I need to lodge a complaint, but I don't want to be cruel; so, I'll say what I need to say in this way: I typically listen to every episode of "The Pillar Podcast" twice. I'm not going to listen to this episode a second time. I suppose a letdown was inevitable after the joy of last week's reunion.
I need to lodge a complaint. This *was* a great Catholic conversation and we need more podcasts of Ed and JD disagreeing about things. Ed is the perfect amount of British for verbal sparring. (When someone gets to be too British they start to talk like that one classics major who thinks he's the next Cicero or Chesterton.) JD's hometowny Americanness is a great contrast to keep it fresh: I appreciate the occasional Friday Pillar Post tl;dr where it's just Ed being rather cross about something but there you really do need JD to really round out the experience.
I've never seen a Punch and Judy show but I have a vague idea of what it might be and I think the Pillar equivalent of whatever that is would be beautiful.
Singular indefinite "they" has been in use since at least Middle English. I don't want to link any of the articles because they all engage in stupid political equivocation about how that makes the use of singular "they" to apply to self proclaimed nonbinary individuals totally okay and anybody who has a problem just doesn't have a proper education in historical linguistics, don't you see. But knowledge of it as a fact has been around for much longer - I first read an article about it when I was in college over a decade ago, before even the gender fluid people I was friends with on campus were engaging in that use of "they."
Actually, I don't have a problem with there being different conventions in writing vs speaking with regard to this issue. Just like it's okay to use contractions in speech and internet comments, but not in formal writing, I don't see why it's a problem to just explicitly teach "singular indefinite they is acceptable in speech, but find some other way of expressing the thought if you're writing a scholarly article." Something about the use of singular indefinite "they" in formal writing bugs me regardless of whether I use it naturally in speech. Which I'm sure I do.
Okay, and one more comment while my grammarian brain is firing on all cylinders. Interesting as it was, the whole debate on moral personhood was totally unnecessary to the resolution of whether to use the singular or plural verb with regard to a singular noun that represents a group. This is about grammatical agreement. When a noun is in the grammatical singular in English, you use the singular conjugation of the verb. Grammatically plural noun? Grammatically plural verb. Singular indefinite They is no exception to this; even the much more modern politically correct usage which we might call "singular definite They" still uses the plural form of the verb because "they" is universally understood to be a plural pronoun and that grammar runs deep. The relevant noun in the acronym USCCB is "conference" (not "bishops" because that word is part of a prepositional phrase). "Conference" is grammatically singular in form; we know this because there is such a thing as the plural noun "conferences". Therefore the standard American usage, subject-verb agreement, is "correct" if you are the sort of person who thinks there's such a thing as "correct" and "incorrect" usage by native speakers of a language. Linguists tend not to think that way; grammarians fiercely disagree; I am a milquetoast fence-sitter with regard to spoken conventions but definitely prefer the American usage in formal writing.
I have done zero research on this but I would be curious to see how far back the common British usage in which the subject and verb grammatically disagree (but perhaps semantically agree?) goes. Every British person I've ever met uses it, but I don't recall whether I've seen it used in the writings of Lewis, Tolkien, or Waugh, for example.
My favorite "BUT WHY" moment in Ancient Greek so far is that I am supposed to remember that nouns that have the "neither [masculine nor feminine]" gender take a singular verb regardless of number. The rocks are small; the trees, however, is large, and because the farmers work hard, the trees bears many olives. The houses are in the field; the cups is here on the table. Good times.
Interesting! And thus why I tried to caveat my comment about these being standard English rules as opposed to general linguistic rules, of which there are few :) I didn't know that about ancient Greek, but it makes perfect sense to me for some reason that a language that has a damnfool thing like grammatical gender would have silly verb rules related to the neuter gender. Maybe because "neither masculine nor feminine" has a similar feeling as "neither singular nor plural", and if there's a thing that's neither singular nor plural why wouldn't you use singular rules for it? ...even if, (if I'm understanding you correctly) said neuter nouns actually do have plural forms.
