Pronoun substitution peril: "they sneezes"
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J. O'M. sent a link to the Cambridge Dictionary's online entry for gesundheit, which offers the gloss "said to someone after they sneezes":
I'm guessing that this was originally "said to someone after he sneezes". And then an (appropriate) decision was made to change all generic third-person animate pronouns to they, implemented via some kind of pattern-action rule, run by a computer program or an over-worked low-level employee.
There are more than a few other examples Out There. Some of them seem to be attributable to imperfect translation from another language. Others seem to represent the same kind of pronoun-updating as the cited dictionary entry:
- Have clients identify high risk behaviors and suggest modifying behaviors
- For example, a child comes to school with a cold. They sneezes and covers it with his hand. They high fives with a friend. They wipes his hands after with a handkerchief then goes to class. What did the child do that was risky? What should they have done instead?
Displayed said,
January 17, 2022 @ 6:54 am
And still you thinks this are a form of language that peoples is going to feel normal because it are natural and not a conlang feature? Wasting their mental resources on this instead of fighting the actual rape of women and killing of gay people in many corners of out world? Sorry: Gays.)
Yawn said,
January 17, 2022 @ 7:49 am
Please delete the moronic troll comment above.
It is so ridiculous it doesn’t warrant a rebuttal, or a place on language log.
[(myl) Which comment are you referring to?]
Cervantes said,
January 17, 2022 @ 7:53 am
Well, if you're going to construe "they" as singular, then "they sneezes" is correct. You can't have it both ways.
[(myl) That's not how people do it — and there are plenty of historical examples across the world's language to refute your assertion, for example the history of English singular you. See e.g. "'That false and senseless Way of Speaking'", 7/1/2016.]
Jamie said,
January 17, 2022 @ 8:46 am
@Cervantes
We have another singular pronoun that uses the plural form of the verb (for the same reason); you wouldn't say "you sneezes" would you
Cervantes said,
January 17, 2022 @ 8:54 am
I disagree. This situation is sui generis, in that singular "they" was introduced deliberately. It has the same grammatical function as he or she.
David Marjanović said,
January 17, 2022 @ 9:10 am
No, why? The quotes are an example of how it's not usually done. Usually, they gets plural verb agreement no matter if it refers to a single person.
You've misunderstood the entire OP.
So? Singular "you" was also introduced deliberately (by people who felt "thou" was too impolite), and it has the same grammatical function as "thou". Dost you think otherwise?
Laura Morland said,
January 17, 2022 @ 9:24 am
MYL: I second Yawn's suggestion. (Clearly referring to "Displayed" IMHO.)
To the topic: all the English-speaking people in my experience who need to use "they" as a singular pronoun conjugate it grammatically; i.e., as if it were plural.
"They" contain multitudes!
Rod Johnson said,
January 17, 2022 @ 9:53 am
Thirded on "Displayed"'s comment.
I was distracted by "a (appropriate) decision" in Mark's text, which inuitively felt like it should be "an." What to do about parenthetical words that would trigger such differences? Let the form of the article be governed by the noun it modifies or the prosodically adjacent word? For me it's clearly the latter.
[(myl) I agree — fixed now.]
Terry K. said,
January 17, 2022 @ 9:59 am
Cervantes, surely, as a reader of language long, you have come across the fact that singular they is really old. It's use has been extended recently, true, but it's nonetheless not new. And I suspect the origin of the original usage of they in the singular may have been less deliberate that the original usage of singular you.
Rodger C said,
January 17, 2022 @ 10:34 am
"a(n appropriate) decision."
Robert Coren said,
January 17, 2022 @ 10:48 am
@Rodger C: I find that parenthesized "n" to be kind of cumbersome. I'm with Rod Johnson on this one.
D.O. said,
January 17, 2022 @ 11:16 am
FWIW, I do not recommend deleting the first comment (I am sure Prof. Liberman, which my autocorrect just tried to turn into Li Berman, doesn't need my advice, but I hate onesided discussions). The first comment is on topic and does not make any personal attacks. This should be enough to keep it in place.
NSBK said,
January 17, 2022 @ 11:34 am
Re: parentheses
How then to handle parenthetical that would change an –> a ? Is there a good way to combine, e.g.: [an idea / a good idea]?
Somehow I don't think "a(n/ good) idea" is a good idea.
NSBK said,
January 17, 2022 @ 11:37 am
I think I accidentally a word. Should have been:
…handle *a parenthetical…
Bloix said,
January 17, 2022 @ 1:19 pm
I what you did there.
