[lit-ideas] Re: The Serpent's Club

  • From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: 14 Mar 2004 11:26:54 PST

1. Phil

I did not mean to accuse Phil of being one of those anything-goes
descriptivists, who (in this case illogically) might want to invoke
centuries-old practices to justify current practices, while at the same time
insisting that language is continually evolving in such a way that it does no
good to invoke past practices to justify (or to condemn) this or that current
one, for the best we can do is to note and describe. It was not Phil I had in
mind here, but Garner; indeed, I thank Phil again for showing me that what I'd
thought was a recent skirmish in the Pronoun Wars, had a much older history.

Phil's remarks have stimulated me to search various Internet sites in which old
curmudgeons are gleefully exposed for being illogical about pronouns themselves.
Eventually I was led to some remarks of Stephen Pinker's on the subject which
I'd like to make the subject of another post, perhaps in collaboration with JLS.
(Pinker thinks that 'anyone,' 'someone,' e.g., are not real pronouns.)

2. John Wager

There may yet be a way out for students who now must choose between the
requirements of Rhetoric 2, and of Social Psychology. (It would be too much, I
suppose, to ask the various instructors involved to resolve this problem, now
that they're aware of it, but I realize that this is Academia we're talking
about.) When JL and I offer our refinement of Pinker's solution, there will be
no need for such forced choices.

3. Judy

writes: 

The problem with this is the context, that is, no-one who disagrees with you
[about e.g., 'a person...they'] points with approval to a usage like

"when a man gets home from work, she takes off her uniform"

and says that legitimates errors now. The use of "they" is a different matter.

Yes, it is a different matter, and no, I would hope that no one pointed to this
odd construction with approval.  My point was that it was mildly incoherent to
argue both (1) that past usage really legitimates nothing and (2) that 13th or
14th century practices legitimate something. However, Judy's example ('when a
man...'), is not an instances of using 'man,' or 'a man,' or 'he' as a default
marker, as in e.g., 'When a person gets home from work, he takes off his
uniform.' So, I'm not quite clear what it's an example of.

4. Mirembe. 

Mirembe says that she suspects that JL, aided and abetted by me, has (invented?)
a new, neutral, human pronoun. I think JL is on the verge of it. (More of that
later.) What may interest people further is that Mirembe and I have eloped. This
may not be immediately apparent to anybody, for, as she is in the State
Department, and I am in the Philosophy Department, we will continue to live
several thousands of miles apart, and have no plans to meet before the year
2010. I apologize for injecting such personal note into the discussion, but
sometimes one's enthusiasm overcomes they.

Robert Paul
The Reed Institute

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