2322. Sam (cpe00119506c8b1-cm000a739a6669.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com) – 04 Apr 2005 00:19:34 [ They are a woman ]

That makes no sense at all. NO SENSE. Wow.. deep. Not. LOL

2321. effika (ip68-97-28-142.ok.ok.cox.net) – 03 Apr 2005 15:12:32 [ They are a woman ]

Ack, not "their" as singular. Plural. Ack.

2320. effika (ip68-97-28-142.ok.ok.cox.net) – 03 Apr 2005 15:10:20 [ They are a woman ]

When the gender is unknown, I feel that in casual context it's OK to use "they" and "their" as singular pronouns. However, Clinton clearly knew the gender of the people she was speaking of, and should have used "she", or "they are women" as given above.

TASP doesn't seem confusing to me at all. This may be because I grew up in the rural midwest and have heard it all my life. :-) Usually when TASP is needed the context supplies the count of the subject, if not the gender. (IE-- "Who do you think the winner will be?" "I don't know, but they will have to beat my mother's amazing carrot cake.")

English obviously needs a nuetral singular pronoun that isn't "it", as "it" seems to be reserved for non-human things.

I don't think TASP should be carried over into writing, but having it in the spoken vernacular solves a particular problem.

A note on the singular/plural "you" problem: I've started using "vous" when I mean plural-you. My friends thought I was crazy at first, but they started using it as well. English has taken so many other words from French, why not a prounoun?

2319. Stephan (fl-69-68-129-98.dyn.sprint-hsd.net) – 03 Apr 2005 12:49:25 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

A note about the 'half tile cropping' problem seen in XP when the window is maximized: if you maximize the window, then minimize it to the task bar and finally restore or re-maximize, it redraws the window properly, without the cropping.

2318. Anonymous (pcp01935919pcs.hamden01.ct.comcast.net) – 03 Apr 2005 11:59:04 [ They are a woman ]

I mean they and thine.

2317. Anonymous (pcp01935919pcs.hamden01.ct.comcast.net) – 03 Apr 2005 11:57:20 [ They are a woman ]

At least one of you is a purist, but I'm not sure who you are.

2316. FARINA00 (host226-98.pool8536.interbusiness.it) – 02 Apr 2005 07:05:43 [ They are a woman ]

I didn't follow this leviathan-thread, but I just want to take the chance to tell you (Tobot or everyone? :)) that your "you are X" used both for "Tobot is X" and "Everyone is X" is our doom when learning english. Back to the roots! Back to Britannia!

2315. Tom 7 (h-67-101-139-156.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 02 Apr 2005 00:39:23 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

Can you tell me anything about what you did and what happened (or didn't)?

2314. peeznluv (pool-71-101-103-176.tampfl.dsl-w.verizon.net) – 01 Apr 2005 23:50:52 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

Just downloaded your game, Tom 7, and couldn't get anything to happen. I'm on G4 (eMac,) 10.3.8 768MB DDR SDRAM
?

2313. Cloud Street (p32218-adsau04yokonib2-acca.kanagawa.ocn.ne.jp) – 01 Apr 2005 23:41:04 [ They are a woman ]

I've got no problem with Hilary using the word 'diss' - language is meant to evolve and change. But the use of TASP is a different matter. Whereas 'diss' evolved naturally, TASP is forced down our necks by pretentious politicians and the increasingly safe media who are destroying a language in their own self interest.

By making words taboo, you only serve to increase their negative features. Words like ‘Paki’ and ‘Black’ still feature in Australia’s media and it was only after moving overseas that I considered them derogatory. As everyone is fully aware, it’s not the word but the intent that’s the issue. Remove one word and we’ll find another to use in its place. How many ‘official’ words for black have America been through now?

2312. Lord British (mheath.stu.wesleyan.edu) – 01 Apr 2005 15:13:43 [ They are a woman ]

I beg thy pardon!

2311. Tom 7 (h-67-101-139-156.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 31 Mar 2005 20:34:28 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

Yeah, the problem only shows up in the XP theme. Perhaps SDL has some hard-coded size for the title bar, which is definitely a bug. For now, I guess just don't maximize it and I'll see if I can get the bug fixed in SDL.

2310. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 31 Mar 2005 14:46:50 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

Hmmm.. this is weird. I don't see it on my systems; are you using the default XP theme? (Maybe it's because I'm still in "classic" mode that I don't see it).

If anything, this is probably a bug in the SDL. I'll see if I can track it down...

2309. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 31 Mar 2005 14:42:07 [ They are a woman ]

Again, I disagree that I'm just showing it's possible, because this is a real example spoken by a presumably intelligent person. (As a descriptivist, isn't that precisely what actually matters?) Are you saying there's correlation but not causation? It's true that it's not a very large sample size ;), but it's still an example.