Bob Ladd said,
January 17, 2022 @ 1:48 pm
@Cervantes: As several people have already pointed out, they referring to a single individual is completely natural in some contexts (e.g. Whoever it was on the phone, they said they know your brother) and never takes the third singular verb ending in those contexts. The same mismatch is found with French on, which often refers to 'we' (i.e. first plural) but takes the third singular verb form associated with its original meaning 'one'. The fact that people are now deliberately using singular they in contexts where it might not have been used 50 years ago doesn't change the grammatical fact that it still takes a non-singular verb form.
J.W. Brewer said,
January 17, 2022 @ 1:48 pm
Wiktionary glosses this interjection/exclamation with "Said to someone who has just sneezed." The verb is inflected as third-person-singular, and the relative pronoun "who" carries no gender-marking baggage and thus does not inspire any urge to edit/update.
I do think I've noticed people struggling with whether to mark verbs as singular or plural in situations where the pronoun with which the verb needs to agree is a "they" that is not the traditional generic/indefinite singular "they" but is the more novel use as a pronoun for a specific and identified individual being referred w/o a "binary" gender identification.
But the "gesundheit" gloss is an instance of the former not the latter. Whether and when people treat the reflexive of singular "they" as "themself" rather than "themselves" may be a related issue.
Coby Lubliner said,
January 17, 2022 @ 2:58 pm
I'm not even sure that "sneezes" is correctly described as "the singular form". It's just the form used with the pronouns he, she or it, while "sneeze" is the one used with all other pronouns, singular or plural.
Don said,
January 17, 2022 @ 3:16 pm
It’s also used with singular noun phrases that are not pronouns.
Moonfriend said,
January 17, 2022 @ 7:12 pm
For the record, my 18yo Australian son, who has grown up with many non-binary kids at school, uses the singular 'they' with the singular verb. So 'they is', 'they does' etc. are normal for him and his peers. When asked why he does that, he states that 'they' is replacing 'he' or 'she', with no bearing on the verb.
Andrew Usher said,
January 17, 2022 @ 8:54 pm
With respect, I've never heard that and feel, as everyone else seems to, that clearly 'they sneezes' is always wrong, just like 'you sneezes'. While we may disagree on when 'singular they' is appropriate, we should be able to agree on its grammar. Note that this is a separate issue from 'themself', where we can again compare 'singular you' and see that both plural agreement and the yourself/yourselves distinction are fully established.
What's also interesting is this dictionary entry's pronunciation. As so often, I think it's more ideal than real (for Americans anyway). I've heard it only with a long vowel and often with silent 'h', and I would also, were I tasked to read it, say 'ga-ZOON-tight'; I know, of course, that the German is as the dictionary states but it is not being used as a German word.
I've come to feel that this imposition of 'they' as the only generic pronoun has lost a distinction; when both are possible, 'they' stresses the similarities, and 'he' the differences, among the group. So 'everyone has his own problems' would be normal for me, while '… their own problems' would be dismissive or sarcastic; yet remove the word 'own' and 'their' is the only option.
k_over_hbarc at yahoo dot com
Terry K. said,
January 17, 2022 @ 9:10 pm
@Andrew Usher
I'm puzzled by the 3rd paragraph of your comment. For me, "everyone has his own problems" implies the group is made up of males only. "Everyone has their own problems" does not. And that's the only difference I see between the two.
John Swindle said,
January 17, 2022 @ 9:27 pm
A quick Google search finds examples of "They says" from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "Say" and "says" may however be special. "Says I" still sounds possible; "sneezes I," not so much.
Dick Johnson said,
January 18, 2022 @ 12:33 am
I agree with "Displayed." This is how seminar-room linguists pretend to themselves that they're having a progressive impact on society. On any social level, it's counterproductive, because so many people are going to reject "they sneezes" as indoctrinated, unnatural speech that they're simply going to dismiss the valid underlying concerns in the "they" debate.
Antonio L. Banderas said,
January 18, 2022 @ 1:56 am
@J. Swindle
says who? says me!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/says_who
Patrick said,
January 18, 2022 @ 6:24 am
It could be a very literal translation of "Sagt man zu einer Person nachdem sie niest". That "sie" can mean she and they.