Meanwhile, Japanese has neither singular nor plural for most nouns, nor grammatical gender, nor commonly-used personal pronouns, and therefore no verb conjugation for pronoun agreement... and yet in order to teach Japanese well, I have to know an awful lot about those topics so as to explain how it differs from English! :)
This was my favorite episode in a long time. I have no legal training and I began the conversation firmly on Team Condon, it did seem that all the examples of nouns of assemblage that JD brought up could very obviously be reduced entirely to the sums of the individuals. That was until JD brought up the example of the team and the podcast, at which point I had to backtrack because, at least in my intuition, a team or “the pillar” does seem to have some identity that exists irreducible to the individuals that make it up. I don’t know if that identity is enough to qualify as a moral person, or even if I can say that I fully follow who was making what case about the relationship between moral and legal persons, but I nevertheless found the entire ride to be very enjoyable.
Things have been rather grim in this corner of the world lately - not excessively grim, but more so than somewhat grim, since we’re parsing terms so exactly in this ep - and a podcast of giddy laughter and bickering about minutiae was actually a blessed relief…. 🙃
My own style guide uses singular impersonal they rather than "he or she." I admit that it's inelegant. Then again, you can really get your sentences bunged up with lots of "him or her..." and whatnot.
We are also fanatical about using "it" for entities such as conferences, associations, etc., even though the vernacular spoken preference is often to use "they." There are certainly edge cases where it sounds kind of weird (and which therefore ought to be avoided), but I think the principle is generally sound.
I think it's basically a U.S./UK split. British people say "England are doing well in the tournament," etc.
Your conversation about verb-noun agreement made me think about the current translation of the Te Deum in the breviary. It occurs in several places and not all of the translators use the same verbs!
Specifically, "The glorious company of apostles praise you; the noble fellowship of prophets praise you; the white-robed army of martyrs praise you." is elsewhere written with the verb "praises" instead (for example, when this bit occurs as/in an antiphon).
Doesn't exactly make for a riveting homily, but certainly interesting banter!
The neuter singular pronoun is one. Them is plural.
Yes. But when one uses "one", one sounds rather hoity-toity. When they say "they", they just chillin' and all.
So in this liturgical text, is one performing a solemn rite, or are they being pastoral?
Also, I'm not sure if this is a translation from a Latin typical or a modification/update of an existing text (or some of both?)
I need to lodge a complaint, but I don't want to be cruel; so, I'll say what I need to say in this way: I typically listen to every episode of "The Pillar Podcast" twice. I'm not going to listen to this episode a second time. I suppose a letdown was inevitable after the joy of last week's reunion.
The gents are keeping it real.
I made it about 3/4 of the way through and couldn’t do anymore. Conversations about grammar aren’t for everyone haha.
I need to lodge a complaint. This *was* a great Catholic conversation and we need more podcasts of Ed and JD disagreeing about things. Ed is the perfect amount of British for verbal sparring. (When someone gets to be too British they start to talk like that one classics major who thinks he's the next Cicero or Chesterton.) JD's hometowny Americanness is a great contrast to keep it fresh: I appreciate the occasional Friday Pillar Post tl;dr where it's just Ed being rather cross about something but there you really do need JD to really round out the experience.
I've never seen a Punch and Judy show but I have a vague idea of what it might be and I think the Pillar equivalent of whatever that is would be beautiful.
JD embracing juridical realism on moral personality. Nice.
Singular indefinite "they" has been in use since at least Middle English. I don't want to link any of the articles because they all engage in stupid political equivocation about how that makes the use of singular "they" to apply to self proclaimed nonbinary individuals totally okay and anybody who has a problem just doesn't have a proper education in historical linguistics, don't you see. But knowledge of it as a fact has been around for much longer - I first read an article about it when I was in college over a decade ago, before even the gender fluid people I was friends with on campus were engaging in that use of "they."
Actually, I don't have a problem with there being different conventions in writing vs speaking with regard to this issue. Just like it's okay to use contractions in speech and internet comments, but not in formal writing, I don't see why it's a problem to just explicitly teach "singular indefinite they is acceptable in speech, but find some other way of expressing the thought if you're writing a scholarly article." Something about the use of singular indefinite "they" in formal writing bugs me regardless of whether I use it naturally in speech. Which I'm sure I do.
