Pronoun - Revision history

Kevin Wang at 20:42, 26 October 2025

2025-10-26T20:42:50Z

Jonah Greenthal: removed condescending prescriptivism

2024-09-03T23:01:46Z

removed condescending prescriptivism

Ophir Lifshitz: Add another one to the list

2024-09-03T20:39:26Z

Add another one to the list

Kevin Wang at 19:10, 26 October 2021

2021-10-26T19:10:37Z

Kevin Wang at 16:18, 15 June 2021

2021-06-15T16:18:46Z

Kevin Wang: /* Experimenting */

2021-06-14T14:43:31Z

Experimenting

Kevin Wang: /* Etymology */

2021-06-14T14:41:48Z

Etymology

June Yin at 18:59, 4 June 2021

2021-06-04T18:59:38Z

June Yin at 18:56, 4 June 2021

2021-06-04T18:56:26Z

Ophir Lifshitz: qanon

2021-05-12T08:09:43Z

qanon

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <onlyinclude>
-In quizbowl, a '''pronoun''' is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.
+In quizbowl, a '''pronoun''' is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking; the word '''indicator''' is a common alternative. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.
 Good pronoun usage is essential to clear, fair quizbowl questions. It is good practice for every sentence or line of a question to contain a full pronoun, and it is vital for a full pronoun to appear early in the [[lead-in|first sentence]] of all [[tossup]]s.</onlyinclude>
@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 ===Experimenting===
 Experiments to change pronoun conventions in the modern era of quizbowl have been poorly received, with both players and moderators reporting significant confusion and jarring experiences.
 At [[2016 HSNCT]], phrases like {{q|name '''this''' author of ''Oliver Twist''}} were replaced with {{q|name '''the''' author of ''Oliver Twist''}}.
@@ Line 33: / Line 35: @@
 ==Etymology==
-The quizbowl term "pronoun" satisfies a somewhat broad, yet perfectly valid, interpretation of both the ordinary English usage and technical linguistic usage of the term "pronoun." The Oxford Online Dictionary, for example, [https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/pronoun defines] a pronoun as "a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this)."
+The term "pronoun" is long-established quizbowl jargon and has been widely used in quizbowl contexts going back to at least the 1980s.<ref>https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/newsletters/Buzzer6.html</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20021028204518/http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~paik/acf/acfguide.html</ref> In this pre-modern period, usage of pronouns in quizbowl aligned exactly with usage in ordinary English usage e.g. "he", "she", "it", "they". Since then, conventions have shifted and "full pronouns" always include the category of answer, making them no longer pronouns in the conventional sense. The continued, unintuitive use of "pronoun" after this divergence is consistently a point of confusion for newer players.
-The term "pronoun" is long-established quizbowl jargon and has been widely used and understood in quizbowl contexts going back to at least the 1980s.<ref>https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/newsletters/Buzzer6.html</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20021028204518/http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~paik/acf/acfguide.html</ref>
+Quizbowl's usage of "pronoun" does still behave analogously to the ordinary English usage and technical linguistic usage of a pronoun as something that refers "to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse."<ref>[https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/pronoun Oxford English Dictionary - pronoun]</ref> It even satisfies some broad definitions of the term that drop the requirement that pronouns be a single word (including the lede of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoun the Wikipedia article]); however, these are non-standard.
-Attempts to [[wikipedia:linguistic prescriptivism|deprecate]] the term "pronoun" by people who believe it to be an incorrect or unintuitive usage, in favor of other words like "cataphor," "designator," "descriptor," "determiner," "hypernym," "identifier," "indicator," "referent," "target word," etc. have largely not caught on; ironically, many of the proposed alternatives are technically less correct and less intuitive than "pronoun."
+The newly popular term "indicator" is the most successful of many attempts to deprecate "pronoun". Previous examples like "cataphor," "designator," "descriptor," "determiner," "hypernym," "identifier," "referent," "target word," etc. largely did not catch on, with several being technically less correct and less intuitive than "pronoun."
-Switching terminology at this point would also make it much harder to find historical discourse on this important topic.
+The existence of multiple terms for this concept will likely make it harder to find historical discourse on this important topic.
 ==References==

