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(Title from a pm I received concerning a recent comment on a (particularly beautiful) poem in sonnet practice.)
The subject is how we handle the thickets of convention that make up a language, specifically the one in which we're writing our poetry.
For example, consider a choice between
"Anyone can say whatever he wants"
versus
"Anyone can say whatever they want"
The first is correct according to the convention that when forced to use an indeterminate singular in English, the male gender is used. (There are, no doubt, books saying otherwise now, but that's just PC; there are also books about how to recognize and cauterize a witch. Languages change by evolution, not command.) But the second, while apparently the new standard according to some "authorities," has its own problems. Try reading it as
"Anyone can say whatever THEY want"
which implies, "but not whatever HE wants," and we're back on the merry-go-round looking for an indeterminate singular which does not exist. (Artifacts like "xhe" and "xe" don't help - they're just replacements for "he" even if they were real.)
THE QUESTION IS, does the superior poet find a path between by changing the structure - "One can say whatever one wants" - or meditate on the fact that every individual (and separable thing) has a gender in English. In its way, it's worse than German, where gender is arbitrary.
What do you think? Here, at least, anyone can say whatever one wants.
 Non-practicing atheist
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When I read a book I prefer the language to follow official rules. When I write a book I write how people talk, and the same person can talk different from sentence to sentence. That includes they as a singular gender neutral noun or pronoun or whatever. Language is music with guidelines and riffing on and off them. I think knowing the rules of language is more important than using them. And not knowing all of them is a healthy kind of Ignorance. I don't think innovation is best always when it's intentional.
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This problem wouldn’t exist if English had gendered nouns, like all Indo European languages
Maybe it’s time to go back to the roots of the language and amend the grammar appropriately
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(09-29-2019, 07:35 AM)busker Wrote: This problem wouldn’t exist if English had gendered nouns, like all Indo European languages
Maybe it’s time to go back to the roots of the language and amend the grammar appropriately
Certainly we would then find another problem.
Regarding the question -- I haven't a clue.
I'd like to say
"any man can say whatever he wants"
"any woman can say whatever she wants"
"any person can say whatever that person wants"
because I've always felt that using 'one' lacks specificity, but 'one' is still valid in my mind. That being said, I don't believe the forms I've listed here are anything close to being right, practical, or complete. Languages have limitations. I could never expect to express the same thoughts in poetry as a painter can in canvas, or a musician in an instrument.
If I did own the language, I might create a word, as others have tried, but without the silly use of a letter as worthless as X. My gender-neutral-species-neutral-alignment-neutral-third-person-singular would be Ne, accompanied by the gender-neutral-species-neutral-alignment-neutral-third-person-plural Ney, which is distinctly devoid of any male or female parties.
The basic declension would be
he/she/ne -- they/ney
him/her/ner -- them/nem
his/hers/ners -- theirs/neirs
Does the decision to use any particular form over another turn someone into a superior poet? Of course not. Should poets migrate toward any particular usage? Of course not.
For the time being, I'll simply wait until there is enough natural evolution before I consider any alternatives. I've literally never heard anyone attempt to use something other than "they" in real conversation, but perhaps when the language tends toward a new unity on the matter I'll apply it in my writing.
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
"Or, if a poet writes a poem, then immediately commits suicide (as any decent poet should)..." -- Erthona
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I don’t see it as a problem with the language, but again with word choice. He is free to say want he wants or They can or we all can.
Any of us can say what we want
Anyone can say what one wants.
Anyone is singular, they is plural, he is unnecessarily gender specific.
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I think to say what you want is a tiny bit of a cheat unless it,s a colloquialism. To me you should when possible say what's correct and if you,re not sure say what you think is correct. That said with creative writing we should be allowed to be creative with any rule. Within certain boundaries, depend on any given...
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An historical aside,
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The singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after plural they. It has been commonly employed in everyday English ever since then, and has gained currency in official contexts, though it has been strongly criticized at least since the late-19th century by prescriptive experts as they deem it to be an "error". Its use in modern standard English has become more common and accepted with the trend toward gender-neutral language, though most style guides continue to discourage it, considering it colloquial and less appropriate in formal writing.
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I feel 'he or she', ''I would say that he or she should . . .'' is ugly language. They is better, in rhythm. I don't like the scholarly she or her that has replaced the patriarchic he in many recent books, last twenty years. He was generic. She is political. I choose generic over political.
But that's not to say I'm not a feminist. I find women superior to men in every way. In fact, I find men to be very unsavory and unsatsifactory and unattractive. I'm much more likely to perform domestic violence on a man than on a woman. Especially if he's married to my girlfriend.
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A few random thoughts...
The other colloquialism is avoiding (evading?) the issue by using second person:
"You can say whatever you want."
This often draws suppressive fire in poetry, not so much for informality as the way it presumes about someone else's state of mind, I guess. The presumption is stronger in other uses
"You see whatever you want in clouds and abstract art."
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On the original question, who owns the language - maybe it owns itself, and we're just guests using the facilities it provides until we transgress so far as to be incomprehensible.
I'm fascinated by nonsense, and the way it's circumscribed. For example, the difference between "swizzle" and "dizzle." The first is somebody's long-accepted alliteration with "stick" and has essentially no other use - but it's a proper word. The other falls instantly through the seive of all the possible meanings any of us knows (hanging up briefly, for some, on "deazle," the opposite of "widdershins" or a misspelling of "diesel") and out the bottom as nonsense.
Use of "they" falls through the "proper" filter in "if anyone objects, we'll know who they are" and is caught in "informal," but understood. A language consists of all those varied filters and properties; it owns itself. We write a poem in a language, and (unless it's a nonsense poem, but even then) it either stays within the envelope or has a few pseudopods that burst through but remain connected.
Otherwise the poem is meaningless. And what does that mean, anyway?
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Language study is already one layer away from the poem. You read the poem as impact, then you read it as critic. If it goes back to impact after read as critic, it's a poem. If you read a poem as impact and read it as a critic at the same time, it's still a poem, and you're a different kind of reader. And the poem is different, and that's all the better for the poem, even negative. Language isn't anything like it looks like. There's almost something wrong in the sound of language the way it looks like.
I remember making points to Leanne about whether a poem should be read the same as it looks on the page. She favored the way it looks on the page. And I do too. I do, but I also favor reading it differently. I think seeing it on the page can have its effect, and reading it out loud can have its own different effect, not taking away or differing from the written effect. I assume she agreed at least somewhat, because she didn't contest me when I said that.
Like a song live. It doesn't take away from, maybe even enhances the album version. And like language. I talk and write depending on how I feel at the moment. And when I'm having to stick to the overall thing of some specific art thing, I talk or write within the how the specific art thing should be to be what it is.
As an example, I mean look at this recent thing: I wrote a whole post, using language and concepts to build up a context where it would make extraphilosophicalsociologicalpoetic sense for me to deliver the line, when it comes to hotness: Where does Zooey Deschanel end and the sun begin? . . . I mean, in some incarnation in some point in history, she has to at least give me a kiss on the cheek for working that into the social discourse. And funnily enough, you'd think there'd be hundreds of poetry sites, but there aren't that many. . . . So Zooey, if you're getting into poetry . . . if you're reading this. I was in love with you before you were married; and you've been married twice. So Zooey . . .
The point is: language is language, whether it's understood or not. I tends, and trends, to be more useful to the most of us when it is
It* [last line, post colon, sentence two]. . . . understood
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