Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
“They’s inhumanity to they” just doesn’t sound right.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Including the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians, according to your recent posts. You are the same kind of Christian as Putin, apparently.
To defend British territory then anything is on the cards.
There is also a distinction between defending your nation's territory, like the Falkland Islands and invading a neighbouring nation's territory like Putin.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine is more like Galtieri's invasion of the Falklands and the Ukranians are doing everything to defend their territory as we did to defend the Falklands
Edward N Luttwak @ELuttwak · 18h Putin has check-mated himself: his armor-mechanized forces cannot enter Kiev without suffering huge casualties, and neither can they stay outside without being attacked by drones and AT missiles. In the meantime, Russia is losing its best people: Izabella Tabarovsky in Tablet
I also hope we've not paid blackmail to let her go free.
You are brighter than this Barty. Remember that bit in Three Kings they explained what it’s all about by pouring oil down his throat?
Message intercepted to Moscow from Iranian Committee for Building Relationships with Infidels and Heretics. ++Thank you for the £400M of British tax payer money. ++We have new markets for our oil despite being gulfs bad guys for goodness knows how long ++hard cheese as our new best buddies say ++Enjoy hell with the Great Satan
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Ukraine could agree to what Russians call "neutral status" but according to the Ukrainian model. That means legally verified security guarantees: in case of war signatories provide weapons and air defense immediately without bureaucratic procedures or conditions, - UA Negotiator https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1504043359928819720
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
Well compared to defeating China alone over Hong Kong (hence the 1997 handover went ahead) or defeating Russia over Ukraine, then defeating Argentina, which had less effectively trained troops or pilots than ours, a smaller navy and did not have nuclear weapons unlike us was not that difficult yes.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
Are you sure about that?
He might actually be right for once - Argentina's military has largely collapsed. Due to persistent non-payment of bills, they can't even buy spares for the equipment they nominally have.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
“They’s inhumanity to they” just doesn’t sound right.
It would be "their inhumanity to them" wouldn't it? Try using it in a sentence.
A kidnapper has been keeping a victim chained in a cellar. Their inhumanity to them shocked the Police when it was discovered.
I also hope we've not paid blackmail to let her go free.
You are brighter than this Barty. Remember that bit in Three Kings they explained what it’s all about by pouring oil down his throat?
Message intercepted to Moscow from Iranian Committee for Building Relationships with Infidels and Heretics. ++Thank you for the £400M of British tax payer money. ++We have new markets for our oil despite being gulfs bad guys for goodness knows how long ++hard cheese as our new best buddies say ++Enjoy hell with the Great Satan
Slight correction, the £400 million was for tanks that we never delivered, due to the Iranian revolution. It is, legally, Iranian money. So we are giving them their own money back.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
Well compared to defeating China alone over Hong Kong (hence the 1997 handover went ahead) or defeating Russia over Ukraine, then defeating Argentina, which had less effectively trained troops or pilots than ours, a smaller navy and did not have nuclear weapons unlike us was not that difficult yes.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
Are you sure about that?
He might actually be right for once - Argentina's military has largely collapsed. Due to persistent non-payment of bills, they can't even buy spares for the equipment they nominally have.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
I normally don't have much time for Truss, but a big shout out to her over this.
It will be interesting if Mrs Ratcliffe comments on the former FS's Reuters comments over the next few weeks. I suspect she will not. It might still be worth the PM trying not to score a political point here nonetheless.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
Well compared to defeating China alone over Hong Kong (hence the 1997 handover went ahead) or defeating Russia over Ukraine, then defeating Argentina, which had less effectively trained troops or pilots than ours, a smaller navy and did not have nuclear weapons unlike us was not that difficult yes.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
It was difficult. We lost a lot of men and ship. If the Argentinians had sunk an aircraft carrier it would have hung in the balance. I wasn't comparing to Russia or China but was furious by your comments like 'we could easily beat them', which was either ignorant or insulting to those who fought. I knew some. I would love you to say that to their face.
I think a rapprochement with Iran is a good thing as long as they don't get the bomb. If their economy expands then moderate liberal urban cultural forces will strengthen.
How to handle Russia - God knows. We will have to seriously beef up our military and somehow try to encourage liberal tendencies inside Russia whilst keeping them as weak as possible. Or will Russia dissolve into internal conflict?
China - more care over their acquiring technology so that the West has military technology superiority. Academic contacts need to be policed more. The Chinese plan seems still be for increasing living standards to preserve stability so while that continues it constrains their room for aggressive actions.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
Well compared to defeating China alone over Hong Kong (hence the 1997 handover went ahead) or defeating Russia over Ukraine, then defeating Argentina, which had less effectively trained troops or pilots than ours, a smaller navy and did not have nuclear weapons unlike us was not that difficult yes.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
I think that's just wrong - and comes from a "post-dictionary" conception of language as something static that can be defined and written down, rather than an evolving means of written, and verbal communication.
So it isn't a "quirk of linguistic history"; you can't say "x means y" because x used to mean y.
