LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.08 (07) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 08 July 2008 - Volume 07
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
=========================================================================

From: Travis Bemann <tabemann at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.08 (03) [E]

> From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar"
>
> Beste Lowlanners abroad,
>
> how do you in English use the gender of the word _person_ (neuter) in the
> following context?
>
> Just imagine, you watched a person which (or who?) is suspected to have
been
> involved in a crime. Because it was dark, you could not see, if it had
> been a man or a woman. How do you tell it the police constable?
> "I saw a tall person with a black hat and a grey coat. (_He_? _She_?
_It_?)
> ran down the street to the left side." It should be 'it', I guess? But it
> sounds in a certain way strange for me.
> (If I would replace _person_ by 'individual' my problem wouldn't be
solved!)
>
> In Low Saxon we have got the same problem: "Ick hebb eyn' Perzoun seyhn
(we
> like to avoid past tense, because present and past tense, as in this
> case, often sound identically!) mit eyn' swatten Hout un' eyn' griesen
> Mantel. De loyp linkerhand de Stroat hendaol." 'de' denotes masculine as
> well as female, but in LS 'Perzoun' (like in 'dat Manns-Perzoun' or 'dat
> Frouwens-Perzoun') is neuter, so correctly it should be 'dat'. I guess it
to
> be influenced by Standard German.
>
>  In German all nouns have a clear gender, which have grammatically to be
> used straight: "Ich sah eine Person (fem.) mit schwarzem Hut und grauem
> Mantel. Sie lief nach links die Straße hinab." (Don't ask me, why a
_Person_
> in German is of female gender! Ladies first? I guess it is deriving from
> Latin 'persona'.)
> Though- many speakers would say: "Mir kam das kleine Mädchen auf dem
Fahrrad
> irgendwie seltsam vor. Sie sah so ganz anders aus als ihre
> Freundinnen." ("The little girl on the bike appeared somehow strange to
me.
> She looked completely different from(?) her mates.") 'sie' is wrong in
this
> case; it should be 'es'.
>
> Allerbest, and thanks in award!
>
> Jonny Meibohm
> ----------
>
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Grammar
>
> Dat persoon, Jonny?! I say dey persoon and sey, thus make it feminine.
>
> Besides, it sounds a bit "yellow" to me as well as 19th century to me. Dey
> minsch (original "human being") would be my choice, a noun with masculine
> gender, unless it denotes an unpleasant woman, in which case it is neuter
> (!) dat minsch.
>
> Kumpelmenten,
> Reinhard/Ron

The word in use in most English dialects today for such is "they",
differing only from the plural usage thereof in that many dialects
have innovated a singular reflexive form "themself" different from the
plural reflexive form "themselves". During a period, particularly in
the 1800s, there was an attempt by prescriptivists to impose "he" as a
gender-neutral pronoun, but that has largely failed and receded since
then. Mind you, though, that some dialects may still use "he" in
certain cases in such a fashion, such as the use of "he" in the
dialect here to refer to a driver of another vehicle of unknown or
inconsequential sex (whereas someone on the phone is always "they"
when of unknown sex, and often even when their sex is known, here).
However, "they" was also used historically before then as a
gender-neutral personal pronoun, being used in such a fashion at least
in Early New English, and never completely died out even in literary
usage.

----------

From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.08 (03) [E]

 jonny wrote

Subject: LL-L "Grammar"

how do you in English use the gender of the word *_person_* *(neuter)* in
the following context?

I think I would say 'they' which is very often used as a 'neuter' pronoun
even tho' the person is singular.

 "I saw a person leave the shop. They went down the road and then they
turned into the car park."

Kumpelmenten

Heather

Heather Rendall
----------

From: ipm7d at oi.com.br
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.08 (05) [E]

  Avoiding sexism an average native speaker would really say
'they'(wrong option) as Marsha stated.
She really showed us how things work nowadays.
A friend of mine said sent me the following answer :
" When native  refers to "a person" he/she should use either "she" or
"he,"
because there's no ungendered option to refer to an individual in the
English language".
As for german, sie is the best option. But there's a trend in English to
avoid sexism. When we say "Everyone took his/her book",
we should say that "Everyone took their book". Saying that All students
brought their books" is even better for those avoiding sexism.
So, I saw a person and they... is common but not the right option.

 Ívison dos Passos Martins.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080708/0bf07b63/attachment.htm>