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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Yeah, those examples are precisely what I mean. The article you linked to explains exactly what I mean, even stating that Shakespeare wouldn’t have used “they” if he knew the gender of the person he referred to.

    The referents in these cases are general, not specific people. “Not a man” - no one, not referring to a specific person. “Some more audience than a mother” - someone else than a mother, not a specific person. “Each one” - not a specific person but every person.

    If you look at dictionary definitions over the centuries, you’ll find singular they mentioned, but always specifically for this general meaning.

    As an added note I don’t think it makes a difference if the current use is new or not, and it shouldn’t matter in this debate. Language changes all the time, even if people resist it.












  • The words can be copyrighted alright, that’s not the problem here. Even without publishing them, the creator already has copyright over his 624 words. There’s probably nobody who would be interested in publishing them because, let’s face it, they aren’t that interesting on their own, unlike a novel or a poem. All the stuff that makes this a piece of art is added by the AI, whereas a printing press adds very little to nothing to a book.