For example, "meat" until fairly recently (~14thC), meant "anything solid that was eaten". And it even more recently (~20thC) became used in its figurative form to mean "the substantive part" of something.
Even more starkly, "nice" means "ignorant", until it went through several transformations through the C16, C17 and C18 until it reached the current meaning of "pleasant".
So we don't have singular, gender-neutral pronouns in He and Him. They long since ceased to be gender neutral.
As ideas change, we develop language to accommodate and communicate them succinctly and with minimal confusion in the transition. "Re-adopting he/him" doesn't meet the need of the idea being communicated.
ETA: I do realise you are being deliberately flip, and aren't in fact an idiot. But I see the notion repeated so often by people who are sufficiently idiotic to think they are providing a clever riposte that it gets my goat!
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
From my Russian relatives who are dealing with ex-friends etc in Russia - The current Russian view is that EU/NATO is all one big thing - they see it as like Warsaw Pact/COMECON.
They would be very, very unhappy with Ukrainian membership of either
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
It’s not up to Putin. It’s up to Ukranians and their government how they wish to conduct themselves.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
From my Russian relatives who are dealing with ex-friends etc in Russia - The current Russian view is that EU/NATO is all one big thing - they see it as like Warsaw Pact/COMECON.
They would be very, very unhappy with Ukrainian membership of either
In a way, EU membership is even worse, as it would influence the very culture of Ukraine and be much westernising to it than NATO membership would.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
I think that's just wrong - and comes from a "post-dictionary" conception of language as something static that can be defined and written down, rather than an evolving means of written, and verbal communication.
So it isn't a "quirk of linguistic history"; you can't say "x means y" because x used to mean y.
For example, "meat" until fairly recently (~14thC), meant "anything solid that was eaten". And it even more recently (~20thC) became used in its figurative form to mean "the substantive part" of something.
Even more starkly, "nice" means "ignorant", until it went through several transformations through the C16, C17 and C18 until it reached the current meaning of "pleasant".
So we don't have singular, gender-neutral pronouns in He and Him. They long since ceased to be gender neutral.
As ideas change, we develop language to accommodate and communicate them succinctly and with minimal confusion in the transition. "Re-adopting he/him" doesn't meet the need of the idea being communicated.
ETA: I do realise you are being deliberately flip, and aren't in fact an idiot. But I see the notion repeated by people who are sufficiently idiotic to think they are providing a clever riposte that it gets my goat!
Silly used to mean holy. And all infants were once girls. Most importantly. They has been commonly used as a singular pronoun for pretty much the whole of English history.
So the Aussies have set Pakistan 506 to win the test.
Pakistan are currently 369/4 with 22 overs left on the fifth day.
Two set batsman on 51 and 188.
Have broken my cardinal rule and stuck a bet on Pakistan at 14 to win this test.
Betting on cricket matches involving Pakistan, what could possibly go wrong?
I thought you automatically got your collar felt by the Fraud Squad if you placed a bet on a match involving Pakistan. A special alarm goes off in Ladbrokes directly connected to the Met.
The French election looks very boring now, I had hoped Mélenchon would be doing better to make it more interesting but I'm almost certain the result will be Macron beating Le Pen by 60-40 in the runoff as I've been mostly saying for the past few weeks.
Edward N Luttwak @ELuttwak · 18h Putin has check-mated himself: his armor-mechanized forces cannot enter Kiev without suffering huge casualties, and neither can they stay outside without being attacked by drones and AT missiles. In the meantime, Russia is losing its best people: Izabella Tabarovsky in Tablet
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
Walking rather on eggshells here, but if we refused even to talk about the debt?
AIUI, the Iranian people in general are a wonderfully friendly and hospitable people. How and why they pick the Govts they do.....
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
You have no way of knowing that, other than your jingoist assumption that only good old Blighty has the rule of law. But even if it is true, they like to appear to have the rule of law. They wanted a pretext, and the fat lazy shitbag gave them one.
The French election looks very boring now, I had hoped Mélenchon would be doing better to make it more interesting but I'm almost certain the result will be Macron beating Le Pen by 60-40 in the runoff as I've been mostly saying for the past few weeks.
An easy win for Macron seems nailed on, although his party could lose control of the Assembly.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
Walking rather on eggshells here, but if we refused even to talk about the debt?
AIUI, the Iranian people in general are a wonderfully friendly and hospitable people. How and why they pick the Govts they do.....
If it were up to me, I would simply refuse to even talk about the debt for as long as there were hostages being held. Don't negotiate with hostage takers.
As for choosing their governments - they don't, they're not a democracy.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
I’m glad you are nowhere near any kind of power then. You would have a duty to your fellow man and women not to risk all out nuclear war. We have contributed massively to helping Ukraine. We will help when the time to rebuild a free Ukraine comes, probably not that far off. Russia cannot occupy Ukraine. Once the peace agreement is done, they will leave. In your version of events we’d be fighting an all out war across Europe, with the very real chance of nuclear strikes. The horror to millions across Europe would be incalculable. The costs to rebuild would cripple Europe for decades.