Okay, and one more comment while my grammarian brain is firing on all cylinders. Interesting as it was, the whole debate on moral personhood was totally unnecessary to the resolution of whether to use the singular or plural verb with regard to a singular noun that represents a group. This is about grammatical agreement. When a noun is in the grammatical singular in English, you use the singular conjugation of the verb. Grammatically plural noun? Grammatically plural verb. Singular indefinite They is no exception to this; even the much more modern politically correct usage which we might call "singular definite They" still uses the plural form of the verb because "they" is universally understood to be a plural pronoun and that grammar runs deep. The relevant noun in the acronym USCCB is "conference" (not "bishops" because that word is part of a prepositional phrase). "Conference" is grammatically singular in form; we know this because there is such a thing as the plural noun "conferences". Therefore the standard American usage, subject-verb agreement, is "correct" if you are the sort of person who thinks there's such a thing as "correct" and "incorrect" usage by native speakers of a language. Linguists tend not to think that way; grammarians fiercely disagree; I am a milquetoast fence-sitter with regard to spoken conventions but definitely prefer the American usage in formal writing.
I have done zero research on this but I would be curious to see how far back the common British usage in which the subject and verb grammatically disagree (but perhaps semantically agree?) goes. Every British person I've ever met uses it, but I don't recall whether I've seen it used in the writings of Lewis, Tolkien, or Waugh, for example.
> Grammatically plural noun? Grammatically plural verb.
My favorite "BUT WHY" moment in Ancient Greek so far is that I am supposed to remember that nouns that have the "neither [masculine nor feminine]" gender take a singular verb regardless of number. The rocks are small; the trees, however, is large, and because the farmers work hard, the trees bears many olives. The houses are in the field; the cups is here on the table. Good times.
Interesting! And thus why I tried to caveat my comment about these being standard English rules as opposed to general linguistic rules, of which there are few :) I didn't know that about ancient Greek, but it makes perfect sense to me for some reason that a language that has a damnfool thing like grammatical gender would have silly verb rules related to the neuter gender. Maybe because "neither masculine nor feminine" has a similar feeling as "neither singular nor plural", and if there's a thing that's neither singular nor plural why wouldn't you use singular rules for it? ...even if, (if I'm understanding you correctly) said neuter nouns actually do have plural forms.
Meanwhile, Japanese has neither singular nor plural for most nouns, nor grammatical gender, nor commonly-used personal pronouns, and therefore no verb conjugation for pronoun agreement... and yet in order to teach Japanese well, I have to know an awful lot about those topics so as to explain how it differs from English! :)
This was my favorite episode in a long time. I have no legal training and I began the conversation firmly on Team Condon, it did seem that all the examples of nouns of assemblage that JD brought up could very obviously be reduced entirely to the sums of the individuals. That was until JD brought up the example of the team and the podcast, at which point I had to backtrack because, at least in my intuition, a team or “the pillar” does seem to have some identity that exists irreducible to the individuals that make it up. I don’t know if that identity is enough to qualify as a moral person, or even if I can say that I fully follow who was making what case about the relationship between moral and legal persons, but I nevertheless found the entire ride to be very enjoyable.
Keep up the Great Catholic Conversations.
it was my favorite in a while too!
Things have been rather grim in this corner of the world lately - not excessively grim, but more so than somewhat grim, since we’re parsing terms so exactly in this ep - and a podcast of giddy laughter and bickering about minutiae was actually a blessed relief…. 🙃
Nice, JD leaning into the parasocial relationship we all have with the two of you.
My own style guide uses singular impersonal they rather than "he or she." I admit that it's inelegant. Then again, you can really get your sentences bunged up with lots of "him or her..." and whatnot.
We are also fanatical about using "it" for entities such as conferences, associations, etc., even though the vernacular spoken preference is often to use "they." There are certainly edge cases where it sounds kind of weird (and which therefore ought to be avoided), but I think the principle is generally sound.
I think it's basically a U.S./UK split. British people say "England are doing well in the tournament," etc.
"Tear my face off Mission Impossible style"
-JD, the better answer is "Tear my face off Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are) style"
Your conversation about verb-noun agreement made me think about the current translation of the Te Deum in the breviary. It occurs in several places and not all of the translators use the same verbs!
Specifically, "The glorious company of apostles praise you; the noble fellowship of prophets praise you; the white-robed army of martyrs praise you." is elsewhere written with the verb "praises" instead (for example, when this bit occurs as/in an antiphon).
Doesn't exactly make for a riveting homily, but certainly interesting banter!