her instead of "his or her"

[Lucio Crusca]

Hello everybody,

I'm new here and I'm very glad that such a newsgroup exists. I'm not native
english, but I like english language. I've written a document in english
(it's a silly one to be honest, don't expect anything serious) and I'd like
to know wether I made any mistakes in it.
The document is at

http://www.sulweb.org/lucio/index.php/Howto_Reading_Howto

Maybe I've made several mistakes in it, but I'd like to focus on a
particular sentence. A friend of mine pointed me out that in the following
sentence

"If someone decides to waste her time to translate this stuff..."

the word "her" is wrong or, at least, restricts the meaning to women. On the
other hand I'm pretty sure that several articles on the net use "her" to
refer indifferently to men and women in similar sentences. Unfortunately I
have no examples at hand and searching for "her" with google gives a little
too many results...

The other chance is that I've never understood the real meaning of many
articles around...

Where's the truth?

[Richard Polhill]

Post by Lucio Crusca
"If someone decides to waste her time to translate this stuff..."
the word "her" is wrong or, at least, restricts the meaning to women. On the
other hand I'm pretty sure that several articles on the net use "her" to
refer indifferently to men and women in similar sentences. Unfortunately I
have no examples at hand and searching for "her" with google gives a little
too many results...

To be truly non-gender-specific, one would use the plural 'their' instead of
'her' in the above sentence.

However, there is nothing wrong with the sentence as it is. Today many
publications will switch between 'his' and 'her' for different third-party
cases so as to promote equality and stay slightly more personal, but the
practice is questionable.

In the sentence given, you need to use the present participle of the verb to
translate instead of the infinitive form:-

"If someone decides to waste her time translating this stuff..."

I wish I had the ability to explain why. :-)

[Lucio Crusca]

Post by Richard Polhill
However, there is nothing wrong with the sentence as it is. Today many
publications will switch between 'his' and 'her' for different third-party
cases so as to promote equality and stay slightly more personal, but the
practice is questionable.

I wonder why it's questionable...

Post by Richard Polhill
In the sentence given, you need to use the present participle of the verb
to translate instead of the infinitive form:-
"If someone decides to waste her time translating this stuff..."
I wish I had the ability to explain why. :-)

You don't need to, I agree with you, the present participle sounds better.

[Richard Polhill]

Post by Lucio Crusca

Post by Richard Polhill
However, there is nothing wrong with the sentence as it is. Today many
publications will switch between 'his' and 'her' for different third-party
cases so as to promote equality and stay slightly more personal, but the
practice is questionable.

I wonder why it's questionable...

Well it begins with the premise that using either 'his' or 'her' exclusively
somehow denigrates the opposite sex. As English does not have a personal
neutral form, only impersonal neuter ('its') we would have no option but to
use one of the gendered pronouns. Like French we have always defaulted to the
masculine to be non-gender-specific and this is perfectly acceptable within
the language. This means traditionally, 'hers' relates specifically to the
feminine, whereas "his", used in a non-gendered context, is correctly
interpreted as "his or her".

It is on the same anthropological model as man the species and mankind. To
insist that the feminine is used in equal measure suggests we should also say
'womankind' when referring to our species. There is no benefit linguistically
from doing this, and promulgates the belief that if one uses
politically-corrected language, then all is well without addressing the real
issues of inequality.

It is a politically motivated practice that has nothing to do with correct
usage and only adds confusion. I hope that it is a passing fad.

[Cyrano de B.]

Post by Lucio Crusca
"If someone decides to waste her time to translate this stuff..."
In the sentence given, you need to use the present participle of the verb
to translate instead of the infinitive form:-
"If someone decides to waste her time translating this stuff..."
I wish I had the ability to explain why. :-)

I am not a native speaker (of english), but tell me if you agree with me on
this explanation of mine:

"to waste her time to translate this stuff" seems to be a literal
translation from the french "perdre son temps à traduire...".

But here, the sentence means that BY DOING that (translating), you will
waste time. The time-wasting is the consequence of the translating.

If "TO" was used ("waste her time to translate this stuff"), "to" would
suggest a goal (as "POUR traduire" in french). As if the goal of wasting
one's time was to "translate this stuff", which makes no sense.