And please stop saying we have done nothing militarily to help Ukraine. You are just lying when you do.
Heathener being so very close to the heart of Westminster probably has access to a nuclear bunker, so they aren't risking their own life, just everyone else's the coward
I don’t believe anything he/she/it says. I’m reminded of sad middle aged men who like to say ‘they spend a lot of time round Hereford, if you know what I mean’.
probably going to regret this, but what's in Hereford?
Not knowing is to your credit, knowing is an indubitable sign of a sad, middle aged man (I’m one for sure but for other reasons). See also getting a chubby while making elliptic references to the lads from Hereford taking their holidays in the Kyiv Oblast.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
Walking rather on eggshells here, but if we refused even to talk about the debt?
AIUI, the Iranian people in general are a wonderfully friendly and hospitable people. How and why they pick the Govts they do.....
The latter paragraph is spot on. A nicer bunch of folk it's difficult to think of. Religious fanaticism might explain it.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
You've just not got used to it.
But was that a singular you, or a plural you? Did you understand from context?
I promise that in 10 years you won't notice, unless you are actively working on irritating yourself
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
From my Russian relatives who are dealing with ex-friends etc in Russia - The current Russian view is that EU/NATO is all one big thing - they see it as like Warsaw Pact/COMECON.
They would be very, very unhappy with Ukrainian membership of either
In a way, EU membership is even worse, as it would influence the very culture of Ukraine and be much westernising to it than NATO membership would.
EU membership for Ukraine is a bigger problem for Russia than NATO. It was not signing the EU-Ukraine agreement that caused the Euromaiden protests and Yanukovych's eventual downfall.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
It’s not up to Putin. It’s up to Ukranians and their government how they wish to conduct themselves.
It is disgusting than anyone accepts or approves of Russia exerting some sort of veto over what Ukraine might want to do.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
All this talk of X and Y and you have lost me.
I was never very good at calculus.
Algebra
Dear Algebra,
Stop asking me to find your X. She's never coming back. And don't ask Y.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
Walking rather on eggshells here, but if we refused even to talk about the debt?
AIUI, the Iranian people in general are a wonderfully friendly and hospitable people. How and why they pick the Govts they do.....
If it were up to me, I would simply refuse to even talk about the debt for as long as there were hostages being held. Don't negotiate with hostage takers.
As for choosing their governments - they don't, they're not a democracy.
But we did. We paid the debt. Which we owed. And the question of democracy is quite a slippery one. Do they have free and fair elections? No. Do they vote between a selection of candidates offering a choice of policies? Well, yes they do.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
From my Russian relatives who are dealing with ex-friends etc in Russia - The current Russian view is that EU/NATO is all one big thing - they see it as like Warsaw Pact/COMECON.
They would be very, very unhappy with Ukrainian membership of either
In a way, EU membership is even worse, as it would influence the very culture of Ukraine and be much westernising to it than NATO membership would.
By far the most westernising thing to happen to Ukraine is Putin's War itself. Ukrainians aren't going to be leaning towards Russia again for generations to come.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
He’s thinking of the one that cannot he named that is stationed secretly off Scotland in case they declare independence.
Of course if the Scots sink it we will nuke Edinburgh or something before the tanks roll in.
No, we used that one, when the Argentines secretly sank Invincible. We re-named it secretly and secretly resurrected the entire crew. Shhhhhhhh!
We have an HMS Secretly now? And the ship is capable of resurrecting people? BRITISH TECH FTW.
Shush! It’s sitting on top of the hidden oil fields and where we store the Whisky Export Duty.
Edward N Luttwak @ELuttwak · 18h Putin has check-mated himself: his armor-mechanized forces cannot enter Kiev without suffering huge casualties, and neither can they stay outside without being attacked by drones and AT missiles. In the meantime, Russia is losing its best people: Izabella Tabarovsky in Tablet
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
If there is a by-election in Wakefield it would be against a backdrop of a legal conviction for a pretty awful crime. That alone would make it difficult for the holder to retain the seat and could well amplify the swing.
The French election looks very boring now, I had hoped Mélenchon would be doing better to make it more interesting but I'm almost certain the result will be Macron beating Le Pen by 60-40 in the runoff as I've been mostly saying for the past few weeks.
An easy win for Macron seems nailed on, although his party could lose control of the Assembly.
Worrying that Le Pen has a predicted 40% in the second round though I understand that she has felt the need to destroy all her campaign literature featuring Putin.
Does anyone else have friends or fam who think THIS REALLY IS IT?
I do. They’re literally prepping for the Endtimes. Quite disconcerting. Especially as it’s the 2nd time in 3 years
There are peace talks taking place.
War, plague, famine, wild beasts are the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. we have had 1 and 2, 3 is nailed on, so just wild beasts to come. Some scientists are trying to clone a mammoth...
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
What wonderful news. So happy for her and her family. We'll done Liz Truss for succeeding where her predecessors failed (or barely tried).
Or in the case of one recent one, actually made things worse.
