negative payload "he"

[Laurence Horn]

>I agree that "she's" is most likely in A, and "they've" most likely
>in B, but there my pre-1970s idiolect also finds "he" quite as
>acceptable as "they."

I agree with all of the above.

>
>I wonder at what point a "covert" reference of the sort suggested
>becomes truly "occult"; in other words, so far behind the scenes
>that it is unlikely to have been intentional.
>
>If Shaw had said "he," he'd have made his point just as well, at
>least to me -  that the Florida governor acted more intelligently
>than the Louisiana governor. Surely his avoidance of "he" came from
>something less calculated than an extremely subtle covert putdown of
>Blanco.  That Shaw is a Republican politician speaking on TV news
>increases the possibility that he intended "hyper-covert" putdown of
>Democrat Blanco; but why bother if hyper-covertness is unnecessary ?
>
>" # In Florida, we had a governor who knew what he was doing."
>
>Or paraphrased: "HE knew and SHE didn't.  So HE's smarter (AND he's
>a Republican and the President's brother, who might run for
>President himself in a couple of years, so you know who to vote
>for). Got that, televiewers ?"
>
>Not every listener will make all of those associations, but some
>will. So why avoid an info-packed forthright statement unless
>there's something bad about "he" ?
>
>It would be interesting to collect comparable exx. of statements
>that replace "he" with "they" in cases where there's no doubt that
>the person referred to is in fact male.
>

Well, I've posted some a while back (where "they" is used for an
undoubted male or female), but they tend to involve cases in which
the "referent" is indefinite, even with the sex known:

=================================
a.  No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify
against their child.                        -Monica Lewinsky's
mother's attorney

b.  Someone left their sweater.
-note left in Yale classroom next to what was obviously  a women's sweater

c.  I can't help it if somebody doesn't want their husband and then
somebody besides them decides they do.
-"Serial mistress" Pamela Harriman, quoted in Victoria Griffin's The Mistress

d.  Who knows what crazy idea she's going to come up with.  She may
have met someone in the checkout line at the grocery store and she's
planning to marry them.
-Garrison Keillor monologue, Prairie Home Companion, 3/9/02

e.  I told the guys this is the team.  But I do have a nucleus of
guys who will be on the ice more. I plan to sit down with each
individual and line out their role.
-John Cunniff, new coach of New Jersey Devils' (all-men's) hockey
team, on being asked about personnel changes; NYT 11/ 8/89

f.  I challenge you to find a lesbian who doesn't want to see
themselves portrayed on television.
-actress on Showtime's The L-Word

g.  WHO WEARS WHITE DURING THEIR PERIOD?
-from a panty-liner commercial on television
==========

If I'm right, the Clay Shaw "they" is different from these precisely
in that it *does* refer to a specific man while simultaneously
evoking the contrast via using the superordinate that encompasses
both Jeb Bush's "he" and Kathleen Blanco's "she".  The means are
subtle, even if the attitude it projects isn't.

Larry

>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: negative payload "he"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 7:24 PM +0200 9/21/05, Chris Waigl wrote:
>>Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>>
>>>Not to belabor the point (or do I really mean, "to belabor the point"?),
>>>but I still don't see any need for any other pronoun than "he" here. In
>>>"In Florida [unlike Louisiana] we had a governor who knew what pro was
>>>doing," pro can still be "he" and the contrast is preserved, since "he" is
>>>just as unlike "she" as "Florida" is unlike "Louisiana." The only need for
>  >>a gender-neutral pronoun would be if the sentence were, "In Florida [LIKE
>>>Louisiana]..." since the "he" would then apply (incorrectly) to Blanco.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>But can you catch two birds with one "unlike"? If the comparisons were a
>>bit different, say, not between Florida and Louisiana, but between
>>Florida and New Orleans, and someone said "In Florida, unlike New
>>Orleans, we had a governor who knew what he was doing," wouldn't you
>>object that New Orleans has a mayor, not a governor?
>>
>>Chris Waigl
>
>along related lines, let's consider a non-political near-analogue...
>
>Imagine two scenarios. In each, my sibling and I are comparing notes
>about the infidelity of our respective spouses. In the former, the
>sibling is my brother, whose wife (like mine) has been unfaithful to
>him. In the latter, the sibling is my sister whose husband (like my
>wife) has been unfaithful to her.
>
>Scenario A:
>Well, bro, at least *you* have a spouse who *admits*
>{*he's/she's/#they've} been unfaithful.
>
>Scenario B:
>Well, sis, at least *you* have a spouse who *admits*
>{(?)he's/*she's/(?)they've} been unfaithful.
>
>When both spouses are of the same sex, as in A, the "they" seems much
>less likely than when they're an implied contrast, as in B. Note
>that the "unlike ___" bit is not spelled out here anymore than in the
>Shaw original. What makes the "they" even more motivated in the
>original comment than in this one is that discussing Florida doesn't
>immediately invoke Louisiana as an object of contrast, and the "they"
>really does function to bring out the covert reference to Kathleeen
>Blanco in a way it doesn't need to in Scenario B itself.
>
>larry
>
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