Overloading is bad when it leads to ambiguity or confusion. I think I would prefer a language with different words for singular and plural 'you,' yes. Many languages have it, and we have constructions in English like "you guys" and (in Pittsburgh dialects!) "yinz" to fill the apparent need. But we don't really get to choose what's "in our language," do we? We speak within the confines of what will be intelligible to the listener, and if we're trying to speak well, we avoid saying things that will be confusing or upsetting, since that tends to distract from our message. I feel any descriptivist view of language must take this sociological process of "right" and "wrong" grammar into account! The thou/you distinction is bad (although it might "be better" if we could simultaneously make everyone not think that it sounds like dungeons and dragons or whatever) because it annoys the listener, unless he is Gary Gygax or Lord British. TASP is also bad (but it would probably "be better" if we could simultaneously make everyone not think of it as a mistake, and even better if we could introduce a different singular pronoun that is universally understood). It's bad because it annoys some listeners (because it is considered "wrong" by most "experts"), increases ambiguity, and, in my opinion (based on anecdotal evidence and one actual data point), also leads to other "mistakes" like the one(s) in Hillary's quote.

On the other hand, avoiding TASP is easy, and makes you ingelligible to just about every potential listener.

2308. Joshua Bone (adsl-69-208-179-181.dsl.emhril.ameritech.net) – 31 Mar 2005 10:14:52 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

Tom,

I also have the problem that Stephan reported. When in 'edit' mode, maximizing the window results in the top row of game tiles being half-hidden. It is difficult to click on the tile you want in this mode, as the game often thinks you are clicking on the tile above the intended target.

2307. jcreed (pool-71-240-3-218.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 31 Mar 2005 09:47:09 [ They are a woman ]

This apologist doesn't think TASP is "bad overloading" any more than the singular/plural overloading on "you" is, or any more than the nominative/accusative overloading on "who" is.

In fact "you" is a terrific example, since historically early on (if I have my facts right) there was unambiguously the singular "thou" and the plural "you", but the plural "you" was co-opted into the singular number although syntactically it's still treated the same as the plural for the purposes of verb conjugation. We don't say "you is", (nor do we say "you art") we say "you are", just as we say "they are". We don't say "you walks" (nor do we say "you walkst") we say "you walk", just as we say "they walk".

Is this a problem? If we found people who say "you is" (and I bet we could) are they being more correct than us?

Few people say things like "and to the people assembled before me, I say: you are a woman" (which similarly puts pressure on you to be plural from one side and singular from the other) because it's obviously ungrammatical even according to the YASP apologist's notion of grammaticality. You're not showing that it's more likely to be confused and make mistakes with a different sense of grammaticality, you're just showing that it's possible.

2306. Anonymous (12-218-107-244.client.mchsi.com) – 31 Mar 2005 04:35:46 [ Math Shirts ]

Teri Shivo needs the Quadratic equation.

2305. Max (ce-web3.wesleyan.edu) – 31 Mar 2005 00:21:17 [ NEW: Escape Beta 2! ]

Great, next you're gonna tell me I need three different kinds of spacebars...

2304. Anonymous (203.97.42.84) – 30 Mar 2005 17:54:32 [ FLAMING TEXT ]

U ALL SUCK 2 THE DAZES

2303. Anonymous (203.97.42.84) – 30 Mar 2005 17:52:46 [ FLAMING TEXT ]

IS THIS A CHATING LINE

2302. Anonymous (203.97.42.84) – 30 Mar 2005 17:52:17 [ FLAMING TEXT ]

HELLO EVERYONE

2301. Max (ce-web3.wesleyan.edu) – 30 Mar 2005 17:38:47 [ They are a woman ]

Right, Hillary Clinton would have been fine if he or she avoided TASP!

2300. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 30 Mar 2005 16:33:49 [ They are a woman ]

That's not the only thing I'm observing. I think that this specific disagreement would not have happened if it hadn't been for the speaker's habit of using TASP. The correlation of number disagreement with the use of TASP here (which "most" consider a mistake, but surely apologists at least agree that TASP is "overloaded" in a bad way with regard to its plurality) is surely a data point in favor of the "leads to" hypothesis.

Nobody with the intellectual ability of (even) Hillary Clinton would have made this kind of mistake if he or she just avoided TASP in the first place.

2299. jcreed (wittgenstein.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 30 Mar 2005 12:48:06 [ They are a woman ]

I disagree that observing that number disagreement is still possible means that TASP "leads to" more confusion.

2298. Tom 7 (h-67-100-132-172.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 30 Mar 2005 11:36:36 [ They are a woman ]

cdqr, hah!

marc: My point is that using T-A-S-P like this tends to lead to confusion over number agreement, which leads to even grosser grammatical problems. I'm not trying to say that this is a use that staunch T-A-S-P defenders like jcreed would accept.

Moreover, this is an easy sentence to express, unambiguously and unsexistly, if you don't try to use 'they,' which is at least one data point in the argument over whether such a pronoun is needed.