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By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.
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Interview: Ask SoylentNews Staff Anything
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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(Score: 1) by johaquila on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:04PM
Unfortunately your post proves that these usage questions can no longer be solved this way by most native speakers because they have started getting even these simple things wrong. The correct (though of course sexist) version of your sentence is (currently) still the following: "The following comments are owned by *him* who posted them."
For further illustration, a very classical example with a nice workaround for the problem:
"*He* that is without sin among you, let *him* first cast a stone at her".
The correct short version of this has always been:
"Let *him* who is without sin cast the first stone at her." (60 Google hits in 19th century books)
But more and more speakers are preferring a new, formerly (and arguably still) ungrammatical version:
"Let *he* who is without sin cast the first stone at her." (8 Google hits in 19th century books)
This new variant already has 50% more Google hits than the old one. There are even reports of copy editors who have already started 'correcting' the correct version into the new one: http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/let-her -who-is-without-error/ [wordpress.com]
This is just normal language change. What used to be wrong becomes right, what used to be right sounds antiquated or even ungrammatical to more and more people, and before you know it we are yet another little step removed from the language of Chaucer.
(Score: 1) by acid andy on Sunday June 01 2014, @04:16PM
It's unlikely that you'll see this reply as the topic is so old now but would an acceptable gender neutral version of the above be: "The following comments are owned by them who posted them."?
I realise that by using they / them rather than he / she you're substituting the sexism for ambiguity between the singular and plural.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by johaquila on Tuesday June 10 2014, @04:41PM
I agree with your solution, though it looks a bit weird. I think that's because during the time when the now antiquated construction with "he who" (or "him who", depending on case) was still in widespread use, singular they was not, or at least not so generally. That's not to say singular they is a recent thing. Starting with Geoffrey Chaucer it has always been part of written English, including in the King James Bible. But of course there were times when it was restricted to certain situations, and times when a lot of people were careful to avoid it in general.
That said, the curves for "he who", "they who" and "them who" in Google's n-gram viewer are essentially parallel, so my feeling may be wrong.