Statistics don't lie. People who use them do.

Mark Liberman makes his latest run at the zombie that won't die: the significance of the changes in the difference between male and female happiness. Douthat, Dowd, Leavitt, Leonhardt and Huffington are not to be trusted on these numbers.

A general word of advice: if a newspaper article or opinion piece tries to use a study and its statistics to make an interesting point, don't believe it; investigate it.

Liberman does a nice job of accurately presenting the statistics in a manageable form.

I'll do my best to capture his point. This idea:


Is mostly BS.

But the best part of Liberman's post: the mouse-over text on the first graph.

Assuming He is a man.

Oh man...

I'm torn.

I do believe that language expresses information in ways that influence the way we categorize that information. Influences but does not control. Does not dictate. Does not force.

And I believe that grammatical gender is not completely divorced from social gender or from a sense of biological sex. So I believe that "he" "his" etc do influence perception even when used inclusively and intended generically. I don't take offense at it but I try to avoid using it.

Pascal Gygax et al have sought to show that grammatical gender affects interpretation. And we're not talking about English where the distinction is growing less and less grammatical [if it's even a little bit grammatical. English really doesn't use gender except semantically anymore so it's probably time we just started calling an unspayed word an unspayed word.] The study took a look at French and German where gender is securely fastened to the grammar. The article should be available at the above link. If not e-mail me and I'll send you a pdf.

I've just browsed quickly thru it so I have no criticism or praise yet. The write-up at BPS Research Digest Blog gives a quick summary:

Gygax and colleagues have shown that when confronted with the male plural of a noun, people can't help but form a representation of men in their mind.

And by "male plural" they must mean grammatically masculine plural. Otherwise...duh. Did they do any testing with grammatically feminine group nouns? I'm a little nervous about the "can't help but" phrasing. It's slouching towards Sapir-Worf.

It's a boy or a girl

I had a chance recently to go back and look over the Beowulf translation I completed a year ago. On the second day of class I was given the five or so lines ending with the memorable exclamation regarding Scyld Sheafson: "Þæt wæs god cyning" -- translated by Seamus heaney as "That was one good king."

When I got to the line I read it as "That's a good king" -- the professor just looked up at me and said "Well that doesn't help us out any." *sigh*

His contention was that because Þæt is neuter and cyning is masculine it just doesn't make sense grammatically to say that they were both referring to the same good king. His suggested translation? Something along the lines of "Thusly (he) was a good king." "That" had to serve an adverbial function not a nominative -- perhaps like that or in that way.

It made sense so I lowered my head with a quiet yessir and ceded to floor to the next trembling classmate.

Looking at my translation again it occurs to me that my first attempt might work. Think of "That's a good king" as All that behavior adds up to a good king.

Or let's look at another language.

I say of my wife 'That is my wife' and I repeat it in Spanish: 'Ésa es mi esposa.' The demonstrative agrees with the gender of the predicate nominative.

And if I use the definite article saying 'That is the best wife' my Spanish echo would say 'Ésa es la mejor esposa.'

But if I change the sentiment slightly and say 'That is a good wife' I would say it in Spanish: 'Eso es una buena esposa.' The determiner on the nominative NP constrains the demonstrative.

A possessive forces agreement:
Ésa es mi amiga.
Ése es mi padre.
Ésa es mi casa.

(I have a sense that perhaps a flippant phrase like 'that's my friend' delivered with a sigh meaning 'what more can we expect from her/him?' could take the neuter. I'll have to look into that.)

But an indefinite article is fine with the neuter demonstrative.
Eso es un padre.
Eso es una casa.
Eso es una mujer.

If we use an intensifying quantifier in English: 'That is one big house' -- the Spanish counter would be 'Ésa es una casa grande' -- The quantifier looks identical to the determiner but each functions with a distinct demonstrative.

English: That is a big dog.
Spanish: Eso es un perro grande.
English: That is one big dog.
Spanish: Ése es un perro grande.

Even tho the article forms are identical in Spanish the sharper semantic focus is evident from the demonstrative. Perhaps one≠one. (This may be further evidence that dividing determiners and quantifiers into definite and indefinite determiners is problematic.)

For the sake of analogy (but not argument) I suggest that similar constraints on agreement might work in OE. When the demonstrative might indicate an collection of behaviors or qualities more than an individual or an item a neuter can function even when equated with a masculine or feminine noun.

The line in Beowulf doesn't have an article. OE didn't have true articles. But because we have neuter þæt and not masculine se a translation into Modern English could easily be That was a good king distinct from He was a good king. If we accept this analogy we then have to reject Heaney's translation: "That was one good king."

But I'm loath to criticise any decision Seamus Heaney makes regarding poetry. He's earned his license.

(Yes--the line from the MS was cropped and reorganized to fit the space.)

I Don't Think He'll Keep It Down

Here's an odd strategy for keeping teenagers quiet.

According to the Associated Press a woman who thought a 14 year old boy was too loud when playing basketball decided to encourage discourage his noise by standing on her sundeck and dropping her clothes. He ran into the house to tell his parents.

The linguistic concern here is that the law regarding indecent exposure refers to the perpetrator as one who "exposes his person." So the judge threw out the case. The prosecution argues that elsewhere in California state law is the claim "words used in the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter" so this indecency law is not gender specific and the woman should be prosecuted.

Is it possible that the masculine includes the "feminine" and "neuter?" Would it be more accurate to say that grammatically masculine words may also refer to people or objects that are not male?

But I lean towards the prosecution. There is some ambiguity in the wording of the law. It certainly would be gender exclusive if instead of "his person" it refered to "his manhood." And without regard to gender isn't "his person" kind of vague anyway? If I have a coat on my "person" I can still be wearing it as I should -- on my back and shoulders right?