# EN: person - feminine, masculine or neutral?



## enJoanet

Hi!


While reading a text written by a French philosopher in English, I got puzzled by the following sentence:
_"Chomsky has noted that a *person's hability* to understand and produce sentences of *her* native tongue...."_

So Id' like to know wether or not in this sentence the construction of the impersonal person "person's hability/of *her* native tongue" ensues from the construction that we actually use in French (personne/*sa* langue natale)...or not!

could anyone give me some explantions ??
many thanks in advance!
enjoanet


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## ascoltate

This structure doesn't come from French. In many academic writing, people use feminine pronouns to counteract the historically standard sexist form (which required use of the masculine). This is more of a political statement than anything else. In spoken English, we would say "a person's ability... in their native tongue" but this is not generally acceptable for writing, where we would write "...in his/her native tongue".
This "his/her" is very cumbersome, so we often try to rewrite the sentence to avoid it (people's ability to understand... of their) (or "individuals'..." or some other plural expression).

As for "hability", I'm not sure what it means - is it an academic term, or a misspelling of "ability"?


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## enJoanet

ascoltate said:


> As for "hability", I'm not sure what it means - is it an academic term, or a misspelling of "ability"?


 
This is a misspelling and that one do come from French (habileté!)!!
thank you very much for your explanations...
So, as a rule, it's preferable to use a feminine form since it allows you to avoid the his/her form and prevents you from being called a sexist...

always good to know!


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## Outsider

I don't agree with Ascoltate. I think that there's a high likelihood that the use of "her" is indeed an interference of French, where the word for "person" is feminine, since that's the author's native language.


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## enJoanet

yep...
that's what I tought too in the first place but after all both your interpretation and ascoltate's aren't contradictory and could easily be true...


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## BillyTheBanana

When I write, I like to use both male and female pronouns throughout my essay. This avoids the awkward "his / her" while avoiding sexism. Using all male pronouns is considered technically standard, though. (I've never seen anyone use exclusively the female form. That would just be odd...)


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## ascoltate

enJoanet said:


> So, as a rule, it's preferable to use a feminine form since it allows you to avoid the his/her form and prevents you from being called a sexist...



I wouldn't say it's preferable. I personally disprefer it, even though I'm getting used to seeing it in academic writing. Nonetheless, it is certainly something that many native speakers of English do (whether or not this particular example constitutes interference from French...).
The best thing to do to avoid the sexism issue is to rewrite the sentence in the plural. On failing that, "his/her" is your best resort (switching back and forth between the masculine and the feminine in one set of discourse can often be confusing...).


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## Tim~!

Outsider said:


> I don't agree with Ascoltate.


Tandis que je suis tout à fait d'accord avec lui/elle.  De plus en plus des gens pensent à n'écrire plus ceci qu'avec les pronoms masculins.  Moi aussi, je préfère desfois utiliser des formes féminines ainsi que les masculines.


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## ascoltate

Tim~! said:


> Tandis que je suis tout à fait d'accord avec lui/elle.  De plus en plus des gens pensent à n'écrire plus ceci qu'avec les pronoms masculins.  Moi aussi, je préfère desfois utiliser des formes féminines ainsi que les masculines.



Je ne dirais pas "de plus en plus" - en fait, il y a 50 ans, on n'écrivait ce genre de phrase qu'au masculin. En plus, on pouvait écrire "a man..." pour dire "on" et plusieurs autres choses comme ça qui choquerait les gens d'aujourd'hui. Donc, même s'il reste du chemin à faire, la situation évolue quand même...


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## Outsider

Tim~! said:


> De plus en plus des gens pensent à n'écrire plus ceci qu'avec les pronoms masculins.  Moi aussi, je préfère desfois utiliser des formes féminines ainsi que les masculines.


Mais ces personnes-là sont surtout des locuteurs natifs d'anglais, n'est-ce pas ?

Dans le cas devant nous, l'auteur n'est pas natif.


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## ascoltate

Outsider said:


> Mais ces personnes-là sont surtout des locuteurs natifs d'anglais, n'est-ce pas ?
> 
> Dans le cas devant nous, l'auteur n'est pas natif.



Comme j'ai dit- on ne peut pas être sûr - mais dire "her" avec "person" est quelque chose qu'un natif pourrait faire.


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## enJoanet

Waaa
that's a lot information, thank you all!
In fact, I already knew that in English the use of _"their"_ had subsituted "he" and that it had been progressively imposed on the ground that it made possible the expression of a non-gendered impersonal figure...

A couple of things puzzle me:
-having read your posts, it seems to me that much depends on personal preferences (although certain rules are clearly existing and therefore can be defined...)
-the other thing that puzzles me is that in the sentence I provided in my first post, by using "their" you clearly brake the syntatic structure since the first complement is a singular and the second (which refers to the exact same idea!!!) is a plural: and that is something that we, French natives, simply cannot......imagine saying!!! et encore moins écrire!!! in French, it has a name: *anacoluthe!!! *(et c'est très très mal!!)

