Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AK>  I remember that in Russia a tsar used plural pronouns for
AK>  a single person. He wrote his decrees in the following way:
AK>  "We, the great tsar of Russia, declare..."


           This usage... generally limited to reigning monarchs... is known in
English as "the royal we".  Queen Victoria commented "We are not amused" on an
occasion when someone told a risqué joke within her hearing.  I understand the
original idea was that the monarch spoke on behalf of his/her country....  :-)



AK>  It is difficult to fight with people when they have a bad
AK>  habit. I remember a thing from Pygmalion, by Bernard Shaw:
AK>  -----Beginning of the citation-----
AK>  HIGGINS.  How the devil do I know what's to become of you?
AK>  What does it matter what becomes of you?

AK>  LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care.  You wouldn't
AK>  care if I was dead. I'm nothing to you -- not so much as
AK>  them slippers.

AK>  HIGGINS [thundering] THOSE slippers.
AK>  ----- The end of the citation -----

AK>  I still cannot see the logic why she used _them_ instead of
AK>  _those_. ;-) It is not a kind of error a Russian could make.


           No... it's the sort of error a lower-class native speaker who'd had
little or no formal education would have made at the time of writing.  Higgins
conducted an experiment to find out whether a young adult who was motivated to
learn would be able to change habitual speech patterns.  Both he & his student
seem to have reverted to old habits when they were emotionally upset....  :-))

           Those who are not native speakers of English tend to make different
errors.  People from Russia have difficulty with articles, for the same reason
people from China have difficulty with plurals:  the rules are a bit different
in their language.  I see no need to pluralize "broccoli", e.g., because it is
plural already... yet I would say "a bunch of grapes".  When I visit the local
greengrocery I understand that from a Chinese POV it might be more appropriate
to say "one potato, two potato, three potato" (i.e. a counting game used in my
childhood).  From my POV as an advanced student of English it's easier to sort
out many of the apparent inconsistencies with a dictionary which explains what
language xxx came from & how it was spelled in this language at the time.  :-)



 >>>  Its use in formal English has become more common with the
 >>>  trend toward gender-neutral language,

 AH>  It has become more common in recent years, but not because
 AH>  the mood at the time of its resurgence took into account
 AH>  that our ancestors knew things we might well pay attention
 AH>  to.  Quite the contrary... Jerry Rubin, e.g., made headlines
 AH>  when he advised other folks not to trust anybody over 30.  I
 AH>  suppose they must have followed his advice because he doesn't
 AH>  make headlines now. ;-)

AK>  I imagine what does a foreign student think when he hears
AK>  the sentence like the first sentence in last paragraph. 
AK>  After reading it ten times I think I understood what you
AK>  meant. ;=)


           Good point.  Alexander has been with us for over a decade, he reads
widely, and I know that if he doesn't understand what I'm babbling about he'll
say so... but I don't mean to leave him & other folks behind in the dust.  :-)

           It appears that native speakers of English saw a need for a gender-
neutral singular pronoun centuries ago & began using "they" for the purpose in
colloquial speech.  Some grammarian(s) disapproved.  But some later writers...
notably George Bernard Shaw & Winston Churchill... questioned what they'd been
taught about how things "should" be done.  I suppose everyone wants to improve
on what previous generations have accomplished.  Sometimes there may be a hint
of adolescent rebellion... most evident in the late 1960's & early 1970's when
teenagers & young adults hoped to improve on what their parents & grandparents
had done.  I've yet to hear anyone admit to building on ideas which came to us
during the Renaissance, and which we've adopted with a few minor changes.  :-Q




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)