NEOPRONOUNS & “THEY/THEM” pronouns – Are they *technically* correct? (linguist reacts)

#neopronouns #pronouns #reaction

Intro: 00:00 – 00:25
Are they/them grammatically correct?: 00:25 – 02:25
they/them are not intuitive & why that matters: 02:25 – 04:53
pronouns are not “yours”: 04:53 – 06:26
neopronouns & a thousand genders: 06:26 – 08:48

[FactThis]

Something worth noting is that problems with they/them occur when switching between the plural and singular form and when multiple individuals are mentioned. For example, if I said, "Jack talked to Jill at the carnival, then they went to a Chinese restaurant", who went to the restaurant? Jack, Jill, or both? Saying _he_ went to the restaurant is clearer. Juggling both the singular and plural they/them simultaneously creates confusion. That's why it is avoided when ambiguity can be dropped.

It's particularly frustrating when reading articles about people who insist on they/them pronouns. I sometimes have no idea who is actually being referred to in parts of the text.

[gailseatonhumbert]

I follow a Filipino singer, Marcelito Pomoy, who often sings in the country's doble kara or dual voices (both tenor and soprano) technique. Some Americans refer to him in they/them pronouns which upsets Filipinos in particular because he is a happily married straight man with 2 children. Assumptions can get you on both sides "liberal" as well as "conservative".

[mapowey]

the “skin as a verb” meme caught me off guard. that’s hilarious

[Flippotycoon]

Loved the English lady's teaparty you did :)

[saltykitty]

Seeing a non-native English speaker explain native English speakers their language is the funniest and saddest thing I had to witness in my life haha.

Good one, Lana!

[IvanIvanov-ugdc]

5:10 - I love this idea. My verbs should be eat, sleep, rest, laught... and not cook, clean, shop, repair, work or cry.

[growingoaks]

I have not gone to college for psychology, however, I do study it in my spare time occasionally and I have developed a theory myself.

I used to hang out with a lot of people who use “neopronouns” or try to force people to use they/them. The common thread between all of them were that they were often abused in childhood in a way that limited their control. As a result, I believe they are attempting to control others around them in a desperate bid to feel a sense of control as a way to overcompensate.

Demographic wise, they’re often white, female and part of the LGBTQCDIPLMNOP community/cult.

This is threefold, however, because you mentioned them wanting to feel special, and I believe it is a lot of insecurity manifesting itself. Another common thread, I noticed between everyone was a lack of self-confidence and massive insecurity. They likely feel that they will be more accepted If they adopt the ideology.

The last part of this threefold puzzle is trauma. A lot of these women have been victims of sexual assault and want to identify themselves out of being a woman, so that they do not have to feel the trauma. I believe it is partially a trauma response, and they want to disassociate themselves from themselves.

It is an interesting, psychological phenomenon for sure

[smallsignals]

Another example that we've probably all seen on the internet is order of adjectives. Most of us don't really remember learning it and possibly never did, but it sounds abhorrent to almost everyone when adjectives are out of order. It's amazing what we learn just from exposure.

[INameIsGood]

the part of "them" trying to police HOW people talk ABOUT "them" is so fascinating from the psychology lens

[AJ-wyzm]

Loved this. You raise some really important points about this topic. I would be interested to know what if any relationships there is between neopronoun users and personality psychology's big 5 traits - openness, contentiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Also, I'm curious to know about any relationship between neopronoun usage and narcissistic traits or personality disorders.

[bebbization]

I think younger people are more adaptable for change, so that's maybe why they don't mind grammar changes as much. Back when I was in high school, the teachers and the adults found it very strange that we adapted English words with English pronunciation to our native language. We have a lot of influence from English media, so it was just normal for us when we were talking with other teens. The official language committee tried to add English words, but with the spelling and pronunciation of our native language, into our dictionary. It went poorly because people didn't want some superficial group to decide how to use imported words.