_-Chomsky has noted that a *person's hability* to understand and produce sentences of *their *native tongue...." (I substituted her with their..)_
-Chomsky a fait remarqué que les capacités d'une personne pour comprendre et produire des phrases dans *sa langue natale *(et non pas leurs langues natales!!)...


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## ascoltate

don't forget "hability" -> "ability"

You would not generally write "a person's ability... in their native tongue" (although it would be perfectly fine to say it)- but you could change the sentence to be plural : "people's ability... in their native tongue"


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## enJoanet

ascoltate said:


> don't forget "hability" -> "ability"
> I promess I will!!!
> 
> 
> You would not generally write "a person's ability... in their native tongue" (although it would be perfectly fine to say it)- but you could change the sentence to be plural : "people's ability... in their native tongue"


ok..I see...it all fits now!

And, alternatively, could I say "_one's *A*bility.... in one's native tongue"_..?




P.S: it's so tempting to put an "h" before "ability"....


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## born in newyork

I agree that many English speakers would use "they" to refer to a "person" in oral speech.  Indeed, one sees this sort of thing in writing as well.  

To disagree with some comments, however, there are still plenty of people who are horrified when "they" is used to refer to a singular noun -- even in spoken English.  It is just as unimaginable (as enJoanet puts it) to these people as it would be to a French speaker.  

These people -- the grammatical sticklers -- either avoid the singular "his" or use "his" in its generic sense.  The use of "his" in this sense was common (perhaps universal) until the last 35 years or so.  

I wonder if the French view their use of the masculine form as a generic to be "sexist."  Not all English speakers do.


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## Outsider

born in newyork said:


> I wonder if the French view their use of the masculine form as a generic to be "sexist."


In the case of the word "person" (_personne_), which is feminine, one can hardly accuse French of favoring males.


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## born in newyork

"Personne" reflects a different phenomenon from what I was referring to.  I was thinking more of the following sort of use:  "J'ai vu Annie, Marie et Jean hier.  *Ils *sont sympathiques."  

Do the native French speakers out there view this use of the masculine form in this sentence as sexist?


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## enJoanet

born in newyork said:


> I wonder if the French view their use of the masculine form as a generic to be "sexist." Not all English speakers do.


hi!
I'd be happy to answer that question for you but I think that it would be better to open a new thread because this discussion might lead us in off-topic aspects!

to revert to the case of English, I assume that some differences are observable between the US and the UK, Australia, and so on. 
Besides, I suppose that the formulation I proposed (that with the one's') is correct too...and avoids deciding wether using "she", "he" or "their"...



Outsider said:


> In the case of the word "person" (_personne_), which is feminine, one can hardly accuse French of favoring males.


Yes, but, as a rule, we've maintained the masculine form to express generality...
PLus: "l'homme" still means "man kind"
and in French, as we say, "le masculin l'emporte": les ballons et les balles sont *verts*....(et non pas vertes...)


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## enJoanet

born in newyork said:


> "Personne" reflects a different phenomenon from what I was referring to. I was thinking more of the following sort of use: "J'ai vu Annie, Marie et Jean hier. *Ils *sont sympathiques."
> 
> Do the native French speakers out there view this use of the masculine form in this sentence as sexist?


 
I guess some would, but they are an insignificant minority...
Besides:
-the linguistic policy varies quite a lot depending on where you are.; For instance people in Québec have no proble to say "un agent" une "agente" whereas this sort of feminisation is regarded as false and even absurd by the Académie française...
-the thing that you might come across in written French (from France!) is a very specific sort of feminisation which consists in putting both the masculine mark and the feminine...which gives you something like:
Nous sommes persuadé-es etc...
but that's non-standard and only used by activists and polotical organisation...


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## born in newyork

Unfortunately, enJoanet, "one" can't refer back to "person."  In other words, you can't say "each person should bring one's own lunch" (at least not in the US!).


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## enJoanet

born in newyork said:


> Unfortunately, enJoanet, "one" can't refer back to "person." In other words, you can't say "each person should bring one's own lunch" (at least not in the US!).


 
Ok...I get it...But nonetheless in other sentences it may have be correct!!


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## enJoanet

Hello people!
I was reading a text by Jane Hill and Bruce Mannheim, two linguists specialised in a field called linguistic anthropology. In a text they wrote together, they address the issue of gender-based language and present a brief survey of how the expression of gender in English was historically modified in the wake of several discussions and polemics whose objective was to create a neuter singular pronoun...

