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- Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!news.csuohio.edu!vmcms.csuohio.edu!R0264
- From: R0264@vmcms.csuohio.edu
- Subject: Re: _1984_ and "they"
- Message-ID: <168CC10F5E.R0264@vmcms.csuohio.edu>
- Sender: news@news.csuohio.edu (USENET News System)
- Organization: CSU
- References: <12215@kesson.ed.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 00:17:40 GMT
- Lines: 26
-
- In article <12215@kesson.ed.ac.uk>
- iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
-
- >
- >
- >I have just finished reading _Nineteen Eighty-Four_. The book is
- >written in "he"-English, from cover to cover, except for _one_
- >occurrence of singular "they". It is in Part 3, Chapter 6, where
- >Julia says:
- >
- > `You _want_ it to happen to the other person.
- > You don't give a damn what they suffer.'
- >
- >I'm pretty sure this is the only one (I've been reading very closely).
- >I haven't read anything else by G Orwell, so I don't know what happens
- >in his other books, though I intend to find out in the very near future.
- >In the meantime I invite comments from the group.
- >
- >--
- > `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
- >Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu) Gospel)
- >* Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK
- >* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
-
- It seems to me that "the other person" was used meaning really, "other
- people", just because it is a familiar figure of speech.
-