[ChanyeolsHaneul]

I always found quite nonsensical the prefer pronouns thing. If someone is your friend and likes you they may humour you and do as you want it (as long as they remember to do so) if a person doesn't like you there are worse things that they will call you, no just wrong pronouns but heavy insults too 😅
Also, because English is a second language for me, is really annoying how this people are trying to change no only their language but the language of other as well. Like when they tried to add the end -X to my mother language, Spanish, because in their eyes we shouldn't use the male version of a word as a neutral.
Latinx is stupid and doesn't make sense 😒

My theory about this idiotic movement is that with the rise of social media most of this "trans" are just egocentric and ego maniacs with a narcissistic tendency. Every one of them want to be special and unique. That's why you find so many of them saying things like "I'm the first trans fairy/ racial/ non binary to do X"
And that explain why they need to feel reaffirmed constantly, and are unable to participate in debates and conversations with people that have different point of views.
They want to be different from their parents and older generations, so they have to destroy what came before them in order to achieve a sense of accomplishment.
Because, sinceresly, their entire personalities are made out of nothing but illusions of greatness.
In rural places and poor countries were people can't afford to do nothing else but work and survive there isn't enough time to worry about pronouns and how one desire to be perceived by others.

Sorry I may have gone on a rant. 😅

[ariana_]

An example I always use for They/Them pronouns as a singular is “if someone calls tell them to leave a message”
Saying someONE implies one person is calling, not multiple people on one line. You don’t know the gender of the potential person calling so them is perfectly appropriate for a gender neutral pronoun for one person

[Diane_]

I personally still have no problem with they/them pronouns most of the time, but the neopronouns (as in, the ones they invented from scratch) confuse the shit out of me. I already learned how to speak English and am learning two more languages... I'm not in the mood to learn the "genderqueer language" as well. Although to be fair, I did think you were exaggerating when you compared neopronouns to replacing verbs, until I realized that some people have literal "pronoun sheets" where they also write down their PREFERRED ADJECTIVES that are basically the descriptive terms they wanna be called by. They don't want to know what other people actually think of them, they just want everyone to affirm their own opinion of themselves. At that point, what even is the purpose of talking to other people?..

[raven]

I'm confused about why some people want to be called, "She/they, " He/they, " instead of She/her, " and "He/him." How does that make sense to anyone? Can you please explain that if you know? Thanks

[Exetior_the_fish]

as a native English speaker this was therapeutic 1000% correct expressly the hidden rule part

[thestoriedcoyote]

The term you use that I like is "physical reality". That's what I use to inform how I communicate with people, and expecting us to forget reality is a big ask. On a side note, the Smurfs had preferred verbs/adjectives/adverbs, so I guess they were ahead of their time?

[dronesclubhighjinks]

This was a really interesting video and I appreciate the education as well as the humour! You do a British accent very well and I love the dresses!
I'm so glad you mentioned the third person aspect because I've been wondering about that for a long time - I've never heard anybody mention it. A person who has special pronoun demands wants to control how we speak about that person. I cannot wrap my head around the grammatical construction when speaking of an individual who wants they/them pronouns eg "They is over there." I am not gonna say "they are" because one person is not a plural.
I get around this by using the individual's name which starts to look pretty silly but "they is" is beyond me. "Bob said Bob's vacation was fun and Bob had a really great time. Bob's favorite part was when Bob rented a JetSki."
Thanks for the video! 🙏😎💐

[Alastherra]

As a Slavic person, I have particular trouble with this in English.
I mean, if they didn't get rid of the you/thee, they wouldn't have to do such mental gymnastics, would they? Because when it comes to Czech, we have the typcal 'you', the "respectful" You (I'd say the 'you' if 'thee' was still a thing, or sie/Sie in German or heck, -san suffix in Japanese) and the nondescript/plural 'they'.
And when your language is so heavily gendered as mine, when I have to bend EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. to fit the gender of the object? Seriously. Yeah, I can talk to You with the "respectful" You, but I still have to have GENDER of the person/object of topic in mind - and I quite simply refuse to talk about people in terms of non-animate objects to avoid gendering.

[teddybeeandme]

I am a native English speaker but have studied both French and German in the past. Both of these languages assign gender to objects, table, window ect. I have only come across 'they/them' or other 'preferred' pronouns in an English speaking context... Is this the case? and how does it work in a language with 'gendered' items... I love the etymology of words and their common history in multiple languages.