negative payload "he"

[Jonathan Lighter]

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 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.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: negative payload "he"
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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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