{"id":135,"date":"2026-10-12T21:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/?page_id=135"},"modified":"2026-10-13T09:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T09:39:16","slug":"pronouns","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/?page_id=135","title":{"rendered":"Pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spencer employs pronouns and words denoting sex in the way that was taught to him over fifty years ago.\u00a0\u00a0In Spencer’s view, the traditional terms are the evolved refinement of a great language and the best mode of expression.<\/p>\n

Each of the possible alternatives, such as ‘human beings’, ‘Homo sapiens<\/em>‘, ‘people’, ‘folk’, ‘men and women’, and misuse of the pronoun ‘they’, run into difficulties of expression and ugliness of style that are avoided with the traditional terms.<\/p>\n

For this reason, Spencer persists with the traditional terms, despite that using them is now considered by some to be evidence of an under-appreciation of the merits of the female sex or a desire for a society in which men dominate women.\u00a0 In Spencer’s view, not using the traditional terms is evidence of an under-appreciation of the English language.<\/p>\n

Spencer is not a grammarian, but the following guidance on traditional usage is offered:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pay attention to context as it makes a difference<\/li>\n
  2. ‘mankind’ signifies human beings in general, men, women, children,\u00a0Homo sapiens<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  3. ‘man’ may refer to\n
      \n
    1. an instance of the male human being, as in ‘there’s a man sleeping in the garden shed’<\/li>\n
    2. people in general or in numbers, as in ‘when man crossed from Asia into North America thirteen thousand years ago’.\u00a0 This does not mean that only <\/em>men and no <\/em>women made the crossing; it means that human beings did so.<\/li>\n
    3. an abstracted notion of the human being, male and female, as in ‘man’s ceaseless quest for self-actualisation’\u00a0 which includes women’s ceaseless quest for self-actualisation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    4. ‘he’ may refer to\n
        \n
      1. a male human being, as in ‘he robbed the old lady then ran down that alley, constable’<\/li>\n
      2. any human being, man, woman or child, as in ‘when the visitor comes to a museum, he should expect to find at least one dinosaur bone’<\/li>\n
      3. human beings, considered generally, as in ‘when man crossed to North America, he soon learned to make warm clothing from bison-hides.’\u00a0 This does not mean that only\u00a0<\/em>men and\u00a0no\u00a0<\/em>women made hide clothing.\u00a0 It means that, by some collective human effort, hide clothing was made.<\/li>\n
      4. human beings in the abstract, as in ‘because he is afflicted with mind-body dualism, man is forever in a state of alienation of which he may be only dimly aware’<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
      5. In a context where female humans (real, or in the abstract, singular or several) are the subject, then the terminology is ‘woman’, ‘women’, ‘she’, ‘her’, as appropriate.<\/li>\n
      6. The terms ‘man’, ‘men’, ‘he’, ‘him’, include women where the context is human beings in general, in the collective, in the abstract.<\/li>\n
      7. The terms ‘woman’, ‘women’, ‘she’, ‘her’, are used where the context is that of female human beings only, in general, in particular, in the collective, in the abstract.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n

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         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Spencer employs pronouns and words denoting sex in the way that was taught to him over fifty years ago.\u00a0\u00a0In Spencer’s view, the traditional terms are the evolved refinement of a great language and the best mode of expression. Each of the possible alternatives, such as ‘human beings’, ‘Homo sapiens‘, ‘people’, ‘folk’, ‘men and women’, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-135","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicspencer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}