The only people who made it worse were the Iranian hostage takers, but generous of you to give them excuses for their hostage taking.
If I blamed the police for their low clear up rate for complaints of rape, would your reaction be that the only people who made it worse were the rapists, but generous of you to give them excuses for their rapes?
Utterly false comparison, the Police have the jurisdiction and power to arrest rapists.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
Not the point
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
No, Z is an accomplice.
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
Walking rather on eggshells here, but if we refused even to talk about the debt?
AIUI, the Iranian people in general are a wonderfully friendly and hospitable people. How and why they pick the Govts they do.....
If it were up to me, I would simply refuse to even talk about the debt for as long as there were hostages being held. Don't negotiate with hostage takers.
As for choosing their governments - they don't, they're not a democracy.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
It’s not up to Putin. It’s up to Ukranians and their government how they wish to conduct themselves.
It is disgusting than anyone accepts or approves of Russia exerting some sort of veto over what Ukraine might want to do.
Erm, isn't that what Zelensky is doing? He's trying to secure some peace.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
No it works fine either way. They is a singular word so there's no issue whatsoever.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
I don't agree with that. It works when the gender identity of your boss is irrelevant to what you are trying to communicate. Which is "most of the time".
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
They.
No, no, no, no, no. 'They' is plural. I can't abide words which were doing a perfectly good job being co-opted for some other purpose. See also 'disinterested' being used as a synonym for 'uninterested'. My first thought when I hear some attention-starved individual declare that henceforth they wish to be known as 'they' is not that the individual in question is taking some creative approach to gender identity but that the individual in question now believes that there are several of it. And of course, I mentally re-calibrate, and know what the person means, but still. Once upon a time we had a third-person gender-non-specific: he. It meant a male person or a person without specific gender. Admittedly that was also a less than ideal situation.
'They is plural' ?!? Didn't them teach you anything at school @Cookie? They are plural! ;-)
(PS The rest of your post is a bit obnoxious tbh. Back to school for some diversity lessons please.)
I think you have your tongue in your cheek here - but I think in this sense They is plural is correct! As to the obnoxious bit, if that's how I come across then I sincerely apologise. There is a lot of heat and noise on the gender identity debate, but this post wasn't meant to be part of it - my point is entirely linguistic: about the mental discomfort of hearing a single person referred to as 'they'. An agreement that it is a pity there is a non-specific word - not just for those few individuals like RochdalePioneers 's eldest who are genuinely uncomfortable with he or she but also for those countless occasions when the English language forces us to use 'he or she'.
How do other countries like France manage this, when absolutely everything is gendered, including job titles – and to do otherwise is grammatically murderous? Are there thousands of professeuses demanding to be called professeurs (or vice versa)? Do people complain that traditionally boyish geeks passions like trains and aeroplanes are male?
Like you, I'm baffled. And also like you, it's a linguistic point rather than another entry in the gender-identity debate.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
I can't see Putin being happy with EU membership for Ukr. They should put that on the back burner. He wont be around forever.
It’s not up to Putin. It’s up to Ukranians and their government how they wish to conduct themselves.
It is disgusting than anyone accepts or approves of Russia exerting some sort of veto over what Ukraine might want to do.
It's reality. If iScotland wanted to join the Shanghai Co-operation Council you can bet England would have plenty to say about it.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscripts even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
I’m visualising Thatcher, eye glued to the periscope eyepiece, cap on backwards at a rakish angle and all sweaty in best Das Boot style, shouting ‘Fire one..’
There’s a free fantasy to add to your collection, chaps.
Does anyone else have friends or fam who think THIS REALLY IS IT?
I do. They’re literally prepping for the Endtimes. Quite disconcerting. Especially as it’s the 2nd time in 3 years
There are peace talks taking place.
Indeed
I’m just saying it is unnerving when sane friends/relatives say “yes I reckon there will be all-out nuclear war and I’m making preparations”
I'd have thought it's touch and go whether Cardiff would be a target in such a scenario but I imagine if it was that Penarth would be unlikely to escape unscathed.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
I don't agree with that. It works when the gender identity of your boss is irrelevant to what you are trying to communicate. Which is "most of the time".
True. I did originally write "uknown by or irrelevant to", and I'm unsure why I edited it out.
I'll go back to what I said before - as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, ["they"] doesn't sound right. In this case it works because "the boss" isn't specifically identified, the reference is to their job not them as a person. If I were talking to a colleague who has the same boss about something the boss had said or done, calling him (as happens to be the case) "them" would just sound odd.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
They.
No, no, no, no, no. 'They' is plural. I can't abide words which were doing a perfectly good job being co-opted for some other purpose. See also 'disinterested' being used as a synonym for 'uninterested'. My first thought when I hear some attention-starved individual declare that henceforth they wish to be known as 'they' is not that the individual in question is taking some creative approach to gender identity but that the individual in question now believes that there are several of it. And of course, I mentally re-calibrate, and know what the person means, but still. Once upon a time we had a third-person gender-non-specific: he. It meant a male person or a person without specific gender. Admittedly that was also a less than ideal situation.
