Are you a fan of books? Are you a fan of Pokémon? Well then, you've come to the right place! In this book club, we will devote every review purely to Pokémon fanfiction.
Includes:
- Articles on Pokémon Fanfiction
- Specific interviews with the autho...
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The world of English is confusing.
Wait. Let's try that again.
The world of English is very confusing.
English is complicated to the point that it's considered one of the most difficult languages in the world. Words that look a certain way sound completely different phonetically. I mean, why do we have to use "ph" over "f"? Why do we pronounce "buffet" with a fancy romance language-esque method when it comes to a restaurant with lines of food yet pronounce Warren Buffet's last name exactly how the word looks? To Oxford comma or not to Oxford comma?
Yes, just like every language, English comes with its controversies. You thought twelve years in school or your entire lifetime could teach you how to finally use English perfectly? Well, too bad. But what I can do is show you one solution to a single controversy.
Say you're writing a scene. The character our readers are following sees someone in the distance. Maybe that someone is far away or blocked by trees or is wearing something that prevents the person's gender from being revealed. Or maybe the gender doesn't align with the person's physical appearance and the narrator is a politically correct individual. Whatever it may be, the gender of that mysterious figure is unknown to the narrator or character.
What pronoun do you address them by?
Sure, you can do what I did above. I deliberately avoided using a pronoun when referring to this person. For example,
Someone lurks amongst the forest. The figure disappears behind a tree.
This avoids revealing the entity's gender entirely. However, how long can you use alternatives like the ones above without being repetitive? What if you have a lengthy description of this mysterious person and run out of ways to refer to them without using pronouns?
The first pronoun you think of is "they."
Contrary to sentiments expressed today, "they" was actually a universally accepted pronoun as early as the 14th century. Its congregations such as "themselves" and "their" were used singularly. In some cases, even when the gender was known, a gender neutral pronoun was still used.
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech - William Shakespeare, Hamlet
In this case, the pronoun "them" refers to the subject "mother." Even though a mother refers to someone who is female, Shakespeare still uses a gender neutral pronoun to refer to the subject.
Today, singular "they" still is used, but it's considered more informal. This idea is still considered controversial because singular "they" is still so widely viewed as the dominant gender neutral pronoun since its conception.
However, writing in a professional setting critiques this informal use of "they." Some educators accept it; others don't.
Truth is, some people have no idea what to use. It's a struggle between being politically or grammatically correct. "They" may be the dominant gender neutral pronoun, but because it is used for plural purposes, its singular usage is considered grammatically incorrect by some people. Merriam-Webster actually supports the singular usage of "they", writing, "We must remember that the English pronoun system is not fixed. Several centuries ago the objective plural you drove the nominative and objective singulars "thou" and "thee" and the nominative plural "ye" out of general use. It appears to have happened for social reasons, not linguistic reasons. "They", "their", "them" have been used continuously for six centuries, and have been disparaged in such use for about two centuries." Essentially, arguments stem from the idea that English isn't set in stone—it never was. It's orchestrated by the masses.
