Animate "They" (was: Pronouns...)

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>Speaking of plurals, is it just me, or does "they" have an animate
>"feel" to it.  I tend to have a slight preference for "those"
>rather than "they" when referring to inanimate objects.  Perhaps=20
>it's due to the colloquial usage of "they" as an epicene singular?
Same here. I have also often wondered if the so called grammatical
genders of Danish, common and neuter, would not be better termed as
animate and inanimate. Common gender is a fusion of proto-Germanic
masculine and feminine which both have a very animate 'feel' to
them.

So like the common gender, 'they' can also be seen as a fusion of
masculine and feminine, while 'those', being a demonstrative
pronoun, is much like the neuter gender. All this IMHO. ;-)

-kristian- 8)