'They is plural' ?!? Didn't them teach you anything at school @Cookie? They are plural! ;-)
(PS The rest of your post is a bit obnoxious tbh. Back to school for some diversity lessons please.)
I think you have your tongue in your cheek here - but I think in this sense They is plural is correct! As to the obnoxious bit, if that's how I come across then I sincerely apologise. There is a lot of heat and noise on the gender identity debate, but this post wasn't meant to be part of it - my point is entirely linguistic: about the mental discomfort of hearing a single person referred to as 'they'. An agreement that it is a pity there is a non-specific word - not just for those few individuals like RochdalePioneers 's eldest who are genuinely uncomfortable with he or she but also for those countless occasions when the English language forces us to use 'he or she'.
How do other countries like France manage this, when absolutely everything is gendered, including job titles – and to do otherwise is grammatically murderous? Are there thousands of professeuses demanding to be called professeurs (or vice versa)? Do people complain that traditionally boyish geeks passions like trains and aeroplanes are male?
Like you, I'm baffled. And also like you, it's a linguistic point rather than another entry in the gender-identity debate.
If there is a by-election in Wakefield it would be against a backdrop of a legal conviction for a pretty awful crime. That alone would make it difficult for the holder to retain the seat and could well amplify the swing.
Not necessarily, Labour held Peterborough in a June 2019 by election despite the by election being forced by recall after the existing Labour MP had faced trial over trying to pervert the course of justice over a driving speeding offence.
Yet the Tories did win the seat in December 2019 when they were doing better in the national polls.
On current polls though Labour should win Wakefield regardless of the MP's circumstances
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Ukraine could agree to what Russians call "neutral status" but according to the Ukrainian model. That means legally verified security guarantees: in case of war signatories provide weapons and air defense immediately without bureaucratic procedures or conditions, - UA Negotiator https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1504043359928819720
I reckon it is a certainty that a long-range anti aircraft/missile shield is going to be constructed all along the Poland/Ukraine border to give cover for western Ukraine as a bare minimum - simply "for NATO's own protection". Putin can cough and splutter and harrumph all he likes, but it is of his own doing.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
They.
No, no, no, no, no. 'They' is plural. I can't abide words which were doing a perfectly good job being co-opted for some other purpose. See also 'disinterested' being used as a synonym for 'uninterested'. My first thought when I hear some attention-starved individual declare that henceforth they wish to be known as 'they' is not that the individual in question is taking some creative approach to gender identity but that the individual in question now believes that there are several of it. And of course, I mentally re-calibrate, and know what the person means, but still. Once upon a time we had a third-person gender-non-specific: he. It meant a male person or a person without specific gender. Admittedly that was also a less than ideal situation.
'They is plural' ?!? Didn't them teach you anything at school @Cookie? They are plural! ;-)
(PS The rest of your post is a bit obnoxious tbh. Back to school for some diversity lessons please.)
I think you have your tongue in your cheek here - but I think in this sense They is plural is correct! As to the obnoxious bit, if that's how I come across then I sincerely apologise. There is a lot of heat and noise on the gender identity debate, but this post wasn't meant to be part of it - my point is entirely linguistic: about the mental discomfort of hearing a single person referred to as 'they'. An agreement that it is a pity there is a non-specific word - not just for those few individuals like RochdalePioneers 's eldest who are genuinely uncomfortable with he or she but also for those countless occasions when the English language forces us to use 'he or she'.
How do other countries like France manage this, when absolutely everything is gendered, including job titles – and to do otherwise is grammatically murderous? Are there thousands of professeuses demanding to be called professeurs (or vice versa)? Do people complain that traditionally boyish geeks passions like trains and aeroplanes are male?
Like you, I'm baffled. And also like you, it's a linguistic point rather than another entry in the gender-identity debate.
The beauty of the English language is precisely that it is grammatically flexible. Which is why it is so rich. You can be creative with it in a way you simply can't with heavily gendered and inflected ones. The very last thing it needs is policing in the interests logic or consistency.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
Yes. 'I hear it's your daughter's birthday today. How old are they?' would sound absurd.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
I don't agree with that. It works when the gender identity of your boss is irrelevant to what you are trying to communicate. Which is "most of the time".
True. I did originally write "uknown by or irrelevant to", and I'm unsure why I edited it out.
I'll go back to what I said before - as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, ["they"] doesn't sound right. In this case it works because "the boss" isn't specifically identified, the reference is to their job not them as a person. If I were talking to a colleague who has the same boss about something the boss had said or done, calling him (as happens to be the case) "them" would just sound odd.
I don't know why it sounds odd to you, it doesn't to me at all. They has always been both a third person singular and plural for as long as I've been around, just as you is both a second person singular and plural.
Does using you for both singular and plural sound odd to you?
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
Yes. 'I hear it's your daughter's birthday today. How old are they?' would sound absurd.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
They.
