Post your linguistic pet peeves here.
I'll start with with the improper use of the third person plural personal pronoun "they" when the singular form is called for.
(See below for the correct pronoun to use in this case.)
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The back-and-forth of the posts on this page regarding the use of they as a singular adverb underscores why it's unwise to do so. Because there's no way to do so without it coming across as awkward.
This is more than just Commander "Troglodyte" Benson insisting that the old way of using a pronoun when specifying one of a group composed of both sexes was the best way (although I believe it was). The use of the masculine adverb "he/him" fits the easiest into the existing rules of grammar regarding agreement of subject and verb. The next best way (and one which I can tolerate) is to use the adverb phrase "He or she/him or her". While grammatically correct, its weakness is that it's unwieldy.
But the use of "they/them" as a singular adverb makes no sense at all. It forces even more unwieldy choices in the selection of verb form. Besides that, it just doesn't sound right. The Good Mrs. Benson and I watch quite a few cooking shows, and on some of them, a contestant is called upon to select a team from the other contestants. That's when you'll hear a number of statements like this: "The next person I'm picking for my team I'm choosing because they have excellent time-management skills, and they are a superb chef. That's why I'm picking them."
Sentences like that just don't sound right.
It gets even more ridiculous when "they/them" is applied as a singular adverb when it's specifying one from a group obviously composed of one sex. I've heard things on the news like "Out of all the patients in the maternity ward, they were the first to give birth on this Christmas Day."
To the last generation (at least), "they" as a singular pronoun (with the plural-form verb) genuinely sounds less odd than the use of "he" to include women. The use of the masculine pronoun "he/him" may fit the easiest into the existing rules of grammar regarding agreement of subject and verb, but it sounds wrong to many people speaking a language that otherwise doesn't have non-natural gender, like French or Italian. The "gender-neutral" thing probably has always driven the use of "they" as a singular (which can be found as early as the 1300s), though people may not have consciously so-indentified it. He and man as neutral also have a history of being misused ("Man retains the need for food, shelter, and access to his females", "The Rights of Man" interpreted to mean only that, and so forth). You may not like it, but it does seem as though:
"Ain't" has a tortuous history, going back to the 1600s (at least). Its biggest problem is that it has become associated with colloquial/semi-literate speech. I would never recommend, for example, using it on a resume or in a job interview.
The use of the masculine pronoun "he/him" may fit the easiest into the existing rules of grammar...
Here's the way I learned it...
When referring to a random member of a group whose male/female composition is unknown, use the masculine;
When the group is all male, use masculine;
When the group is all female, use feminine;
When the group is majority male, use masculine;
When the group is majority female, use feminine.
My previous department at work comprised 24 people: 22 female and two male. One day we were having a meeting about "best practices" (or some other example of corporate speak) regarding how to find, address and correct mistakes. Referring to no one in particular, I said something along the lines of "the next time she makes a mistake" to which one of my co-workers indignantly interjected, "Or he!" She took it personally but I was simply being grammatically correct. That the masculine should emcompass the feminine may make no more objective sense than the plural emcompassing the singular, but that's the way it is. The LGBTQ crowd may not like it, but they can take comfort in the fact that feminists have never liked it, either.
Regarding the use of "aint," there are some cases I would never not use it.
I gather from your example that the negative thing (a mistake) upset a female coworker because it sounded like the two men would never make a mistake. That was a little thin-skinned.
In English we don't have a word for multiples of "you," unlike Spanish (usted, ustedes; tu, tus) and I assume other Latin-based languages. I didn't have a problem with saying "you all" for the purpose of clarity when I addressed a group.
Using the pronouns "they" and "them" for an individual is clumsy. Use the actual name, a noun, not a promoun. I don't think that would offend anyone.
Last night I consulted Understanding Grammar by Paul Roberts of Cornell University. It is one of the few college textbooks I kept, and I use it frequently in cases such as this. Here is (some of) what Roberts has to say about gender.
"Gender may be defined as the linguistic indication of the sex distinctions in real life. In life we think of people and things as either (1) male, (2) female, (3) either male or female, (4) neither male nor female. These conceptions may be reflected in the grammatical genders of the noun: (1) masculine, (2) feminine, (3) common, (4) neuter... Common gender in English must be reckoned as a notional concept rather than a grammatical catagory, since there is no peculiarity of form by which it is distinguished and since we have no common gender form for the personal pronoun. The latter defect sometimes leads to difficulty and awkwardness:
Somebody called when I was out, but he or she didn't leave his (or her) name.
"On the other hand, it is sometimes useful to have a noun of common gender, as when we don't wish to specify brother or sister and so avail ourselves of sibling."
