schmookeeg
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It's worse. On reddit, when some clown gets called out, they delete their account which seems to nuke all of their post content -- leaving behind a tattered shred of people repying to [deleted].
FAA FOIA request pilot enforcement records
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It's worse. On reddit, when some clown gets called out, they delete their account which seems to nuke all of their post content -- leaving behind a tattered shred of people repying to [deleted].
Both? We need a new plural group pronoun: "them" + "us" = "thus"
If I hear the word "pronoun" too many more times I think I'll barf.
It must be them or none of us would have high post counts.
Morgan3820
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Sorry, already taken for another purpose.
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just passing through
Perhaps we're looking at this wrong. Perhaps we should define our own pilot pronouns.
As a first draft maybe "flyboy / no-mere-mortal"? I'm not really sold on it, but you get the idea. It may be that someone else can improve on the terms.
Kind of ho-hum. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the singular "they" appeared in writing back in 1375, at least suggesting it was in verbal use well before then. The only real changes today are (a) certain people adopting it as the latest gender-neutral pronoun (it used to be "he") and (b) certain other people (I suspect mostly "he"s
) whining about (a).My favorite part of the history is the conversion of "you" into a singular pronoun in place of "thee, thy, etc." Apparently the whiners today are in good company. In 1660, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote a whole book labelling anyone who used singular you an idiot or a fool.
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Doc Holliday
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Verily, 'twould appear that thou doest indeed take a position that was made in jest and doest attempt thy best to address it in a more serious vein of conversation. Yea, conversations in this manner rarely conclude as expected, neither by the one who started in jest, nor the one attempting a serious response.Kind of ho-hum. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the singular "they" appeared in writing back in 1375, at least suggesting it was in verbal use well before then. The only real changes today are (a) certain people adopting it as the latest gender-neutral pronoun (it used to be "he") and (b) certain other people (I suspect mostly "he"s
My favorite part of the history is the conversion of "you" into a singular pronoun in place of "thee, thy, etc." Apparently the whiners today are in good company. In 1660, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote a whole book labelling anyone who used singular you an idiot or a fool.
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But on a more serious note, in the previous 'latest gender-neutral pronouns' revolutions please provide sources where people were fired over not using the pronouns, and also the laws generated that threatened jail time for not using them. I think you'll find that to be a big difference between changes in acceptance of vernacular. I personally don't really care how you choose to address others, nor really how they address you. My problem becomes when you DEMAND that you be addressed a certain way and then get the powers that be (HR, Legislatures, etc) to back you up in REQUIRING that others use certain language, on threat of loss of job or freedom.
The subject, of course, is much deeper and nuanced than either side wants to present it. As I have neither the time nor inclination to discuss this in the depth it deserves, the above will be the only (halfway) serious comment I'll make on it. Any response to me or on this subject (in a serious tone) will be considered to be you having the last word rather than an attempt to engage me in a serious conversation on the matter.
All the hand-wringing over pronouns, when what gets me PO'd is that I can't get my name used the way I prefer. I use my middle name, so my full name is written and signed as first initial + midde name. 90% of the #%$^! idiot programmers in the world write software to accept first name + middle initial, with no other option than to enter my initial and name in the "first name" field.
I have had, and continue to have, unending hassles and screw-ups with banks, the SS office, doctor's offices, insurance companies, etc., etc.
I have had, and continue to have, unending hassles and screw-ups with banks, the SS office, doctor's offices, insurance companies, etc., etc.
Last word. ZZzzzzzzz.
Morgan3820
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I haven’t tried to make a big deal out of it, but I demand that y’all address me as el conquistador. It is on my title page after all
My middle school English teacher taught that "they" is strictly plural and would dock our grades for using "they" in the singular saying "the pronoun doesn't match the antecedent". Over the years it stuck with me.Kind of ho-hum. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the singular "they" appeared in writing back in 1375, at least suggesting it was in verbal use well before then. The only real changes today are (a) certain people adopting it as the latest gender-neutral pronoun (it used to be "he") and (b) certain other people (I suspect mostly "he"s
My favorite part of the history is the conversion of "you" into a singular pronoun in place of "thee, thy, etc." Apparently the whiners today are in good company. In 1660, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote a whole book labelling anyone who used singular you an idiot or a fool.