No, no, no, no, no. 'They' is plural. I can't abide words which were doing a perfectly good job being co-opted for some other purpose. See also 'disinterested' being used as a synonym for 'uninterested'. My first thought when I hear some attention-starved individual declare that henceforth they wish to be known as 'they' is not that the individual in question is taking some creative approach to gender identity but that the individual in question now believes that there are several of it. And of course, I mentally re-calibrate, and know what the person means, but still. Once upon a time we had a third-person gender-non-specific: he. It meant a male person or a person without specific gender. Admittedly that was also a less than ideal situation.
'They is plural' ?!? Didn't them teach you anything at school @Cookie? They are plural! ;-)
(PS The rest of your post is a bit obnoxious tbh. Back to school for some diversity lessons please.)
I think you have your tongue in your cheek here - but I think in this sense They is plural is correct! As to the obnoxious bit, if that's how I come across then I sincerely apologise. There is a lot of heat and noise on the gender identity debate, but this post wasn't meant to be part of it - my point is entirely linguistic: about the mental discomfort of hearing a single person referred to as 'they'. An agreement that it is a pity there is a non-specific word - not just for those few individuals like RochdalePioneers 's eldest who are genuinely uncomfortable with he or she but also for those countless occasions when the English language forces us to use 'he or she'.
How do other countries like France manage this, when absolutely everything is gendered, including job titles – and to do otherwise is grammatically murderous? Are there thousands of professeuses demanding to be called professeurs (or vice versa)? Do people complain that traditionally boyish geeks passions like trains and aeroplanes are male?
Like you, I'm baffled. And also like you, it's a linguistic point rather than another entry in the gender-identity debate.
I imagine that in French, because everything is gendered, nothing is. Your hat is he and your shoe is she. And a (male) sentry is une sentinelle
It's reality. If iScotland wanted to join the Shanghai Co-operation Council you can bet England would have plenty to say about it.
We probably would, but I'm certain we would not invade and destroy Scotland's cities to try to stop them.
Russia should not get to dictate the foreign policy of its neighbours. If we accept them doing so with Ukraine are we going to concede with Georgia, Finland, Sweden or any other country that might want to tighten relations with the West or Europe?
Superb. That’s potato. In a pie crust. In a bap. Served with potato chips. FOUR carbs in one dish
Probably a world record? I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas and I can’t recall any other dish with FOUR different types of carbohydrate served simultaneously
If there is a by-election in Wakefield it would be against a backdrop of a legal conviction for a pretty awful crime. That alone would make it difficult for the holder to retain the seat and could well amplify the swing.
Not necessarily, Labour held Peterborough in a June 2019 by election despite the by election being forced by recall after the existing Labour MP had faced tried to pervert the course of justice over a driving offence.
Yet the Tories did win the seat in December 2019 when they were doing better in the national polls
The Tories won Wakefield constituency by 47% to 42% in last years local elections. I would lean towards a narrow Labour gain but we will see who both the parties put forward. I would hope Labour chooses a fresh candidate instead of Mary Creagh again.
I don't know who the Tories would go for but I would guess maybe Anthony Calvert who stood against Ed Balls in 2010 and Mary Creagh in 2015 and 2017 or the Tory councillor for Ossett ward who got elected in 2021 who is a prolific poster on the vote2012 forum.
I can actually see some logic there. Never enjoyed eating a pie at events like football as messy and can burn.
However the answer is surely simply leave pies for where you are sitting down with cutlery and have the meat inside a wrap or bread when on the go, rather than inside pastry and then bread.
If there is a by-election in Wakefield it would be against a backdrop of a legal conviction for a pretty awful crime. That alone would make it difficult for the holder to retain the seat and could well amplify the swing.
Not necessarily, Labour held Peterborough in a June 2019 by election despite the by election being forced by recall after the existing Labour MP had faced trial over trying to pervert the course of justice over a driving speeding offence.
Yet the Tories did win the seat in December 2019 when they were doing better in the national polls.
On current polls though Labour should win Wakefield regardless of the MP's circumstances
Speeding v sexual offence against a minor. Get real.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscripts even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
I’m visualising Thatcher, eye glued to the periscope eyepiece, cap on backwards at a rakish angle and all sweaty in best Das Boot style, shouting ‘Fire one..’
There’s a free fantasy to add to your collection, chaps.
The Belgrano was, of course, effectively shot in the back, although it was later conceded to be a justifiable act of war.
I wasted a tenner following TSE onto the Pakistan game. Its gone from 369-4 with 22 left to 382-4 with 14 left and they're not even trying to run singles anymore.
Ball went past the wicket keeper and three quarters of the way to the boundary rope and they didn't even try and run any byes.
Superb. That’s potato. In a pie crust. In a bap. Served with potato chips. FOUR carbs in one dish
Probably a world record? I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas and I can’t recall any other dish with FOUR different types of carbohydrate served simultaneously
They've missed a trick in not having it as a pizza topping.....
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
I don't agree with that. It works when the gender identity of your boss is irrelevant to what you are trying to communicate. Which is "most of the time".
True. I did originally write "uknown by or irrelevant to", and I'm unsure why I edited it out.