Philip Taylor said,
January 18, 2022 @ 8:56 am
Like Andrew, I am intrigued by "this dictionary entry's pronunciation", especially the American English version. Try as I might, I cannot hear any American influence whatsoever in the (recorded / audio) pronunciation, and wonder if any American reader can shed any light on where in the United States the speaker might have been born / lives. For myself, I pronounce it /ɡe ˈzʊnt ait/, not knowing before today that the "h" should be sounded,
Cervantes said,
January 18, 2022 @ 9:08 am
Singular "they" in traditional usage is for a situation in which the gender is unknown or unspecified. The novel usage refers to a specific person whose gender is neither male nor female. It's a completely different usage, functionally and grammatically equivalent to he or she but just meaning something else. he/she/it/they sneezes is entirely logical.
Cervantes said,
January 18, 2022 @ 9:11 am
I might add, it probably would have been a better idea to coin a new word, such as "heesh," and avoid this problem. Actually it's been tried but it didn't stick. Anyway "they" in this situation functions like heesh, and you would certainly say that heesh sneezes.
Robert Coren said,
January 18, 2022 @ 10:55 am
@Patrick: That "sie" can mean she and they..
Not if the verb is niest.
Terry K. said,
January 18, 2022 @ 12:16 pm
@Cervantes
Anyway "they" in this situation functions like heesh, and you would certainly say that heesh sneezes.
Which situation do you refer to? That's not true for the usage in the original post, which is the well established gender unknown/unspecified usage. (At least, if I follow correctly in understanding that you suggest "heesh" for usage talking about a nonbinary person.)
cliff arroyo said,
January 18, 2022 @ 1:34 pm
@Andrew, Phillip
As a native US speaker I've always pronounced it with the 'long' u sound, like 'soon' but with a z.
I'm not actually sure if I pronounce the h separately of if the t is simply aspirated (it's one or the other, no aspiration or no h doesn't seem like an option to me).
To me, the recording on the site sounds a bit like someone who doesn't know the word imitating the UK recording….
J.W. Brewer said,
January 18, 2022 @ 2:34 pm
As to pronunciation, wiktionary (an amateur concoction without Cambridge's theoretical resources) says more helpfully that there are variants, viz.: "/ɡəˈzʊnt.haɪt/, /ɡəˈzʊntaɪt/ (the h-less pronunciation is more anglicized)."
R. Fenwick said,
January 18, 2022 @ 11:35 pm
@Cervantes: The novel usage refers to a specific person whose gender is neither male nor female. It's a completely different usage, functionally and grammatically equivalent to he or she but just meaning something else.
But it's not "completely different" at all; it's a semantic extension from an already extant usage, just as "you are" was semantically extended from an already extant usage. Debating whether this extension is deliberate or organic is a moot point.
he/she/it/they sneezes is entirely logical.
But not often grammatical. Formal logic and linguistic grammar don't correlate as often as we might like to think.
cliff arroyo said,
January 19, 2022 @ 8:35 am
"going to construe "they" as singular, then "they sneezes" is correct"
Spanish Usted is unambiguously and exclusively second person (lexically, semantically) yet it takes third person agreement…
Shouldn't Spanish speakers be asking each other "¿Cómo estás usted?
KevinM said,
January 19, 2022 @ 11:50 am
Singular they seems to have caught on, as other suggestions have not. The reason, I'm guessing, is practical, not strictly logical. Singular they already had currency, for reasons not explicitly connected to correcting sexism in speech, and wouldn't require any neologisms. (heesh? sheesh!) Thus singular they may be the least drastic, most natural-sounding adjustment that does the job. Only it turns out that it is not precisely the least drastic adjustment, as the global-replace ("they" for he or she) approach of "they sneezes" demonstrates. So the goals of "natural sounding" (using an already-familiar phrase) and "least drastic" (changing as few words as possible) are actually somewhat in tension, so one of them has to yield–a little. My own feeling is that most speakers treat "they" as sticky; it brings its 3PP verb with it. No professional linguistic credentials here, but I've been speaking prose all my life.
David Y said,
January 20, 2022 @ 9:04 pm
cliff arroyo: "Spanish Usted is unambiguously and exclusively second person (lexically, semantically) yet it takes third person agreement…
Shouldn't Spanish speakers be asking each other "¿Cómo estás usted?"
Similarly, German "Sie" (like Usted, a formal second person pronoun distinct from the less formal "du") takes third person agreement, and in fact in the plural rather than the singular. "Sie haben einen Hund"="You have a dog," not Sie hat (3rd singular) or Sie hast (2nd singular).
