LL-L "Morphology" 2003.02.19 (02) [E]

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From: Allison Turner-hansen <athansen at arches.uga.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2003.02.14 (03) [E]

Stan wrote:
> Nice try, but it's just a very uncomfortable American
> tendency to use "their" extended from sentences like
> "everybody likes 'their' new clothes".  It seems "his"
> is not PC, and "his or her" is too awkward.

Dear Lowlanders,
Yes, 'his or her' is indeed too awkward, but the reason for
avoiding 'his' seems not to be that it is not politically correct, at
least here in the southeastern United States.  You couldn't find a group
of less PC kids than the students to whom I taught Freshman English.  I
believe the reason is a psychological need in this dialect to
disambiguate, for 'his' is perceived in most cases to be exclusively
masculine, despite the rule to the contrary.  There are other examples of
the need to be specific with pronouns, such as 'ya'll' and 'ya'll's' for
'you' and 'your'.  One might say, "I'll come by ya'll's house later".
Also, "Who all was at the party"? is a very common construction.  People
like myself who wish to sound less dialectal try to use graceful
circumlocutions, but we still need to get the information in that we're
being inclusive.
  Back to 'their' with singular antecedants: my students all
knew the official rule that 'he' and 'his' are supposed to refer to any
person of unspecified gender, but none could bring himself/herself to
fill in 'his' in the following sentence: "Each nurse should minister to
___ own patients."  And yes, we have plenty of male nurses around here.
The use of 'their' in this situation is ubiquitous in the spoken language,
and met with in perhaps three-quarters of the written essays.  As a
student of Linguistics, I felt uncomfortable prescribing usage, but I was
forced to do it, so I told them to use a plural antecedent where possible.
Yet it is obvious that the use of 'their' with a singular antecedent is
being internalised by speakers to such an extent that it may soon become
acceptable in formal writing.

Allison Turner-Hansen
<athansen at arches.uga.edu>

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From: R. F. Hahn <admin at lowlands-l.net>
Subject: Transliteration

Welcome to the group of "vocal" Lowlanders, Allison, and congratulations on
formating your posting perfectly the first time!

Friendly regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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