Neopronouns

well i knew it was Bob at least

Bob was shocked "what do you mean?" Bob exclaimed "why can't I have my preferred pronouns?" Bob cried. Bob took Bob's handkerchief out of Bob's pocket and Bob blew Bob's nose loudly. "What have I ever done to you that you would treat me like this" Bob shakily uttered "We are family". Then Bob walked away.

Doesn't really work

Glorianny

I refuse to get involved in a hypothetical discussion about an exam question which no one seems to actually have read. That's truly cloud cuckoo land.

So the book I read had a non-binary person as the hero. Naturally they were referred to as "they". How else should an author refer to a non-binary character?

I thought you would refuse to accept that it was difficult to navigate. Of course nobody has read the real question - it is on a thread where the OP is anonymous!

Other readers who don't struggle with analogies will see the point, I'm sure. Using plural pronouns complicates language (when not used to indicate plurals or people of non-specific sex). It does so in far more simple ways, such as when someone is talking about a person as 'they' and it isn't clear whether one person is being referred to or more, and it must be very difficult for someone struggling with autism and/or dyslexia to be expected to cope with it in an educational setting. I'm surprised the Diversity teams aren't all over it.

by their name I suppose?

I refuse to get involved in a hypothetical discussion about an exam question which no one seems to actually have read. That's truly cloud cuckoo land.

So the book I read had a non-binary person as the hero. Naturally they were referred to as "they". How else should an author refer to a non-binary character?

I was talking about galaxy

What's that, Jane? Are we still talking about Justine from MN?

I don't know anything about her, other than that she allows women a space to say what was becoming unsayable until recently. I'll have a google later.

kiss arse more like

She has always been brave way before this issue.
What a crawler I am

Well, I laughed

Galaxy

As I say MN will be just fine.
Justine has balls of steel in my view. Always has done.

Agreed, Galaxy. When all this is over (which I have to believe will happen sooner rather than later) she will get a medal for services to women.

VioletSky

Thou could stop using "mangled" pronouns if thou wish doodledog

But I hereby reserve the right to point it out when you do it for the rest of eternity

I've never denied thee (or wished to deny thee) that right, VS. Nor do I feel the need to keep telling thee how to live thy life.

I don't usually mangle pronouns, unless I'm being careless. We shouldn't be teaching children careless habits, even if we slip into them ourselves.

I use 'their' as plural and when the sex of the person to whom the pronoun is attached is unknown or not applicable (eg to an animal). I use contemporary English as a rule, not being from a generation or geographical region that uses archaic ones, but can mix and match to suit the register I'm using. I can't remember the last time I used an archaic register (probably in an English exam back in the day, when writing about the shift in the language from a strongly to a weakly inflected one leading to a shift in pronouns in general usage), but whatever.

As usual though, you have picked up on a tiny and unimportant part of a post and ignored the hard bit. Can you make sense of the hypothetical question I posed? If not (and I wouldn't blame you), can you see how 'Alison, Basil Caroline and Daniel each have an equal share of £100 that was earned from gardening. Daniel already has £20 leftover from his birthday. If Alison gives all of her share to Bobby, who gives half of it to Caroline, who then gives a third of her money to Daniel, how much does Daniel have to spend? If Caroline buys all the girls a present with her share of the money, what would each present cost?' would be easier (to follow if not to calculate)? Why use the former and not the latter?

I'm aware

I’m not altering my vocabulary to suit a tiny number of vociferous people.
If you call yourself “we” I’ll assume you’re royalty or have worms.

You dont need to go on it. Although technically you are on it now. GN being an offshoot of MN.

Cool

Did you read what Gagajo said?

Echo Chambers have never been for me

As I say MN will be just fine.
Justine has balls of steel in my view. Always has done.

And I'm from a generation who still uses "you" plural and has to change it because otherwise some may take it personally lol

Thou could stop using "mangled" pronouns if thou wish doodledog

But I hereby reserve the right to point it out when you do it for the rest of eternity

Glorianny

The first story I read that used "they" for its main character caused me lots of problems. I really had to think about it and sometimes felt a bit lost. But like many skills it improved with practice.
So perhaps all that is required in the case of the child is more experience of literature which uses the devices he struggles with.

Yes, and if the case in point were A level literature or something I'd absolutely agree.

But I get the impression that it was something like 'Ali, Bobby Chris and Danny each have an equal share of £100 that was earned from gardening. Danny already has £20 leftover from their birthday. If Ali gives all of their share to Bobby, who gives half of it to Chris, who then gives a third of their money to Danny, how much does Danny have to spend? If Chris buys all the girls a present with their share of the money, what would each present cost?

Obviously I don't know the subject being examined, and I've made that up off the top of my head, so it might not work logically. I have no idea of the answer, and I don't care, so no 'Gotcha's please . It's the use of gender-neutral names and plural pronouns that makes it difficult to follow. I doubt that anything real would be anything like as badly worded as this, as it was deliberately made incomprehensible, (although who knows?), but the principle stands.

It is confusing for neurotypical people to follow mangled pronouns, and deliberately using gender-neutral names in an attempt to be 'inclusive' confuses things further. For people with particular types of neurodiversity (and I would have thought it was obvious that not all are the same) I can see how tricky it might be to make even a neater version of my question sense.

At 46, it's either always been usual for me or just happened naturally It's obviously crept into everyone else's language as the first example is in the OP and there are many more.

The first example I could find was Shakespeare "Everybody has their failings" and the fact that he was told he should have used "his". I thought that a gender neutral pronoun once being "he or his" was very interesting. Very sexist, it almost assumes the reader or listener male as if women wouldn't trouble themselves with something

The first story I read that used "they" for its main character caused me lots of problems. I really had to think about it and sometimes felt a bit lost. But like many skills it improved with practice.
So perhaps all that is required in the case of the child is more experience of literature which uses the devices he struggles with.

Lucca

We have non gender specific pronouns so other languages having them would make it easier I would have thought not harder

Learning a language with no gender specific pronouns even easier

Well when you take something relatively small like:

Someone saying they won't use certain pronouns because they believe them to be plural rather than singular... despite actually using those pronouns themselves in the singular

It actually becomes really easy to see how people's beliefs twist and tarnish something small and normal that does not involve trans people at all into a bigger issue that is (in their own heads) the fault of trans people

So.. yes, unmoderated discussion of gender critical issues can turn to discrimination and hate speech when actual issues present themselves

When that happens, people can bring literal legal implications to forums like demanding they reveal the contact information of their users in order to prosecute users for discrimination or hate speech.. which has actually already happened

Forums generally don't want any part of that