Qual è la differenza tra a period of a person's life during which their sexual organs develop and they become capable of having children . e a period of a person's life during which his or her sexual organs develop and they become capable of having children . ?Sentiti libero di rispondere con un esempio.

23 gen 2019

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

We were actually just talking about the singular they in an English class today. So, this is very topical.

Basically, it's the most common gender neutral pronoun and it's only becoming more common. For instance, in the past it would be "proper" to write in male pronouns for unidentified people. Example being:
"A doctor's job is to treat his patients."
But more commonly it is being written as:
"A doctor's job is to treat THEIR patients."
I think it's pretty interesting.

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Giapponese

thank you so much .both of you . so when an unspecified noun like " a people/ a +noun" refer to people in general .it could be treated as plural with they or rather, "they" could be treated as singular . or , I'd like to deduce that this "they" works on behalf of "he/she" , thus you would use plural like"they " in a given sentence . so it doesn't really indicate that the noun this "they " is referring to is a plural . it's just like they=she / he ?

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

@Sharehearts Exactly. In this case, "they" is just another pronoun, like he/she. The possessive form is "their" like his/her. And him/her = them, himself/herself = themselves.

Generally, the singular they is used for when you want to be gender neutral. Another example of this is "Humankind consists of mammals. Therefore, they give live birth and breastfeed their young."
But let's say you want to refer to humanity as just "man", which is more common in older writing. Then, you run into this problem:
"Man consists of mammals. Therefore, he gives live birth and breastfeeds his young." (by the way, this is considered 'proper' english)

This is why the singular they is necessary sometimes.

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Giapponese

thank you for giving me explanation in such detail ! in the last sentence you've given , is it interchangeable for "he"(following "therefore") to be "they" ? making the sentence below "Man consists of mammals. Therefore, they gives live birth and breastfeeds his young." according to your saying ,I think this is right ,isn't it?

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

@Sharehearts Maybe it was a bad example, because in that case I would change "gives" and "breastfeeds" to fit a plural noun. I think the reason is because it is not actually a singular they being used, because "humankind" isn't treated as a singular entity, but "man" is.

My mistake was that my use of "they" and "their" wasn't actually referring to humankind as a singular thing, but instead it referred to "humans", it was just unsaid.

So the correct way is "Man consists of mammals. Therefore, they give live birth and breastfeed their young." It's still a little odd (because of the word choice of "man" instead of humankind or mankind), but much better than using "he".

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Giapponese

thank you Loafer! with your help and some other references I could now understand this singular "they/them /their/theirs" . it sure was big help. and since I find you are matured in English Grammar, I actually have one more question that need to be solved . if you don't mind me asking. why would word like "interpreter" not be applied Twinning like "plotter" "twitter" etc ?

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

@Sharehearts If I had to guess, it's probably word origin.

Upon looking it up, "interpreter" is originally Latin, passed down through Old French into English, while both "plot" and "twitter" are from Middle English. French words have very very inconsistent spelling, if you haven't noticed.

It's kind of like 連濁. Words of Chinese origin words often don't get 連濁, and to a foreigner it's often hard to tell which are or aren't Chinese. It's what could turn 入学試験 into 入学事件.

But English spelling is so inconsistent that small things like that barely matters. "Interpreter" or "interpretter", it still makes no sense lol.

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Giapponese

wow , you have knowledge in multiple language ! that's impressive . in terms of this "interpreter " I would never have guessed that it was concerning word origin. yeah , just wow . you've been a best help ever. seriously though. it was my long time puzzle. you made my day ! thank you, really!

Giapponese

you should watch " violet evergarden" (Anime) when you have time . I've watched it recently and almost cried . my favorite

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

@Sharehearts No problem.
Violet Evergarden has been on my list for a while, I'll definitely watch it sometime. Thanks!

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25 gen 2019

Giapponese

hi Loafer, how are you doing? and thanks about the other day! if you don't mind, can I ask you to look at my another question ? it's about this sentence " The <s> spelling is much more common than is the <z> spelling." 　　is this inversion? I couldn't find any reference about this formula. I can understand what this sentence is saying though

25 gen 2019

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

@Sharehearts It's probably referring to some specific words like realize, organize, modernize, etc.
It's actually dialect differences. British spell them with s, and Americans spell them with z.

There's a pretty extensive Wikipedia article about it under the "Greek-derived spellings" tab: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_Br...

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Giapponese

sorry it was regarding the composition of " than is the <z> spelling." why it's this way as oppose to " than the <z> spelling."?

Giapponese

is it the same case as with "so are you"( inversion)?

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Inglese (Regno Unito)

@Sharehearts Oh wow, I didn't even see the "is" there lol.

To be honest, I don't really know. I don't know if it's correct or not, but it doesn't sound too strange to me, intuitively speaking. Maybe it's a dialect difference.

But personally, I would certainly leave out the "is" without even thinking about it.

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