They say:
_"No fewer than 65 neologisms have been coined for a neuter singular pronoun since the middle of the 19th century. Among other options, for political reasons, many speakers adopt "they" as a neuter singular. For theoretical or political reasons, some speakers choose to use _*she*_in a generic interpretation, and some *alternate* between the _he_ and _she. _The most common solution is to use _they _as a neuter singular. This has always been a pragmatic option available to speakers who were choosing to conceal the sex of the referent. Other speakers have been socialized exclusively to a pronoun system in which the default third person pronoun, singular o plural, is _they_."_

And the best is still to come:
_"Prescriptive suggestions for a neuter pronoun or gender-inclusive pronoun include using _it_ to refer to humans. This proposal probably fails because the distinction between _it_ and the other third person pronouns projects a more deeply ingrained cultural postulate than the distinction between plural and nonplural, a distinction between humans (and some domestic animals) as potential social agents and all other referents of nouns"._

...
voilà qui clôt le débat!


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## mpop

Merci enJoanet pour ces informations.

Pour ma part, pour le pronom personnel neutre de la troisième personne du singulier je rencontre essentiellement _they_ et _she_. J'ai rencontré _they_ dans des articles de journaux et au cours de mes études d'anglais, et _she_ plus récemment dans un certain nombre de publications en ligne (magazines et blogs).

On rencontre par exemple: «The customer [...]; she [...]; her [...]», etc., dans un cadre où le consommateur en question est une personne fictive, indéterminée.

L'usage de _they_ me semble mieux implanté, cependant. Ceci dit, j'aime bien également le pronom neutre _she_, qui ne me pose pas de problèmes maintenant que je me suis un peu familiarisé avec lui. Peut-être est-ce plus problématiques pour les _native speakers_ qui ont plus facilement tendance à considérer une construction peu commune comme une faute — tandis que les autres y verront une nouvelle forme à apprendre?

Quoi qu'il en soit, ces solutions ont un avantage: elles sont parfaitement lisibles par une synthèse vocale (telles que celles utilisées par les internautes aveugles et malvoyants). Ce n'est pas le cas de constructions telles que he/she, s/he, his/her, ou en français les accords décomposés tels que «les étudiant-e-s» ou «les étudiant(e)s» (que l'on trouve effectivement dans les proses militantes).


En passant — et d'avance toutes mes excuses, je sais bien que je digresse [...] Voilà, fin de hors-sujet.


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## Jenc3

I just wanted to chime in to say that I use and recommend "him or her" instead of "him/her." For one thing, in spoken English you need the "or." But even in writing I find it better to write out "him or her" instead of making what I find an awkward compound (him/her). The same goes for "his or hers" and "he or she."

I will admit that using "their" in the singular does bother me! But I do see just "his" as slightly sexist, and just "hers" feels forced, so I understand the reason. I think it is interesting to note that with this example we are literally watching the structure of the language change!


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## Tower of Babel

*enJoanet* posted very nice commentary on the issue of neuter pronouns in Post #22. I thought I'd add a few observations about the tendency to avoid using "*it*" when referring to people....

If one is observing a baby whose gender is unknown, most people would avoid saying, "Is it asleep?" and would prefer to say, "*Is the baby asleep?*"

However, the possessive form "its" is sometimes used with humans, as illustrated by an example from the dictionary entry for "its": "*a child proud of its first drawings*."

Again, the possessive "its" might be encountered in situations with a baby whose gender is not obvious. In this situation, one would probably formulate a question to the mother as, "*Does your baby have its own medicine?*" However, the same person would probably avoid asking, "What is its name?" and would instead say, "*What is your baby's name?*"

So, "*its*" is sometimes used with people (especially "genderless" babies), but usually avoided when other options are available.


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## born in newyork

In response to mpop:  the exclusive use of "she" or "her" does not solve the perceived sexism problem anymore than does the exclusive use of "he" or "him."  In other words, there is nothing neuter about the word "she."  What some writers do (though it would probably sound very strange in speech) is to use what is termed the "random 'she'" -- that is, random use of "he" and "she" equally. 

"It" and "its" doesn't solve the problem because it sounds very strange to use "it" for a person with a perceivable gender (this is why one usually hears it used only for babies).

And, as already discussed, "they" has the plural problem for some ears. 

It would seem that the only forumlations that are perceived as grammatical by everybody are variations on "he/she" or "he or she."


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## enJoanet

born in newyork said:


> It would seem that the only forumlations that are perceived as grammatical by everybody are variations on "he/she" or "he or she."


 
Hi!
technically, I quite share your views. To me, it also seems the best way of conciliating the grammar with the idea of a non-sexist language. Unlike you, however, I'm not entitled to decide that the alternative you proposed should be preferred over all the other existing possibilities. And there is a very simple and obvious reason for that: I am not a native speakers and therefore I'm not "allowed" to modificate grammatical norms on the grounds that those rules aren't neutral with respect to gender parity...


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