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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • rah@feddit.uktoComic Strips@lemmy.worldThey/Them
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    3 days ago

    Again, we’re talking about different linguistic issues, which I’ll demonstrate below. I see now that my example wasn’t a good example because it conflates a consequence of the problem with the problem itself.

    The ambiguity

    There are two different ambiguities. You’re talking about ambiguity over the subject whereas I’m talking about ambiguity over the sense of the pronoun.

    “I was with Dan (they/them) the other day. They hadn’t brought a poster they needed and went back to the car to get it.”

    No ambiguity over sense of “they”. No ambiguity over subject.

    “I was with the newlyweds the other day. They hadn’t brought a poster they needed and went back to the car to get it.”

    No ambiguity over sense of “they”. No ambiguity over subject.

    “I was with Dan (he/him) and Steve (he/him) the other day. He hadn’t brought a poster he needed and went back to the car to get it.”

    No ambiguity over sense of “he”. Ambiguity over subject.

    “I was with Dan (they/them) and Steve the other day. They hadn’t brought a poster they needed and went back to the car to get it.”

    Ambiguity over sense of “they”. Ambiguity over subject.

    The ambiguity over the sense of the pronoun is the confusion. That’s the problem. The ambiguity over the subject is a problem but not the problem I meant.



  • rah@feddit.uktoComic Strips@lemmy.worldThey/Them
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    4 days ago

    Dan (or Steve, or both) is the subject of this sentence, not the object.

    You may be right about that (I’m not sure) but it doesn’t effect the argument.

    In both sentences, the pronoun used has two possible meanings in that context.

    What are the two meanings (senses) of the word “he” in your sentence? It only seems to have one meaning from what I can tell.

    As I understand it, in both sentences there are two subjects (using your terminology) but in my sentence, the pronoun has more than one sense whereas in your sentence the pronoun has only one sense. The multiple senses of the pronoun in my sentence is the cause of the problem, not the multiple subjects.

    In my sentence it’s also possible that there is the same ambiguity of subjects as in yours but that is not a given because it depends on which of the senses of the pronoun is intended. And that isn’t clear. Which is the problem.




  • rah@feddit.uktoComic Strips@lemmy.worldThey/Them
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    4 days ago

    There’s no way to know whether the “he” is Dan or Steve.

    Your example sentence is always ambiguous because there is only one sense of the word “he” but two possible objects. My example sentence is always ambiguous because there are two senses of the word “they”. The two situations are completely different linguistic issues.

    Your example is of a poor speaker. My example is of a poor pronoun choice.

    The they/them pronoun isn’t the problem in your example, the structure of the sentence is.

    I disagree entirely.




  • rah@feddit.uktoComic Strips@lemmy.worldThey/Them
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    5 days ago

    You’re going out of your way to create a problem that doesn’t exist.

    The problem does exist, that’s why you’re making suggestions about how to work around the problem. I’ve been confused before by people using “they” as a pronoun in exactly this sense. I’m not going out of my way to create a problem, it’s a problem that I’ve experienced IRL. Please don’t try to invalidate my experience.

    If you just don’t respect people’s identity then admit you’re bigoted instead of hiding behind faulty logic.

    You’re jump to conclusions.





  • rah@feddit.uktoComic Strips@lemmy.worldThey/Them
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    5 days ago

    “I was with Dan (they/them) and Steve the other day. They hadn’t brought a poster they needed and went back to the car to get it.”

    This demonstrates the semantic problem with using “they” as a pronoun: it isn’t clear who went back to the car, (1) just Dan or (2) both Dan and Steve. Nor is it clear who needed the poster and who hadn’t brought it.