(To complicate matters, "Sie" can also mean she or they. "Was machen Sie?"="What are you doing?" and "Was machen sie?"="What are they doing?" can be distinguished by capitalization in writing, but if you're communicating orally or the Sie begins the sentence it can be ambiguous.)
Robert Coren said,
January 21, 2022 @ 11:05 am
@David Y: And it can get even more complicated than that. In some contexts/styles it is apparently OK to omit an auxiliary verb, and just let the participle do the work. Thus the following, sung by Brünnhilde in the final scene of Wagner's Götterdämmerung: "Kinder hört ich greinen nach der Mutter, da süssen Milch sie geschüttert". So who spilled the milk, the mother or the children? In ordinary modern discourse, there'd be either a "hat" or a "haben" (or, more likely, "hatte" or "hatten") at the end that would make the distinction.
Rodger C said,
January 21, 2022 @ 11:26 am
Hans Peter Duerr's Dreamtime, translated (mostly excellently) by Felicitas Goodman, contains a sentence about a legend regarding "the Virgin Mary, whom she turned into a bear." Obviously the original contains "die sie."
Andrew Usher said,
January 21, 2022 @ 7:04 pm
I can only reiterate that English seems to have chosen (as expected) to preserve pronoun/verb agreement, as your examples from other languages show and as 'singular you' also shows; there may be deviations but I would strongly suspect this will remain true (although, as I noted, 'themself' may still become standard).
On the pronunciation (of Gesundheit) I am still surprised that no dictionary recognises the GOOSE variant, even though it seems to prevail in American English – the English cognate 'sound' witnesses a long vowel, but that lengthening happened in the history of English only, and by the way is 'sound' the only English word that has four unrelated etymologies with the same spelling and pronunciation? – as Cliff Arroyo confirmed.
Terry K. :
And would be puzzled that you would be. Surely, no educated and literate man would really believe that the 'his own problems' variant must imply a male-only group, as he must understand the generic masculine even if he doesn't use it himself. Further, I doubt that that interpretation is even conscious – when I read a text I don't normally even notice which generic pronoun is used, as both are standard and hence not surprising.
And surely, too, you must admit that without 'own' the choice would be clear: 'everyone has his problems' would seem hardly grammatical in the intended meaning. As the 'own' thus changes the interpretation from collective to individual, it would not be surprising that it affects pronoun choice too, making 'his' at least a reasonable possibility. This is exactly my contention.
Terry K. said,
January 22, 2022 @ 1:36 pm
@Andrew Usher
Surely, no educated and literate man would really believe that the 'his own problems' variant must imply a male-only group, as he must understand the generic masculine even if he doesn't use it himself.
True or not, it's irrelevant, since the world is not made up just of men.
Although, to get back to what my reply was actually about, I should have specified that I was puzzled by this statement of yours:
So 'everyone has his own problems' would be normal for me, while '… their own problems' would be dismissive or sarcastic;
I'm puzzled by your claim that it would be dismissive or sarcastic, and was, in contrast with that, giving what I see as the contrast between the two.
SusanC said,
January 24, 2022 @ 12:29 pm
Singular "they" is now very common.
The odd thing, which this example highlights, is that singular they usually takes a different verb form from he/she/it.
SusanC said,
January 24, 2022 @ 12:48 pm
It's an open question if this example-was created by search and replace on a computer (I.e. no human ever thought it was grammatically correct) or if we're seeing evidence of language evolution:
"He sneezes" (gender unknown, he covering the unknown gender case) ->
"They sneeze" (singular, gender unknown, but singular they taking a plural plural verb form) ->
"They sneezes" (singular gender unknown, singular they taking the singular verb form)
=====
I am suddenly wondering what Sanskrit does when the person being talked about is a specific person of indeterminate sex (ubhatobyañjanaka)
Andrew Usher said,
January 25, 2022 @ 11:53 pm
Terry K.:
Your first sentence indicates that you are either arguing the wrong point or not being honest. The fact that 'the world is not made up just of men' is irrelevant to the fact that you are a man (I must presume) and that my comments pertained to the way generic pronouns are/were used, not the way you think they ought to be used.
Terry K. said,
January 26, 2022 @ 9:37 am
Why would you presume I'm a man? Unwarranted presumption. My name does not indicate my gender.
And perhaps you missed my clarification on what my reply to you was actually about, since you ignored it.