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 The term "pronoun" is long-established quizbowl jargon and has been widely used and understood in quizbowl contexts going back to at least the 1980s.<ref>https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/newsletters/Buzzer6.html</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20021028204518/http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~paik/acf/acfguide.html</ref>
-Attempts to [[wikipedia:linguistic prescriptivism|deprecate]] the term "pronoun" by people who believe it to be an incorrect or unintuitive usage, in favor of other words like "cataphor," "designator," "descriptor," "determiner," "hypernym," "identifier," "indicator," "referent," "target word," etc. have largely not caught on; ironically, many of the proposed alternatives are technically less correct and less intuitive than "pronoun." Frankly speaking, people will be more likely to understand you if you use a term that everyone else uses – "pronoun" – instead of go on misguided or pedantic crusades.
+Attempts to [[wikipedia:linguistic prescriptivism|deprecate]] the term "pronoun" by people who believe it to be an incorrect or unintuitive usage, in favor of other words like "cataphor," "designator," "descriptor," "determiner," "hypernym," "identifier," "indicator," "referent," "target word," etc. have largely not caught on; ironically, many of the proposed alternatives are technically less correct and less intuitive than "pronoun."
 Switching terminology at this point would also make it much harder to find historical discourse on this important topic.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <onlyinclude>
-In quizbowl, a '''pronoun''' or '''indicator''' is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.
+In quizbowl, a '''pronoun''' is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.
 Good pronoun usage is essential to clear, fair quizbowl questions. It is good practice for every sentence or line of a question to contain a full pronoun, and it is vital for a full pronoun to appear early in the [[lead-in|first sentence]] of all [[tossup]]s.</onlyinclude>
@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 The term "pronoun" is long-established quizbowl jargon and has been widely used and understood in quizbowl contexts going back to at least the 1980s.<ref>https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/newsletters/Buzzer6.html</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20021028204518/http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~paik/acf/acfguide.html</ref>
-Attempts to [[wikipedia:linguistic prescriptivism|deprecate]] the term "pronoun" by people who believe it to be an incorrect or unintuitive usage, in favor of other words like "cataphor," "designator," "descriptor," "determiner," "identifier," "indicator," "referent," "target word," etc. have largely not caught on; ironically, many of the proposed alternatives are technically less correct and less intuitive than "pronoun."
+Attempts to [[wikipedia:linguistic prescriptivism|deprecate]] the term "pronoun" by people who believe it to be an incorrect or unintuitive usage, in favor of other words like "cataphor," "designator," "descriptor," "determiner," "hypernym," "identifier," "indicator," "referent," "target word," etc. have largely not caught on; ironically, many of the proposed alternatives are technically less correct and less intuitive than "pronoun." Frankly speaking, people will be more likely to understand you if you use a term that everyone else uses – "pronoun" – instead of go on misguided or pedantic crusades.
 Switching terminology at this point would also make it much harder to find historical discourse on this important topic.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 In quizbowl, a '''pronoun''' or '''indicator''' is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.
-Good pronoun usage is essential to clear, fair quizbowl questions. It is good practice for every sentence or line of a question to contain a full pronoun, and it is vital for a full pronoun to appear early in the [[lead-in|first sentence]] of all [[tossup]]s.
+Good pronoun usage is essential to clear, fair quizbowl questions. It is good practice for every sentence or line of a question to contain a full pronoun, and it is vital for a full pronoun to appear early in the [[lead-in|first sentence]] of all [[tossup]]s.</onlyinclude>
 ==Explanation==

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:18, 15 June 2021
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	[[Category: Quizbowl lingo]]		[[Category: Quizbowl lingo]]
		+	{{c\|Quizbowl concepts}}

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 This change, approved by the editors due one of them lobbying against the perceived "illogicality" of the former construction,
 was heavily criticized, especially for its poor timing of picking the largest-ever quizbowl tournament to experiment with established conventions
-(instead of trying a pilot at a much less consequential event).<ref>https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=316976#p316976</ref><ref>https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=317118#p317118</ref>
+(instead of trying a pilot at a much less consequential event).<ref>[https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=316976#p316976 Re: 2016 HSNCT discussion] by [[Cody]] » Tue May 31, 2016 3:43 am</ref><ref>[https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=317118#p317118 Re: 2016 HSNCT discussion] by [[Bloodwych]] » Thu Jun 02, 2016 3:56 am</ref>
 Several question sets have experimented with using gender-neutral pronouns (like singular "they") to point to answers on a specific person:
-see [[ARTSEE]], [[Cambridge Open]], [[Oxford Open]], [[2018 EFT]], and isolated parts of other sets.<ref>https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=380829#p380829</ref>
+see [[ARTSEE]], [[Cambridge Open]], [[Oxford Open]], [[2018 EFT]], and isolated parts of other sets.<ref>[https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=380829#p380829 Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Thanks and General Discussion] by [[tiwonge]] » Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:27 pm</ref>
 ==Etymology==

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:41, 14 June 2021
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	Switching terminology at this point would also make it much harder to find historical discourse on this important topic.		Switching terminology at this point would also make it much harder to find historical discourse on this important topic.
		+
		+	==References==
		+	<references/>

	[[Category: Quizbowl lingo]]		[[Category: Quizbowl lingo]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:56, 4 June 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	In quizbowl, a '''pronoun''' is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.	+	In quizbowl, a "'''pronoun'''" (or more accurately, an '''indicator''') is a word or phrase within a question that explicitly refers to the answer and signals the type of information that the answer is seeking. A pronoun can be likened to a signpost that points the way to the answer, or thought of as a placeholder that substitutes for the answer.

