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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
The one I found worked the best for me was to spread it 50/50 between "his" and "her".
I like this approach and have tried it previously, but it leaves me unsatisfied. What I now do is alternate not between successive references, but between chapters or sections. For a single piece, I seldom alternate, but will usually stick with whatever reference I first use.
k
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Posts: 161
member
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member
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 161 |
English speakers shouldn’t be complaining, really. at least you don't have an indication of the gender in verbs. In Russian you can easily tell the gender if a verb is in Past tense. I always got trapped by it in chats when I don't want people to know my gender - sooner or later I say: I did feminine 
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
It would seem that in all language groups, distinguishing between male and female when referring to persons is important, if not critical.
I guess not all languages do it. In Turkish the third person singular is just one word, used for males, females, or objects. This has caused great confusion for my Turkish friend who's learning English. We constantly argue about whether or not it's terribly useful to know the gender of the person you're referring to by a pronoun (she, of course, argues it's irrelevant). When she's excited and talks fast, she just picks random pronouns, so she'll say sentences like "I was talking to my mother yesterday and he said..." Eventually you get into the habit of filtering this out.
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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 9
stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 9 |
Funny!
What is the Turkish word? Are there subject, object, possessive variations? If used for objects, does that mean its neuter as well?
thanks, Lander
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
What is the Turkish word?
Ha, well, see, I managed to avoid mentioning it because I've forgotten it, and my Turkish book is at home, and I am at school/work* right now. I think (and please don't quote me on this) the personal pronoun is on. And yes, I recall seeing a table for the different forms (possessive, etc.), and the third person singular was always a single word, never a masculine/femminine form. I think the whole thing is intrinsically neuter. You refer to a table the same way as you refer to your brother. I promise I'll look it up tonight.
BTW, welcome aBoard, lander! (Is it Lander or iander? Switch the cases I used and you'll see they both look the same!) EDIT: I see I'm an idiot, or just blind, because you capitalized it above. D'oh!
* school = work when you are a graduate student
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Posts: 6
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 6 |
The Turkish word is "o". This designation is also puzzling when you are reading, for example a short story on love. When the characters are addressed as "o" and gender specific details are not given, there is no compulsory heterosexuality and a higher level of abstraction is possible.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Thanks, hatish! Having only a nodding acquaintance with Turkish means that I forget the details very easily. I thought of "o" but then remembered it means "that that" and so managed to confuse myself. (However, I can sing a Turkish children's song about a little frog if anyone would care to listen...) 
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Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
sing a Turkish children's song about a little frog
Oh, please do.
The Scandinavian languages in general (Icelandic is an exception) have conflated masculine and feminine into the animate gender but this conflation seems to have bypassed the personal pronouns.
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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 9
stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 9 |
why do people on the board put words into white (so that they can barely be read)? and what does the * mean?
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Highlight the white words and they're easy to read (with most browsers). We do it for several reasons. It might be because we are hiding the words from all but a select group or it might be because we feel the content is something that some among us would not like staring them in the face. Sometimes it is because it is something that is not the main thrust of what we are trying to say and we don't want it to distract from the main message. In this last, it is something of a step beyond parenthetical. The star *before a word indicates emphasis but less emphasis than stars *around* a word. The latter isn't used much on this board; we usually bold or italicize. Italicizing is more normally used when we wish a word to be considered as the word itself and not to indicate the meaning behind the word.
Got that?
If so, I'll try to explain it again
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