quote:

"Its" was at one time as impertinent a departure as the "who" of "Who did you see?" It forced itself into English because the old cleavage between masculine, feminine, and neuter was being slowly and powerfully supplemented by a new one between thing-class and animate-class. The latter classification proved too vital to allow usage to couple males and things ("his") as against females ("her"). The form "its" had to be created on the analogy of words like "man's," to satisfy the growing form feeling. The drift was strong enough to sanction a grammatical blunder.

[Edward Sapir Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech, p.156, n.11.]

That's probably the reason why the apostrophe was dropped, too. Because of the collective guilt of creating a new form.

zm: Thank you for that. You might also want to discuss "their" as the relatively new form of "his or her"

Hunt around. There are a number of threads on that topic. I don't think something that's been around for at least five hundred years could be described as relatively new though.

Singular, genderless they has been in use since Chaucer's time. So, if by new, you mean during the last six centuries, I guess you're right. We've discussed it here before. People who are twitted by a singular use of they, usually have no problem with using an originally plural you as a singular. And, in addition to that, you is the oblique case of ye, as him is of he and her is of she.
Another anomoly of the English pronomial system is that both they and she are loanwords from the Dnaish / Old Norse. I mean, who goes around borrowing pronouns?

There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me,
As if I were their well-acquainted friend.
[Wm Shakespeare A Comedy of Errors, IV.3.]

It has been used by authors such as Austen and Thackeray, too. You could say it was a mistake on their parts, but then why does it come so easily?

quote:

There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me

Note the genderless use of "man" also.

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Originally posted by arnie:

quote:

There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me

Note the genderless use of "man" also.

Agree. By analogy, a neuter plural (collective) subject is often followed by a singular verb:
The government demands…
And the pronoun their is used similarly:
Their demand for a new ruling…
But As Zmj says, many revered authors break these rules, yet retain their meaning precisely.

quote:

Originally posted by pearce:
Agree. By analogy, a neuter plural (collective) subject is often followed by a singular verb:
The government demands…

But,does using it that way make it right? Or, more to the point(sigh),how often does it have to be used that way before it becomes right by consensus? What! Ya mean it's already O.K.?!! AKKKKKK!

quote:

But,does using it that way make it right? Or, more to the point(sigh),how often does it have to be used that way before it becomes right by consensus? What! Ya mean it's already O.K.?!! AKKKKKK!

It's been used that way for several hundred years. I think there is little doubt that it is already right, even if some continue to rail against the use, just as other pedants dislike the splitting of an infinitive, etc.

Reading through some 19th century prescriptive grammars, I ran across lunch is a verb and luncheon the noun. Never use former as a noun. (And Duncan, ain't it a pretty pickle that folks today misuse the word silly? From its original meaning 'happy' in Old English, through its Middle English meanings of 'blessed' to 'pious' to 'innocent' to 'harmless' to 'pitiable' to 'weak' to 'feeble in mind, lacking in reason, foolish'. Stop the madness! Silly means 'happy'. [tongue out of cheek emtoticon]).

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
(And Duncan, ain't it a pretty pickle that folks today misuse the word silly? From its original meaning 'happy' in Old English, through its Middle English meanings of 'blessed' to 'pious' to 'innocent' to 'harmless' to 'pitiable' to 'weak' to 'feeble in mind, lacking in reason, foolish'. Stop the madness! Silly means 'happy'. [tongue out of cheek emtoticon]).

But, it has obviously evolved that nobody wants to be called "silly". A case in point: about 20 km. west of my home is a community formerly known as Scilly Cove. Named, of old, after the Scilly Isles in England. For hundreds of years the name was just fine, but the pronounciation being what it is, the Scilly Cove people eventually changed the name to "Winterton".

quote:

Note the genderless use of "man" also.

But don't use it when there are any PC people around;-)

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Originally posted by Richard English:

quote:

Note the genderless use of "man" also.

But don't use it when there are any PC people around;-)

Because to be sexist you need a particular audience?

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Because to be sexist you need a particular audience?

No. You can be sexist without an audience - but you can only be criticised when you have an audience. So, unless you want to be criticised, by the PC crowd, avoid non-pc expressions.

Me, I couldn't give a monkey's.

quote:

Me, I couldn't give a monkey's.

Richard, is that similar to the rat's?

Kalleh,

We discussed this in October 2004.

I see we did. Good subjects keep coming back, don't they?