A Men for All Seasons to scratch that itch.
