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A comment on Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurture debate (2003). Parent comment

Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by automatoney on Monday September 30, 2019 @04:06PM (#21119197)
It doesn't solve the pronoun problem but if you haven't heard of them, Grice's Maxims[1] are fun to know about. Basically the idea is that you can generally assume that people you're talking to will follow certain rules, and that allows you to make assumptions. So in your example, you assume that your friend is following the maxim of quantity which allows you to conclude that if there were more people than just Pat, then they would have mentioned the others.

[1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/dravling/grice.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by esyir on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @12:31AM (#21122076)
Yeah, but in practice, "they" is used to describe the plural. Singular they might have been in use, but in the modern context, typically only brings confusion. Not to mention screwing with sentence flow.

Singular they are? they is? Both seem pretty offputting to me.

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