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Do you baulk at this sentence? : "One day, a scientist will build a computer more intelligent than himself." It's a difficult problem. "Himself" is the established, albeit frowned upon usage. "Herself" shows you are not sexist, but it is (in my view) toadying. "Themselves", the via media, is not good, because it seems to duplicate the scientist. "Himself or herself" is laborious. Then I read this in the Oxford Dictionary: The standard reflexive form corresponding to they and them is themselves, as in: they can do it themselves. The singular form themself, first recorded in the 14th century, has reemerged in recent years corresponding to the singular gender-neutral use of they, as in | this is the first step in helping someone to help themself. The form is not widely accepted in standard English, however. What do you think? About the sentence? About "themself"? About the issue of gender in writing? As a woman? As a man?
Last edited by Hydra; 11/24/2007 6:56 PM.
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"One day, a scientist will build a computer more intelligent than humans."
(I did not baulk at your sentence though)-(could be a man).
"öne day, scientists will build a computer more intelligent than themselves."
Or must I hang on to that original sentence?
Last edited by BranShea; 11/24/2007 7:24 PM.
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I didn't balk at it. though I would use themself, or "we will build/ourselves" or some such other thing. or "computers will eventually be built that are smarter than humans".
formerly known as etaoin...
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journeyman
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Do you baulk at this sentence? :
"One day, a scientist will build a computer more intelligent than himself."
Prior to my marriage to Jill....probably not.
But then, she wants the first person to set foot on Mars to say, " One step for a human, one giant leap for humankind."
Of course I have to remind her that the universe is adorned with many other sentient beings; not human.
This, then, leads to hours of concatenatin' and eventually Ol' Eastcourt having to sleep in the sharn with Hokey, Barbason, and Philpot, our new goat.
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I'm with BranShea and eta on this. Resistance to the singular they is futile. Thou mightst as well exhibit resistance to the singular you. If you want to avoid irritating the irritable, recast.
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Pooh-Bah
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I would use "himself" to avoid the inference that there is a third party which the new computer is more intelligent than
Incidentally I note that lately with reference to the Deity he, him, her, she, etc aren't being capitalized and I wonder if the root cause isn't laziness
dalehileman
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>I wonder if the root cause isn't laziness
oh, you mean like not capitalizing the initial letter of a sentence; or, even more egregiously, not closing a sentence with punctuation?
-joe (no points for style) friday
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The non-gender-specific singular use of they has been around for five centuries. It was good enough for Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Austen, and so it's good enough for me. Not only is you plural, but it's the oblique form of ye. One might as well condone saying me read book. Also, they (as well as she) is a borrowing from Norse. The original third person plural pronoun in Old English was hie which was him in the accusative. The pronoun stuck around in colloquial speech, though. When people say things like that'll teach 'em. The apostrophe is probably also a mistake. Many moons ago, I wrote this blog entry on it. Language does not change because of laziness, foreignness, or youth. It changes because the people speaking and writing it use it in different ways so as to facilitate better communication.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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The most important question right now is: Did zmjezhd mantle Faldage or did he add and expand?
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veteran
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"One day, a scientist will build a computer more intelligent than himself." And one day man-and-womansounkind will learn the nature of the words they speak. And pertinent to this discussion... Language transfers information between those who agree upon the symbols that are used to effect the transfer.So it follows that the rules of language are determined by the useage that most accurately reflects reality in an efficient manner. And a language that lies, doesn't. Note... (1) Ninety-one percent of computer scientists are men. [and for you ladies who find math confusing] That means that only nine percent of computer scientists are women. (2) And some computer scientists are bi-sexual and some are transexuals who once were men but now are women and so forth. (3) The great god that is Google reports... 433,000,000 ghits "himself" 230,000,000 ghits "herself" 3,000,000 ghits "male computer scientist" 1,600,000 ghits "female computer scientists" So as to the sentence quoted by Hydra: "herself" is possesive and misleading. "theirselves" is possesive and numerically inconsistent. "themselves" is numerically inconsistent. And "hisself" is a possessive term that is accurately understood only by rednecked folk in the American South. It was in 1957 at 11:45 AM Central Standard Time - before the advent of the prissy Word Inquisition by academicians who decreed that it was foul words and not foul deeds that kept life from being jolly - that the word "HIMSELF" was appointed to stand for each member of mankind when speaking abstractly rather than particularly, as was "HISSELF" which only could be spoken without reprimand in the deep American South.  Or... If you happen to be in a hurry you can just read what zmjezhd wrote. 
Last edited by themilum; 11/25/2007 5:43 PM.
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Did zmjezhd mantle Faldage or did he add and expand?
I was responding to Faldage's posting. I did not intend to mantle him consciously or unconsciously, and I meant no disrespect. I am sorry, and I apologize.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Oh, nuncle, I was just sort of kidding. You know you're my favorite nearby linguist.
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Pooh-Bah
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zm, I almost always start a sentence with a cap unless the referent isn't upper case, such as "zm" or "tsu", though I might slip once in a while. As for final punctuation, this is a time-honored style, and if you flip through the pages of, e.g. a Time Mag, you will find many instances
It makes the writer seem less assertive, and if there's one thing you don't want to seem on WS, it's assertive. Also by the time I cash in I will have saved four million, three hundred and forty-five thousand, seven hundred fifty two keystrokes
Is there anyone on WS who doesn't recognize this sentence as a question
dalehileman
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Is there anyone on WS who doesn't recognize this sentence as a question question
formerly known as etaoin...
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I thought of another solution. Men use male-specific pronouns, women female.
Methinks I thunk good.
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And as the putative mantlee, I say Nuncle added and expanded. No apologies needed, Nunc.
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journeyman
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I thought of another solution. Men use male-specific pronouns, women female.
Methinks I thunk good. Not in my sharn. Jill rues the roost.
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zm, I almost always start a sentence with a cap unless the referent isn't upper case, such as "zm" or "tsu", though I might slip once in a while. As for final punctuation, this is a time-honored style, and if you flip through the pages of, e.g. a Time Mag, you will find many instances
You talking to me, Dahil? [Looks around the empty office.] You got the wrong referent. I believe it was tsuwm who mentioned the synchronicity of alarm at linguistic laziness and the stylistic lack of sentence final punctuation.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I was just sort of kidding
OK.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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