[lit-ideas] Re: The Serpent's Club
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 13 Mar 2004 22:31:53 PST
>What I find curious is the fact that Robert's discomfort with the substitution
of 'they' for 'someone' is identified as a problem of logic.<
It isn't, I grant, a problem of formal logic (which, being now a closed system
has few if any internal problems), but it is a problem in the sense that if
pronouns are to agree in gender and number when they have the same referent,
this usage is prima facie inconsistent, and consistency is one of the things
with which logic deals.
However, with Phil's help, I've discovered that the prescription I wrote for
myself was one I did not need to take, insofar as a singular 'they/their' was
established in English as early as the 13th century. Having arrived on the scene
six centuries later, and having been influenced by prescriptive grammarians, I
did not know that there was such an accepted usage before those concerned with
grammatical politics pushed for it. (I still believe that sexual politics
brought back the earlier usage--so to speak--even though few recognized it as an
earlier usage. Clearly, I didn't.)
But that something happened in the 13th century does not strongly argue that it
should guide us today. Indeed, to appeal to it as a precedence which legitimates
current usage makes no sense when it comes from those for whom established
practice is a merely descriptive expression. If anything goes, then an appeal to
'precedence' is of no use.
Sincerely,
Their Majesty
c/o Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxx
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