	Good pronoun usage is essential to clear, fair quizbowl questions. It is good practice for every sentence or line of a question to contain a full pronoun, and it is vital for a full pronoun to appear early in the [[lead-in\|first sentence]] of all [[tossup]]s.		Good pronoun usage is essential to clear, fair quizbowl questions. It is good practice for every sentence or line of a question to contain a full pronoun, and it is vital for a full pronoun to appear early in the [[lead-in\|first sentence]] of all [[tossup]]s.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 In modern quizbowl, a full pronoun is typically formed by using the word "this" or "these" followed by the general category of the answer (e.g. "this composer," "these creatures").
-For example, consider the sentence <q style="font-family: serif;">In a novel titled for one of '''these animals''', the protagonist claims that “prime numbers are like life,” explaining why '''they''' are used to number the book’s chapters</q> (from [[2019 EFT]]).
+For example, consider the sentence {{q|In a novel titled for one of '''these animals''', the protagonist claims that “prime numbers are like life,” explaining why '''they''' are used to number the book’s chapters|cite=[[2019 EFT]]}}.
-The phrase "'''these animals'''" functions as a pronoun in the quizbowl sense and indicates that the answer is an animal (namely, dog), while the word "they" functions as a pronoun only in the colloquial English sense but not in the quizbowl sense (and anyhow, its antecedent is "prime numbers" and not "these animals").
+The phrase {{q|'''these animals'''}} functions as a pronoun in the quizbowl sense and indicates that the answer is an animal (namely, dog), while the word {{q|'''they'''}} functions as a pronoun only in the colloquial English sense but not in the quizbowl sense (and anyhow, its antecedent is {{q|prime numbers}} and not {{q|these animals}}).
 It is common to use short pronouns such as "he" or "she" (instead of "this composer," for example) given that at least one full pronoun is already used earlier in the question.
 ==What to avoid==
-Phrases that superficially have the same form as a pronoun may cause confusion and should be avoided. For example, in the sentence <q style="font-family: serif;">George Herbert claims that the “immortal” variety of this concept is the “author of this great frame” in one of several poems titled for this concept</q> (from [[2018 EFT]]), the pronoun is "this concept," but the phrase "this great frame" (which is a direct quotation from a poem) can unintentionally throw players off because the words "this" and "these" almost always signal a pronoun in the quizbowl sense (especially in a [[wikipedia:collocation|collocation]] like "the author of this"), and quizbowl players have become thoroughly accustomed to these circumstances.
+Phrases that superficially have the same form as a pronoun may cause confusion and should be avoided. For example, in the sentence {{q|George Herbert claims that the “immortal” variety of this concept is the “author of this great frame” in one of several poems titled for this concept|cite=[[2018 EFT]]}}, the pronoun is {{q|this concept}}, but the phrase {{q|this great frame}} (which is a direct quotation from a poem) can unintentionally throw players off because the words "this" and "these" almost always signal a pronoun in the quizbowl sense (especially in a [[wikipedia:collocation|collocation]] like {{q|the author of this}}), and quizbowl players have become thoroughly accustomed to these circumstances.
 Old quizbowl questions often used (exclusively or excessively) incomplete or very general pronouns, such as "he," "she," "it," "they," "one," "ones," or simply "this" or "these" by itself, or even omitted any pronoun entirely. This practice makes it much more difficult to identify what a question is asking for.
@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 Experiments to change pronoun conventions in the modern era of quizbowl have been poorly received, with both players and moderators reporting significant confusion and jarring experiences.
-At [[2016 HSNCT]], phrases like "name '''this''' author of ''Oliver Twist''" were replaced with "name '''the''' author of ''Oliver Twist''."
+At [[2016 HSNCT]], phrases like {{q|name '''this''' author of ''Oliver Twist''}} were replaced with {{q|name '''the''' author of ''Oliver Twist''}}.
 This change, approved by the editors due one of them lobbying against the perceived "illogicality" of the former construction,
 was heavily criticized, especially for its poor timing of picking the largest-ever quizbowl tournament to experiment with established conventions