He and man as neutral also have a history of being misused
"The word man is ambiguous in that it may be masculine (a male human being) or common gender (any human being). In 'Man was put in the world to suffer,' man probably means both man and woman. In 'Be a man,' it means man, not woman. The ambiguity of man has encouraged the substantive use of human. Many people still object to this, however...
"When we must use pronouns to refer to common gender nouns or to pronouns embracing both sexes, we commonly use the masculine: 'Every picknicker must bring his own lunch,' 'Everyone raised his hand.' Often, however, we are bothered by this illogicality and either say 'his or her' or revise the sentence to eliminate the pronoun. When we deal with those lesser beings about whose sex we are ignorant or incurious, we commonly use the neuter: 'I lunged at the mosquito but missed it,' 'I hooked a fish and played it carefully.' Babies are generally neuter: 'The tot bumped its head.'"
In English we don't have a word for multiples of "you," unlike Spanish and I assume other Latin-based languages.
"All Indo-European languages posess gender systems, but in all of them the correspondence between sex and gender is imperfect, and in some the inconsistencies are rampant. In French nouns, for example, there is no neuter or common gender, only masculine and feminine; a house is feminine (la laison), a kiss is masculine (le baiser). In German a young lady is neuter (das Mädchen); so is a woman (das Weib); but a mouse, even a male mouse, is feminine (die Maus). These irrationalities have prompted many inquiries into the origin of gender in language and its relation to the actuality of sex, but still no one can prove just how grammatical gender came about."
While I was on that shelf I decided to consult Strunk and White's The Elements of Style as final arbiter:
"The use of he as a pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. Currently, however, many writers find the use of the generic he or his to rename indefinite antecedants limiting or offensive. Substituting he or she is the logical thing to do if it works. But it often doesn't work, if only because repetition makes it sound boring or silly."
Use the actual name, a noun, not a pronoun. I don't think that would offend anyone.
I agree that that solution is unlikely to offend anyone, but it may not pass Strunk and White's "boring or silly" test: "Mary entered Mary's pie in the baking contest."
"No one need fear to use he if common sense supports it. If you think she is a handy substitute for he, try it and see what happens. Alternitively, put all controversial nouns in the plural and avoid the choice of sex altogether, although you may find your prose sounding general and diffuse as a result."
An example of this suggestion is, instead of saying "The writer must address his readers' concerns," say "Writers must address their readers' concerns." It has been my observation that in most cases the use of this suggestion would eliminate the problem.
To the last generation (at least), "they" as a singular pronoun (with the plural-form verb) genuinely sounds less odd than the use of "he" to include women.
I must agree with you there, Mr. DeLuzio. The current generation and the one before it have been so oversensitised to the merest hint of a micro-aggression ("Paddy wagon!" "Indian giver!" "Welshing on a bet!" I'd go on, but that would put me in Dutch with those folks---oops! Can't say that.) that they detect social "impropriety" before improper grammar.
You are also correct, sir, when you state that English-speakers had been using they/them as a singular, as well as a plural, pronoun since the 1700's. In fact, it was a common practice throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Whether it was driven by the fact that English has no epicene pronoun or not, I cannot say---at least, not without more research---but I do know that, around the beginning of the eighteenth century, English grammarians had started protesting the practice of using they/them as also a singular pronoun for the very reasons raised here: it was confusing to the ear and awkward in terms of adhering to the rules of agreement between subject and verb.
So, of course, being a patriarchic society, the males in charge forced the idea of using he/his as a singular pronoun when refering to one of a group composed of both sexes . . .
Actually, no.
English grammarian Anne Fisher (1719-78) was the first woman to publish an English dictionary. Her most notable work was A New Grammar (1745), a book outlaying the rules of English grammar. It proved to be so popular that it was published continuously through 1800. The reason I bring her up is that, in this work, Miss Fisher was the first grammarian to indicate that, for clarity, the male pronoun be used in cases involving both sexes. In this practise, she was strongly supported by English language reformers Thomas Sheridan, an elocutor, and Thomas Spence, a socialist who believed in the equality of the sexes. The idea of using a male pronoun for both sexes found favour with other grammarians and was inserted into their works. That's how the convention took root as a rule of English grammar, and persisted until at least the 1980's.
It's funny. Often, when I rail against some improper usage of a term or phrase, someone usually chimes in with the argument that "The English language evolves," as a way of justifying the wide-spread erroneous usage. (I don't dispute that; I merely vouchsafe that the English language also devolves and with more frequency than it evolves.) But, somehow, when I insist that using the male pronoun in instances of both sexes is more convenient and more fitting to the rules of English grammar than using they/them as a singular pronoun, I'm guessing that I'm not going to hear the argument that "the English language evolves."
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