Andrew Usher said,
January 27, 2022 @ 8:48 am
No, rather I got your supposed clarification and replied to it: it is either an attempt to change the subject to one I have no interest in, or dishonest. I wanted to make an observation about the possible difference between the generic pronouns, and you replied with a statement – that generic 'he' is only used for male-only groups – that is obviously false in the sense I intended. You may use it only that way, and you may think it should only be used that way, but that is not my usage or preference, which you may disagree with but not pretend does not exist.
I honestly wondered if my proposed distinction (for which I invented a clear example) was idiosyncratic or imaginary, but you are evidently unable to or unwilling to address that. But English rarely has perfect synonyms, and it would be surprising if the two pronouns (in non-gendered use) were exactly interchangeable.
Terry K. said,
January 27, 2022 @ 11:38 am
@Andrew Usher
I quote myself: For me, "everyone has his own problems" implies the group is made up of males only.
No claim there that it's only used for male groups. Note the word "implies". And I did say for me.
I don't understand what distinction you think I haven't addressed. The one distinction I recall you made I did address, and I gave my own view (of which you seem to think you know what true for me better than I do), and I asked you for further information about your view. And, no, you never did explain why you find one version sarcastic or dismissive. Which is fine, you don't have to. I was interested because I'm not seeing that. If you can't explain, that's fine.
Andrew Usher said,
January 28, 2022 @ 8:41 am
Oh, I did note the word implies. I assumed you were using it in its normal meaning, and therefore ignored the "for me" part. As far as I know, imply, when not used in the logical sense, always should refer to the state of the writer/speaker and not that of the reader/listener. That's how I have always used it and heard it and I simply did not recognise your intended meaning of "this is how it makes me feel". So I replied accordingly, and wrongly accused you of various things. But that's what happens!
I didn't further explain the 'sarcastic or dismissive' part because it was a throwaway post-script, but I meant that the clash between 'their' (collective) and 'own' (individual) seems to say, when I think about it, that 'everyone' thinks said problems are unique, but they're really not. Again I'd expect a singular pronoun when individuality is referred to, and in English that's normally 'his' – 'his or her' if you must, 'her' only with presumptively female groups.
What I hoped someone could address was what I said in the last paragraph, to wit: whether, in the usage of yourself or others, have you noticed a difference between the use of the choices of generic pronouns in non-gendered situations? This is not an imposition, just a point I threw out in a post that started about something else.
Philip Taylor said,
January 28, 2022 @ 2:20 pm
Andrew wrote : "As far as I know, imply, when not used in the logical sense, always should refer to the state of the writer/speaker and not that of the reader/listener". It took me some time to decide whether or not I unconditionally agree with this, and I am now convinced that I do, on the following basis — a speaker/writer/text/state of affairs/etc. implies something; the reader/listener/passive participant infers something.
RfP said,
January 28, 2022 @ 6:33 pm
@Philip Taylor: I think it’s important to keep in mind that implication also resides within implicature.
Within what I will refer to (in an attempt to be as neutral as possible in this context) as “polite society”—that is, more specifically, within the speech context that these blog posts and their comments occur in—there is an expectation that we all now understand that men and women are essentially equal in fact, if not in law or in previous custom.
Because of that expectation, when someone uses “he” or “him” or “his” in contexts that now essentially require thoughtful speech to substitute a gender-neutral term, there’s a justifiable presumption on the part of educated listeners that the speaker is referring to “males only.”
I wish I knew more about pragmatics (and I’d love it if someone who does know more about pragmatics would jump in here), but you seem to be ignoring some of the basics of conversational implicature as it occurs in this kind of speech context.
For some reason, I can’t help but think of the bitter comment I’ve heard here and there that “the definition of the N word is ‘that African-American gentleman who just left the conversation.’ ”
Philip Taylor said,
January 28, 2022 @ 7:27 pm
Somewhat confused, RfP — I have read back through the comments, and I find that I have commented on the pronunciation of gesundheit and on the meaning of "implies". I cannot see how these two comments can lead you to any meaningful conclusions concerning my views on "the basics of conversational implicature as it occurs in this kind of speech context". I was, in my immediately preceding comment, discussing the semantics of "implies" (and "infers"), not the semantics of "[implies] as it occurs in this kind of speech context".
But a question to you, if I may, since a part of what you wrote intrigued me — when you say « when someone uses “he” or “him” or “his” in contexts that now essentially require thoughtful speech to substitute a gender-neutral term, there’s a justifiable presumption on the part of educated listeners that the speaker is referring to “males only” », do you also believe that « when someone uses “she” or “her” or “hers” in contexts that now essentially require thoughtful speech to substitute a gender-neutral term, there’s a justifiable presumption on the part of educated listeners that the speaker is referring to “females only” » ? If so, how do you explain the fact that a number of authors, presumably seeking to be regarded as politically correct, intentionally use "she" to refer to a hypothetical person holding what was traditionally regarded as a male position (doctor, programmer, whatever) ?