I'll go back to what I said before - as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, ["they"] doesn't sound right. In this case it works because "the boss" isn't specifically identified, the reference is to their job not them as a person. If I were talking to a colleague who has the same boss about something the boss had said or done, calling him (as happens to be the case) "them" would just sound odd.
I don't know why it sounds odd to you, it doesn't to me at all. They has always been both a third person singular and plural for as long as I've been around, just as you is both a second person singular and plural.
Does using you for both singular and plural sound odd to you?
It can do, actually. If I'm making a complaint to a company and I say "I'm very unhappy with you", do I mean the employee I'm speaking to or the company as a whole?
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
I don't agree with that. It works when the gender identity of your boss is irrelevant to what you are trying to communicate. Which is "most of the time".
True. I did originally write "uknown by or irrelevant to", and I'm unsure why I edited it out.
I'll go back to what I said before - as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, ["they"] doesn't sound right. In this case it works because "the boss" isn't specifically identified, the reference is to their job not them as a person. If I were talking to a colleague who has the same boss about something the boss had said or done, calling him (as happens to be the case) "them" would just sound odd.
I don't know why it sounds odd to you, it doesn't to me at all. They has always been both a third person singular and plural for as long as I've been around, just as you is both a second person singular and plural.
Does using you for both singular and plural sound odd to you?
Your insane pushing of a valid point way past its natural limits and insistence that everyone has to agree with you would make me think if I didn't know better that you had a serious cocaine habit. I imagine in reality it's just too much coffee. My wife goes shopping on Wednesdays, they always have done, sounds bonkers. They is *in some contexts* 3rd person singular.
In Finnish there is no distinction between he and she. Both are "hän". If you have to make the distinction you must say "male person" or "female person". But in colloquial use they may say "se" meaning "it".
This gives rise to a common error by Finns when speaking Englsh beause "se" sounds like "she" and quite often you get real confusion when a Finn refers to a male as "she" thinking they are in safe neutral territory.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
There is a significant history of singular they - but only for an unknown person. So for example upthread we have "I've got a new boss - what are they like?" and "we've been burgled - there's an open window - that's how they got in". Neither seems linguistically wrong.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
Since they is a singular as well as a plural word, they works perfectly fine even if there's only one of him or her.
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
That only really works if the sex of your boss is unknown by the person you're speaking to, though.
I don't agree with that. It works when the gender identity of your boss is irrelevant to what you are trying to communicate. Which is "most of the time".
True. I did originally write "uknown by or irrelevant to", and I'm unsure why I edited it out.
I'll go back to what I said before - as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, ["they"] doesn't sound right. In this case it works because "the boss" isn't specifically identified, the reference is to their job not them as a person. If I were talking to a colleague who has the same boss about something the boss had said or done, calling him (as happens to be the case) "them" would just sound odd.
I don't know why it sounds odd to you, it doesn't to me at all. They has always been both a third person singular and plural for as long as I've been around, just as you is both a second person singular and plural.
Does using you for both singular and plural sound odd to you?
It can do, actually. If I'm making a complaint to a company and I say "I'm very unhappy with you", do I mean the employee I'm speaking to or the company as a whole?
Context is key. In general I'd assume you mean the company unless there's a reason to think otherwise. Just as if you say "Chris ... they" then context makes it clear that they refers to Chris.
Language works because of context more than hard and fast rules about words.
Comments
There is also a distinction between defending your nation's territory, like the Falkland Islands and invading a neighbouring nation's territory like Putin.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine is more like Galtieri's invasion of the Falklands and the Ukranians are doing everything to defend their territory as we did to defend the Falklands
@ELuttwak
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18h
Putin has check-mated himself: his armor-mechanized forces cannot enter Kiev without suffering huge casualties, and neither can they stay outside without being attacked by drones and AT missiles. In the meantime, Russia is losing its best people: Izabella Tabarovsky in Tablet
https://twitter.com/ELuttwak/status/1503767667525787652
Message intercepted to Moscow from Iranian Committee for Building Relationships with Infidels and Heretics.
++Thank you for the £400M of British tax payer money.
++We have new markets for our oil despite being gulfs bad guys for goodness knows how long
++hard cheese as our new best buddies say
++Enjoy hell with the Great Satan
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1504043359928819720
"Why not have your pie in a barm cake?"
A kidnapper has been keeping a victim chained in a cellar. Their inhumanity to them shocked the Police when it was discovered.
Pakistan are currently 369/4 with 22 overs left on the fifth day.
Two set batsman on 51 and 188.
Have broken my cardinal rule and stuck a bet on Pakistan at 14 to win this test.
Lets just hope that both she and the man are on the plane now.
It will be interesting if Mrs Ratcliffe comments on the former FS's Reuters comments over the next few weeks. I suspect she will not. It might still be worth the PM trying not to score a political point here nonetheless.
Do you think we could arrest the Iranian hostage takers?
How to handle Russia - God knows. We will have to seriously beef up our military and somehow try to encourage liberal tendencies inside Russia whilst keeping them as weak as possible. Or will Russia dissolve into internal conflict?