Yeah, and my high school economics teacher (I swear she looked like Thomas Jefferson) said the postal service had to be a government monopoly because private companies couldn't possibly do deliveries everywhere. It would never work.
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Even pre-pronoun wars, I've always thought they and them were used when gender was not known.
"A suspect was arrested for using the incorrect pronoun at their workplace. They were also charged with a misdemeanor for using the reply all button to tell someone 'thank you' in response to an email."
woywoyboy
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I've said this before, but I'm an old dinosaur from the heartlands of the English linguistic empire, born into the sort of accent most Americans would think of as rather Proper, and millions of years ago I was taught — in the sort of school that would never have stooped to calling itself something as pedestrian as a "high school"
— that the use of "they" and "them" was perfectly appropriate when you either didn't know the gender of a (single) human subject or object, or didn't want to draw attention to it, or it wasn't important."Well, guv, the suspect's in the interrogation room but they're not giving much away!".
Those teachers were getting kids to think about grammar and sentence structure, which is a good thing, even if the term usage has changed. Language evolves. In days of yore, "they" was a plural 3rd person pronoun and even today this is still its first 2 definitions in Websters, followed by the generic and singular usage that has become more accepted.
aterry1067
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Alpha_Delta_Tango
In my neck of the woods youse, ya'll, and all ya'll seem popular ...
No “you’ns”? We used “you’ns” quite a bit….or said more properly as “yuns”
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No “you’ns”? We used “you’ns” quite a bit….or said more properly as “yuns”
Yep ... sometimes I heard "urines get in here fer supper" ...
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What did that teacher suggest when needing to refer to a single person where the gender was not known?
The issue is that in the English language there is no dedicated gender-neutral singular pronoun like other languages have. Hence the common use of the words they, their, and them that has happened for centuries. A quick Google search shows examples from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickinson, so it's not exactly new.
Lindberg
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Your teacher was correct. And people defending present behavior based on what someone did seven centuries ago, on a pilot forum on the Internet no less, is bizarre. What was common usage in the fourteenth century is much less relevant to proper usage in the twenty-first century than what was common usage in the twentieth century.
Lindberg
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"He." "He or she" if you're enlightened. Or just "she" if you're really enlightened. If you emulated the writings of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, or Dickinson in any other respect in business documents, you'd be laughed at.
Yep. She taught that "he" was considered to be gender neutral unless the context of usage made gender clear. Due to English lacking a gender neutral 3rd person pronoun, one must make an error of gender, or of number. The error of gender was considered standard usage. Of course, these kinds of language conventions evolve over time.
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My intention was not to show that it has only been used hundreds of years ago - it was to show that these words have been used continuously for hundreds of years, up to today, due to the lack of a gender-neutral singular pronoun in English.
Virtually every source I see online states that is acceptable usage, so an absolute "that teacher is correct" does not seem to be, well, correct.
If I'm adjacent to a room full of people, evenly distributed between male and female, it would be fine to say:
"I see one set of muddy shoe prints leading to that room. If you see the person with their shoes on in that room, can you let them know that they are going to hear it from my wife?"
(Three acceptable uses of their, them, and they in one sentence)
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woywoyboy
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As I pointed out upthread, it was also common and respected usage in the mid-late twentieth century, at least in the English-literate places I grew up and was educated in. I don't know why people find this so hard to understand or believe…
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I'm certain there's a way we can bring this back to piloting and how to become better aviators?
"I heard ATC giving someone a number to call earlier. It's crazy that they didn't check their Notice to Air Missions before departing or else they would have known to avoid that airspace today."
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Lindberg
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Check a usage guide from ten years ago. Mine are all in storage or I'd show you. "They" was perhaps often used with individuals of unknown gender (still incorrect). But not as a singular pronoun when gender was known.
Lindberg
Final Approach
For your edification:
Worth the time to read the whole thing:
Worth the time to read the whole thing:
Baked Potato
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"Leading conservative magazine and website"For your edification:
Worth the time to read the whole thing:
No, that's ok! Thanks though
Lindberg
Final Approach
I'll take Bryan Garner's recitation of the history of English usage over yours (or anyone else's). He's one of the foremost experts in the world. But sure, don't read it."Leading conservative magazine and website"
No, that's ok! Thanks though
And now it's used when the subject themself doesn't know their gender.
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