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DIG | 10 Jul 2003 11:56
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was vs. they

Hi,

There is a fragment of text (in $CVS/mailman/messages/ru/LC_MESSAGES):

,--- [ mailman.po ] ---
| #: Mailman/Deliverer.py:158
| msgid ""
| "%(address)s was invited to a different mailing\n"
| "list, but in a deliberate malicious attempt they tried to confirm the\n"
| "invitation to your list.  We just thought you'd like to know.  No further\n"
| "action by you is required."
`----[ ] ---

Is this correct: ``address was invited'' and ``they tried''?
                           ^^^- singular       ^^^^- plural

And almost the same situation at line 177 (same file).

P.S. I can be wrong, though. I am not native English speaker.

Regards,

--

-- 
DIG (Dmitri I GOULIAEV)                 http://www.telkel.net/dig/
1024D/63A6C649: 26A0 E4D5 AB3F C2D4 0112  66CD 4343 C0AF 63A6 C649
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Ben Gertzfield | 10 Jul 2003 19:07
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Re: was vs. they

DIG wrote:

>Hi,
>
>There is a fragment of text (in $CVS/mailman/messages/ru/LC_MESSAGES):
>
>,--- [ mailman.po ] ---
>| #: Mailman/Deliverer.py:158
>| msgid ""
>| "%(address)s was invited to a different mailing\n"
>| "list, but in a deliberate malicious attempt they tried to confirm the\n"
>| "invitation to your list.  We just thought you'd like to know.  No further\n"
>| "action by you is required."
>`----[ ] ---
>
>Is this correct: ``address was invited'' and ``they tried''?
>                           ^^^- singular       ^^^^- plural
>

This is not technically correct English, but it's a very common usage. 

Since there is no gender-neutral way in English to refer to a person 
whose gender is unknown (in this case, the owner of the email address) 
the word "they" in a singular sense is often used for this purpose.

"He or she" (which is more correct) sounds awkward in many cases, and 
the singular pronoun "it" is not used to refer to people.

To be more correct, "he or she" should probably be used in the original 
English above, but the original sentence is completely understandable to
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Barry Warsaw | 10 Jul 2003 20:51
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Re: was vs. they

On Thu, 2003-07-10 at 13:07, Ben Gertzfield wrote:

> "He or she" (which is more correct) sounds awkward in many cases, and 
> the singular pronoun "it" is not used to refer to people.
> 
> To be more correct, "he or she" should probably be used in the original 
> English above, but the original sentence is completely understandable to 
> this native English speaker.
> 
> You can translate it as a gender-neutral singular pronoun like "it" if 
> your language uses that for people, or use the equivalent of "he or she".

Good advice Ben, thanks.
-Barry
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DIG | 11 Jul 2003 01:43
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Re: was vs. they -- thanks

Hi, Ben Gertzfield !

 On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 10:07:44AM -0700, Ben Gertzfield wrote:

> This is not technically correct English, but it's a very common usage. 

I was supposing something like this.
That's how we live and learn. And that is why I added P.S. about not being native English speaker.

> Since there is no gender-neutral way in English to refer to a person 
> whose gender is unknown (in this case, the owner of the email address) 
> the word "they" in a singular sense is often used for this purpose.
> 
> "He or she" (which is more correct) sounds awkward in many cases, and 
> the singular pronoun "it" is not used to refer to people.

The same is in Russian. Also, ``it'' may be used as euphemism.

> To be more correct, "he or she" should probably be used in the original 
> English above, but the original sentence is completely understandable to 
> this native English speaker.
> 
> You can translate it as a gender-neutral singular pronoun like "it" if 
> your language uses that for people, or use the equivalent of "he or she".

In Russian it is almost the same situation: plural pronoun of 3-rd person is gender-neutral (singular ones
are not). And in Russian we sometimes can use the constructions like this one: ``он(а)
попробовал(а)''. It is almost the same as in English: ``(s)he tried''.

I will keep my eye on French translation: they discriminate (in good sense) plural pronoun of 3-rd person.
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Mikhail Sobolev | 11 Jul 2003 18:20
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Re: was vs. they

On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 10:07:44AM -0700, Ben Gertzfield wrote:
> This is not technically correct English, but it's a very common usage. 
> 
> Since there is no gender-neutral way in English to refer to a person 
> whose gender is unknown (in this case, the owner of the email address) 
> the word "they" in a singular sense is often used for this purpose.
I think that the classical grammar suggests that "she" is the right
replacement.  While in the modern English, this "gender-neutral" "she"
tends to be replaced with "they".

Disclaimer. I am not a native speaker, that's what I was said by a
English teacher. :))

--
Misha
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Nino Katic | 17 Jul 2003 12:12
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Croatian translation

Hi,

I'm interested if there have been some efforts to translate Mailman to
Croatian language recently?

Best regards,

Nino
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Barry Warsaw | 21 Jul 2003 04:21
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Re: was vs. they

On Fri, 2003-07-11 at 12:20, Mikhail Sobolev wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 10:07:44AM -0700, Ben Gertzfield wrote:
> > This is not technically correct English, but it's a very common usage. 
> > 
> > Since there is no gender-neutral way in English to refer to a person 
> > whose gender is unknown (in this case, the owner of the email address) 
> > the word "they" in a singular sense is often used for this purpose.
> I think that the classical grammar suggests that "she" is the right
> replacement.  While in the modern English, this "gender-neutral" "she"
> tends to be replaced with "they".
> 
> Disclaimer. I am not a native speaker, that's what I was said by a
> English teacher. :))

I find it very awkward when "she" is used in a gender-neutral way in
English.  I know this was a fad at one time, but to me it's very
jarring.  "They" is probably the best we've got for English.

-Barry
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