It just seems incredibly odd for there to be so many lines in a book about gender insisting that there is no way to refer to someone (in the English language, at least) without implying gender. She even mentions the possibility of using „it“ at one point!
I’m liking the book otherwise, but every time the narrators ponder about pronouns without even considering „they“ I have to ask myself if there is any point in ignoring it or if she genuinely just forgot. I don’t think it’s possible for her to have not known about it considering how well-read she was and how long it’s been in use.
It was written in 1969. “They” was always a plural pronoun, and to many people even today it sounds strange to apply it to a single person. She was correct: there was no pronoun equivalent to “he” or “she” in english that doesn’t imply gender. We’ve coopted “they” and “them” for the purpose, but it’s almost as much a new thing as if we had just invented a new word. There are quite a number of SF works where the society depicted has pronouns that don’t imply gender - the authors just made them up.
That’s not correct.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Hmm, true but it was used in the case where the specific person being referred to was unknown. “Somebody left their umbrella.” It was not used the way OP is talking about, for a gender neutral individual.
It was also used for someone known, but whose gender was not known or being hidden. Shakespeare used they this way. From there, it’s not a great leap to use they to refer to someone without a gender.
To the best of my knowledge it would be correct to say that English language style guides at the time treated they/them as strictly plural, but that was actually a more recent change (ie, within the last century or so). Singular they existed for centuries, only to fall out of style with the increasing formalization of the English language. It’s use today is not a modern invention, but a return to its original usage.
So yes, Le Guin was probably taught that it is not proper to use it as a singular, and that’s how anyone alive at that time would have been taught to use it. But that’s not the same thing as saying it was “always” singular.
They bothers me for that reason. It obfuscates the conversation. Makes me feel like Abbot and Costello. Almost every conversation about my daughters non binary friends requires clarification about who we’re talking about and usually we revert to calling everyone by name. I’m all for personal expression and everything, but I wish we picked a new word.
The way I put it to people who struggle with it is imagine you’ve invited a friend to dinner, and they ask “Do you mind if I bring a friend?” If you want to know what to cook, and you ask your friend, “Sure, but are they allergic to anything?” your friend will understand what you mean. Because you didn’t know the gender of your friend’s friend, you used “they” as a singular pronoun. Now just imagine you don’t know the biological sex of your daughter’s non-binary friends. It might help. :)
Okay, imagine you ask your teenage daughter what shenanigans she and her friends got up to on the weekend and try to track their happenings as the story progresses. Keep in mind there’s three Thems in the mix. “and then they went…” “who they?” and it’s either “oh, MJ” or it’s 3 of them. Its clunky, imprecise and interupts the flow of the storytelling. We should have done what English has done every other time it needs a new word, steal one from another language.
This would be just as much of a problem if they were boys or girls - multiple hes and shes instead of theys. The problem isn’t “they”, it always applies to multiple people of the same gender.
I’m all for neopronouns, and we do have them, but that would be even harder to teach people than the plural they. (Not to mention, it would face a lot more backlash.)
My perfect word would be something in between he/she so you could switch to it halfway through when you misspeak. I’m not trying to be ignorant but grammatical conventions are quite ingrained.
To be fair, I have the same problem when my wife is telling a story about her and her friends doing something. It’s all “the she told her that she wasn’t going to do that anymore” and I have to stop her and be like “wait wait, who told who that who wasn’t going to do what anymore!?” 😅
I agree that “they” being plural sometimes too adds another dimension of figuring out what the girls were doing as a group rather than a girl was doing, but it’s honestly already a shitshow. And (while I love my wife) made worse by a person who… maybe doesn’t have their audience’s interests in mind while telling a story. Because a well told story is structured to maintain a consistent use of pronouns and reintroduces by name when required. So, like, if we’re talking about Carmen’s story, she gets to be “she”, and then you tell me how “she said to Joan, that Tabby had blah blah blah”. That’s a little bit the orator’s fault.
New plan, we have first and second person pronouns (I and you), I think we need 5 new pronouns that correspond to “third person”, “fourth person”, “fifth person”, etc.
And those can be gender non-specific, because the same problem happens when a guy is telling a story involving multiple guys. Then it can come up in the grammar that “Johnny was talking to Peter, and A told B that Richard was mad at A because C didn’t go to B’s BBQ.”
Problem solved 😛
My son is trans and, prior to transitioning, when through a phase where he just felt non-binary. So e went from “she” to “they” to “he.” I agree with you; though I felt it was important to refer to him in whatever was he felt appropriate, “they” always seemed awkward.
When my kid was still young enough to want me to, I would regularly read stories at bedtime, and one that we did was Adam-2 by Alistair Chisholm - and in that there’s a non-binary character who uses “ze” and “hir” pronouns.
Took me quite a while to get used to it, even though I was reading direct from the page. Was quite effective though, once I got past my brain’s hesitation.
Hmmm, I’ve never read that one, but I read an awful lot of SF and fantasy, and I’m fairly positive I’ve seen ze and hir used that way in another work. I don’t remember what though.
Ah ok, could be he’s borrowed it then 👍