China - more care over their acquiring technology so that the West has military technology superiority. Academic contacts need to be policed more. The Chinese plan seems still be for increasing living standards to preserve stability so while that continues it constrains their room for aggressive actions.
The times are too interesting.
Clown!
So it isn't a "quirk of linguistic history"; you can't say "x means y" because x used to mean y.
For example, "meat" until fairly recently (~14thC), meant "anything solid that was eaten". And it even more recently (~20thC) became used in its figurative form to mean "the substantive part" of something.
Even more starkly, "nice" means "ignorant", until it went through several transformations through the C16, C17 and C18 until it reached the current meaning of "pleasant".
So we don't have singular, gender-neutral pronouns in He and Him. They long since ceased to be gender neutral.
As ideas change, we develop language to accommodate and communicate them succinctly and with minimal confusion in the transition. "Re-adopting he/him" doesn't meet the need of the idea being communicated.
ETA: I do realise you are being deliberately flip, and aren't in fact an idiot. But I see the notion repeated so often by people who are sufficiently idiotic to think they are providing a clever riposte that it gets my goat!
They would be very, very unhappy with Ukrainian membership of either
Isn't that what we said about Russia and the PRC?
But yes. Rapprochement with Iran is a good thing.
OK try this: X wishes to murder Y. Z knowing this tells X where to find Y. Is X the only person to blame for the murder?
That didn't happen in this case. The hostage takers took a hostage of their own accord, using their own reasons, and for their own motivations. Nobody else is responsible but the hostage takers.
Most importantly. They has been commonly used as a singular pronoun for pretty much the whole of English history.
I was never very good at calculus.
But as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, it doesn't sound right. "This is Chris - they are your new assistant". Nah. There's only one of him or her.
AIUI, the Iranian people in general are a wonderfully friendly and hospitable people. How and why they pick the Govts they do.....
As for choosing their governments - they don't, they're not a democracy.
Religious fanaticism might explain it.
But was that a singular you, or a plural you? Did you understand from context?
I promise that in 10 years you won't notice, unless you are actively working on irritating yourself
"My boss called me in for a meeting today, they said that the company will be undergoing some reforms" - I know the gender of my boss I had a meeting with, but there is no need to say it and they works fine in that sentence.
Stop asking me to find your X. She's never coming back. And don't ask Y.
And the question of democracy is quite a slippery one. Do they have free and fair elections?
No.
Do they vote between a selection of candidates offering a choice of policies? Well, yes they do.
When this "breadbasket of Europe" is knocked out of supply chains and aid networks, the world is going to feel it.
https://www.politico.eu/article/war-in-ukraine-global-food-system-wheat-trade-export/
I’m just saying it is unnerving when sane friends/relatives say “yes I reckon there will be all-out nuclear war and I’m making preparations”
Like you, I'm baffled. And also like you, it's a linguistic point rather than another entry in the gender-identity debate.
There’s a free fantasy to add to your collection, chaps.
https://www.northernsoul.me.uk/lifting-the-lid-on-the-wigan-kebab/#:~:text=A Wigan Kebab is a,How did this delicacy evolve?
I'll go back to what I said before - as a pronoun for a specific, known, identified person, ["they"] doesn't sound right. In this case it works because "the boss" isn't specifically identified, the reference is to their job not them as a person. If I were talking to a colleague who has the same boss about something the boss had said or done, calling him (as happens to be the case) "them" would just sound odd.
https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-iel-why-france-is-so-angry-about-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-173304
Yet the Tories did win the seat in December 2019 when they were doing better in the national polls.
On current polls though Labour should win Wakefield regardless of the MP's circumstances
Which is why it is so rich. You can be creative with it in a way you simply can't with heavily gendered and inflected ones.
The very last thing it needs is policing in the interests logic or consistency.
Does using you for both singular and plural sound odd to you?
Russia should not get to dictate the foreign policy of its neighbours. If we accept them doing so with Ukraine are we going to concede with Georgia, Finland, Sweden or any other country that might want to tighten relations with the West or Europe?
Probably a world record? I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas and I can’t recall any other dish with FOUR different types of carbohydrate served simultaneously
But this case hasn't even been tried yet.
I don't know who the Tories would go for but I would guess maybe Anthony Calvert who stood against Ed Balls in 2010 and Mary Creagh in 2015 and 2017 or the Tory councillor for Ossett ward who got elected in 2021 who is a prolific
poster on the vote2012 forum.
However the answer is surely simply leave pies for where you are sitting down with cutlery and have the meat inside a wrap or bread when on the go, rather than inside pastry and then bread.
Ball went past the wicket keeper and three quarters of the way to the boundary rope and they didn't even try and run any byes.
With pineapple.
This gives rise to a common error by Finns when speaking Englsh beause "se" sounds like "she" and quite often you get real confusion when a Finn refers to a male as "she" thinking they are in safe neutral territory.
Language works because of context more than hard and fast rules about words.