It is like in the old example of "I stopped smoking". You'll hear a lot of
french people say "I stopped to smoke", because in French we say "j'ai
arrêté de fumer". But "I stopped to smoke" means "J'ai arrêté de faire ce
que j'étais en train de faire pour prendre une pause cigarette" (en
explicitant un peu!). "To+verb" often has that sense of goal, I find. If it
can have that sense, then it probably does.

Am I right?

C.

[g***@mosquitoe.net]

Post by Cyrano de B.
It is like in the old example of "I stopped smoking". You'll hear a lot of
french people say "I stopped to smoke", because in French we say "j'ai
arrêté de fumer". But "I stopped to smoke" means "J'ai arrêté de faire ce
que j'étais en train de faire pour prendre une pause cigarette" (en
explicitant un peu!). "To+verb" often has that sense of goal, I find. If it
can have that sense, then it probably does.
Am I right?

Sounding good.

[Chris Croughton]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007 22:30:06 +0100, Cyrano de B.

Post by Cyrano de B.

Post by Lucio Crusca
"If someone decides to waste her time to translate this stuff..."
In the sentence given, you need to use the present participle of the verb
to translate instead of the infinitive form:-
"If someone decides to waste her time translating this stuff..."
I wish I had the ability to explain why. :-)

I am not a native speaker (of english), but tell me if you agree with me on
"to waste her time to translate this stuff" seems to be a literal
translation from the french "perdre son temps à traduire...".
But here, the sentence means that BY DOING that (translating), you will
waste time. The time-wasting is the consequence of the translating.
If "TO" was used ("waste her time to translate this stuff"), "to" would
suggest a goal (as "POUR traduire" in french). As if the goal of wasting
one's time was to "translate this stuff", which makes no sense.

Both forms above are in fact missing words (as is commonly done in
English when the meaning is clear):

"If someone decides to waste her time in order to translate this stuff..."
"If someone decides to waste her time by translating this stuff..."

So they both mean the same (the time is being wasted to accomplish the
goal of translation), and in the longer form are both good English
(although the first is a little more formal), but the second in the
shorter form only misses out the preposition 'by', which is often
acceptable in English, whereas the first omits "in order" and thus loses
understandability.

Post by Cyrano de B.
It is like in the old example of "I stopped smoking". You'll hear a lot of
french people say "I stopped to smoke", because in French we say "j'ai
arrêté de fumer". But "I stopped to smoke" means "J'ai arrêté de faire ce
que j'étais en train de faire pour prendre une pause cigarette" (en
explicitant un peu!).

Surely there is a shorter form than that? "J'ai arrêté pour fumer une
cigarette", possibly? (My French is very rusty!)

Post by Cyrano de B.
"To+verb" often has that sense of goal, I find. If it
can have that sense, then it probably does.

In the sense of "in order to do", yes, but the goal normally follows the
verb.

Chris C

[Cyrano de B.]

Post by Chris Croughton

Post by Cyrano de B.
It is like in the old example of "I stopped smoking". You'll hear a lot of
french people say "I stopped to smoke", because in French we say "j'ai
arrêté de fumer". But "I stopped to smoke" means "J'ai arrêté de faire ce
que j'étais en train de faire pour prendre une pause cigarette" (en
explicitant un peu!).

Surely there is a shorter form than that? "J'ai arrêté pour fumer une
cigarette", possibly? (My French is very rusty!)

That would be OK, provided that you know from context what you "stopped"
doing. ("J'ai travaillé sur ce dossier tout l'après-midi. Mais vers 4 h,
j'ai arrêté pour fumer".) I would say something like "j'ai fait une petite
pause cigarette". Only, I don't smoke. :)

[Miss Elaine Eos]

Post by Lucio Crusca
Maybe I've made several mistakes in it, but I'd like to focus on a
particular sentence. A friend of mine pointed me out that in the following
sentence
"If someone decides to waste her time to translate this stuff..."
the word "her" is wrong or, at least, restricts the meaning to women. On the
other hand I'm pretty sure that several articles on the net use "her" to
refer indifferently to men and women in similar sentences.

The gender-neutral term is "their", as in "if someone decides to waste
their time..."

