Chaucer claim, checked

Turned out to be false.

later addition, bringing it to the top
Out on facebook somewhere, an (alleged, not cited or documented) 17th century quote was linked (in an image) to say that "you" was never singular, always plural. Because of my long interest in the history of English, I wrote this. I think it might cover the other points below, too, but I figured it should go on this page.
Someone misunderstanding in a moment isn't new. 🙂

Research into the history of English didn't even exist in the 17th century. It's part of all of the collections and comparisons of the 19th century, when people started collecting and studying, for fun, bugs, eggs, skeletons, feathers, nests, plants, fairy tales, traditional songs, and words.

I'm not sure if that came about because evolution was being discovered, or the other way around, but taxonomy was all the rage in parts of Europe, and collecting was, too.

Back to the Chaucer claim:

The "real" dictionary (book, which lots of people have in tiny print), page photographed by Connie Coyle (thank you!): /theyOEDprint.png

It does not have a Chaucer citation. The definition is even more clear that this is a reference to an unknown, and not a form of address or individual reference.

Please, PLEASE be skeptical enough not to believe something just because someone says it. If they aren't willing or able to back up what they're saying about one thing, how can you trust the rest?

Qualify your statements. Say "Maybe" or "I read" or "This author believes."

Anything even partly like "Any idiot knows that" or "of COURSE it is" or "Anyone who says differently is a transphobic moron" should be a flare going up over a source you should not trust.

And to be fair, the statement brought here started out definite, and then turned to "someone here said that a blogger said that a guy said that the OED said." It turns out it didn't.

Sandra

In the earlier discussion someone had written
-=-Chaucer used the singular "they."-=-
And I asked
Do you have a citation for that?
She sent the link below, writing
The post is obnoxious, no need to read the whole thing, but the Chaucer quote is at the beginning. This was something someone sent me when I asked a group of writers how to construct a particular sentence (having nothing to do with trans stuff, just plain old grammar) without using the singular "they."

It is an impersonal singular "they," in that it doesn't refer to a specific individual, but that was the question that I had asked.

___________________

Sandra:

The chaucer notes are this (quoted from Singular "they" and the many reasons why it's correct)

Historical usage: Geoffrey Chaucer is widely credited as the father of English literature. He was one of the first well-known authors to write in Middle English instead of the prevailing literary tongue, Latin, bringing legitimacy to the language. And, what's this? Why, it's a line from The Canterbury Tales, ca. 1400:
"And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame,
They wol come up [...]"
It's a little hard to tell in the Middle English, but "whoso" is a quantified expression, like whoever, that is syntactically singular, but then is paired to the syntactically plural they. So, since at least the beginnings of literary Middle English, 600 years ago, it's been all right to use singular they. It's been consistently attested since then; Henry Churchyard reports examples from the Oxford English Dictionary in 1434, 1535, 1643, 1749, 1848, and a wide variety of years in between. There has literally been no point since 1400 when singular they went unattested in contemporary English.

(end of quote)

That's not very impressive. "Whoso" isn't necessarily singular. It's like "anyone" or "whoever."

The final statement is odd, too: "There has literally been no point since 1400 when singular they went unattested in contemporary English."

I have an Oxford English dictionary and can look this up; I don't know who Henry Churchyard is, but "literally no point since 1400" is a weird statement. If they have five examples that are listed because they were in print (which is how the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary works—they collected examples from printed documents), that doesn't mean there weren't hundreds more that were CONtested. The article linked is defending usage based on exceptions, recommending against prescriptive grammar. That's fine. Prescriptive means by the rules. The grammar rules in English aren't all that old. Not as old as Chaucer or Shakespeare. Descriptive means looking at language as it is used by normal people and accepting that it's the way the language should be.

One ambiguous quote from 600 years ago doesn't justify changing 21st century English. A collction of five over 600 years, during time that includes printed materials, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and the internet doesn't justify it either.

If someone has access to the online OED (Brie maybe?) it might be easier than me trying to transcribe from mine. The magnifying glass is upstairs with the jigsaw puzzle. The dictionaries are on the sewing table far from there. A cut and paste would be better, but that's not open to everyone on the internet yet, I don't think.

Sandra

Another list member (this was happening in a discussion Always Learning) wrote this: -=-Chaucer used the singular "they." -=-

+++ Do you have a citation for that? +++

This article [same article, but she had an image]

has a Chaucer quote and many other historical literary references and arguments for the singular "they." The author is an anti-prescriptivist -- someone who doesn't believe in telling other people exactly how they should speak or write. They're just ("just" seems like the right word here, for once) out to show that the singular "they" is a valid bit of English usage and has been attested pretty continuously since Chaucer's time.

Of interest, at least for anyone who's made it this far: The particular Chaucer quote in this article has appeared with both "they" and "he" in the position of interest, according to different editions of The Canterbury Tales. The earliest references for each usage that I can track down are:

For "they," Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Reprinted from the Globe Edition, edited by Alfred W. Pollard, published 1902, http://bit.do/c7TwV (The quoted line is highlighted in all yellow near the bottom of page 146 -- just scroll down a bit)

For "he," The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by F. N. Robinson, publication date somewhere between 1940 and 1993 I think. (Since it's still under copyright, it's not on Google Books as the other is, and therefore I can't find the edition for sure—those dates are the earliest and latest I could find for Robinson editions of Chaucer.)

I haven't been able to find anyone saying which of these editions is more authoritative. Perhaps a better Chaucer scholar than I (and that would be most of them!) can say. But looking this much up has been fun.

(end of quote of a post)

Original
It's nice formatted, though, there.

And one more note on that: "The author is an anti-prescriptivist," appears above. The word for a linguist or lexicographer who prefers describing how language is used is a "descriptivist." They study language without regard to what is better or worse usage. Those who care more about the best usages of the language are called "prescriptivists."

A person who is interested in language whether descriptively or prescriptively is not, because of that, "a transphobe." Asking questions about claims about the history of English is not transphobic.

Transgender index page

Transgender "history"

Public facebook group (if it's still there)