RfP said,
January 29, 2022 @ 1:39 am
@Philip Taylor: Wow! This is more of a tangled web than I had realized!
To the extent that you were merely restating the “dictionary definitions” of infer and imply, which are pretty much always accompanied by usage notes along the lines of what you mentioned in your comment, I do apologize. Because careful writers generally take pains to use those terms in ways that are consistent with what you stated.
But I do believe that Terry correctly recognized a more or less logical implication in Andrew’s statement that Andrew has failed to understand.
And although I am not well versed in pragmatics—to put it mildly—my response to you was an attempt to get into the implicature of Andrew’s statement, which as I understand it operates at a more fundamental level than the more superficial usages of “infer” and “imply” in ordinary discourse.
I do hope somebody with a better understanding of this joins the conversation, because I can tell that it’s going to take me a fair amount of study to understand it better myself—in other words, I don’t see that happening within the normal commenting lifespan of a Language Log post, much as I hate to say that.
In terms of the use of “she,” I have seen people do that for lots of different and potentially conflicting reasons.
Philip Taylor said,
January 29, 2022 @ 6:26 am
Fine, thank you, all understood RfP. All I would add is that "an attempt to get into the implicature of Andrew’s statement" might be better addressed to Andrew than to one such as myself who was focussing solely on one very small point in Andrew's statement ("imply, when not used in the logical sense, always should refer to the state of the writer/speaker and not that of the reader/listener").
Terry K. said,
January 29, 2022 @ 10:01 am
@Philip Taylor
You were discussing the meaning of the word "implies" in relation to a conversation involving my use of the word within a specific context, in talking about pronoun use. RfP seems to be suggesting that when I used the word "implies" I was referring to the issues of conversational implicature and pragmatics that RfP talks about. Which I would say is pretty accurate. Though the reply would be appropriate to Andrew as well, I think.
Since it's related to the conversation, I'll note, composing in my head, I initially used "he" instead of repeating "RfP" in the previous paragraph. Realizing that was an unwarranted assumption about gender, I didn't write that. I considered "they", but decided, in this case, simply repeating the name worked fine.
@RfP. Thank you for your input.
Philip Taylor said,
January 29, 2022 @ 10:59 am
Terry — "You were discussing the meaning of the word "implies" in relation to a conversation involving my use of the word within a specific context, in talking about pronoun use". Agreed. But Andrew used the word "always" ("imply […] always should refer […]"), and I was therefore addressing the general case rather than the specific case in question.
Andrew Usher said,
January 30, 2022 @ 8:54 am
Strange that this seems to be the active thread here now.
To give some answers: it seems the word 'implicature' refers to the same thing as I called implying; philosophers simply invented a word to distinguish the informal sense of imply (what I was talking about) from the logical sense (which everyone calls implication). In particular, the more specific word does not change my point. I don't have a problem with them inventing a new word like that, but it shouldn't be brought in to an ordinary conversation without an explanation.
And maybe I should have done the same with my word 'presumptively', as I used a few posts ago to be more specific than 'presumably' in that the presuming is not ascribed to anyone in particular. (It also means regularly 'in a presumptive manner', but that's rare and a different part of speech.)
I think I basically understand RfP's point, but it is only an opinion and not something I can argue with. It might, however, be arguable whether that situation can create an 'implicature' that's not intended at all by the writer. I am not sufficiently familiar with academic philosophy to address that, I don't think.
Finally, Terry just unintendedly argued against himself in admitting that he'd initially intended to use 'he' to refer to RfP. While it is of course his right to change his mind for the reasons he did, that shows that his grammar does allow generic 'he' when gender is not known for sure – as does mine, which was the basis for my original observation. We don't really disagree on anything substantive, but his unclear statement made it seem so and created a needless argument.
Terry K. said,
January 31, 2022 @ 12:22 am
No, my mental use of "he" for RfP was NOT a use of generic "he" when gender is not known. Besides the fact that "generic he" does not a apply to talking about a specific identified-by-name person, I know what's in my head. It was, quite simply, and as I already said an unwarranted assumption about RfP's gender. Using "he" because of assuming someone is male (someone identified by name) is not the same as using it generically for an identified person.