Historically, English used the masculine pronoun to refer to either
gender, as in "if someone decides to waste his time..." but, in the 70s
and 80s, as "women's rights" was gaining a large portion of the popular
mindset, some folks switched to "his or her", as in "if someone wants to
waste his or her time..." Then, some VERY progressive people got it
into their heads that it would somehow make things "even" if they used
"her" the way the language had classically used "his" to mean anyone of
indeterminent gender. On the one hand, it's sort of sweet; on the
other, some people use it as a slap in the face, a sort of
"neener-neener, how do *YOU* like it?" kind of thing which, IMO, is
highly inappropriate.

"Their is safest", with "his" not too terribly far behind, and "his or
her" more accurate, yet clumsy, and will probably be cut by any
professional editors.

[Chris Croughton]

On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:15:18 -0800, Miss Elaine Eos

Post by Miss Elaine Eos
Historically, English used the masculine pronoun to refer to either
gender, as in "if someone decides to waste his time..." but, in the 70s
and 80s, as "women's rights" was gaining a large portion of the popular
mindset, some folks switched to "his or her", as in "if someone wants to
waste his or her time..." Then, some VERY progressive people got it
into their heads that it would somehow make things "even" if they used
"her" the way the language had classically used "his" to mean anyone of
indeterminent gender. On the one hand, it's sort of sweet; on the
other, some people use it as a slap in the face, a sort of
"neener-neener, how do *YOU* like it?" kind of thing which, IMO, is
highly inappropriate.

It can also backfire, as when a manual on using a word processor,
written by a woman, used 'her' all the way through. The unintended
effect was to reinforce the stereotype of women as secretaries!

Whenever I see something using 'her' as a generic I read it as "this
person has a chip on their shoulder".

Switching between them randomly is plain silly. I even prefer the
neologisms 'zie' and their ilk.

Post by Miss Elaine Eos
"Their is safest", with "his" not too terribly far behind, and "his or
her" more accurate, yet clumsy, and will probably be cut by any
professional editors.

I dislike the use of singular 'their' because it grammatically implies
the plural, and whichever way it is used seems wrong:

"They were playing with their ball."
"They was playing with their ball."

The first reads as though there were a plurality of people playing with
a ball (which by implication was communally owned), whereas the second
is just wrong grammatically (although frequent in some dialects, notably
East London).

I have a tendency, when people insist on being "politically correct"
(and grammatically incorrect) in use of pronouns, to refer to them using
the neuter. If they don't want to be identified as male or female that
leaves the obvious gender...

Chris C

[Miss Elaine Eos]

Post by Chris Croughton
I dislike the use of singular 'their' because it grammatically implies
"They were playing with their ball."
"They was playing with their ball."

True in those examples, however:

The child ran home to get their ball.
or
The author signed copies of their book until well after closing time.

Oddly, these scan all right. But perhaps that's just because I grew up
when this was the preferred substitution for "his" -- sort of the first
evolution in an attempt to find a comfortable word.

I tend to agree with you about the chip on the shoulder, though. "His"
was good enough for a thousand years or so of written English, it can be
good for another 50 years or so until after I'm gone... :)

[Chris Croughton]

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:10:25 -0800, Miss Elaine Eos

Post by Miss Elaine Eos

Post by Chris Croughton
I dislike the use of singular 'their' because it grammatically implies
"They were playing with their ball."
"They was playing with their ball."

The child ran home to get their ball.
or
The author signed copies of their book until well after closing time.
Oddly, these scan all right. But perhaps that's just because I grew up
when this was the preferred substitution for "his" -- sort of the first
evolution in an attempt to find a comfortable word.

Oddly, I find the second less objectionable than the first. This is
possibly, as you suggest, a matter of familiarity (an 'author' seems
less personal than a 'child', if that makes sense).

Post by Miss Elaine Eos
I tend to agree with you about the chip on the shoulder, though. "His"
was good enough for a thousand years or so of written English, it can be
good for another 50 years or so until after I'm gone... :)

Probably not that long for me (males in my family rarely get above their
mid eighties, and I'm past my demicentury)...

Chris C

[Miss Elaine Eos]

Post by Chris Croughton

Post by Miss Elaine Eos
I tend to agree with you about the chip on the shoulder, though. "His"
was good enough for a thousand years or so of written English, it can be
good for another 50 years or so until after I'm gone... :)

Probably not that long for me (males in my family rarely get above their
mid eighties, and I'm past my demicentury)...

Ah. I'm ignoring the other males in my family and planning to start a
new tradition of living deep into the triple-digits :)

Misc "...for the children!"