Pronouns

A "pronoun" is a word that refers to another "noun" or "proper noun". Thus, a pronoun is a substitute for a noun. Pronouns can be ambiguous.

Read any legal document. Note the almost complete lack of pronouns. To be as unambiguous as possible, nouns are used instead of pronouns and those nouns are usually defined near the beginning of the document.
Here is some related content.

Some movies use this ambiguity as humor. Some people like this humor. Some do not. Here is an example from one of the Airplane movies.

Be hospitable and not hostile!

Person A: There's a problem at the hospital.
Person B: What is it?
Person A: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important now.

The pronoun "it" is somewhat ambiguous. Pronouns usually refers to the nearest noun, but not always. This is an example of one problem that makes NLP (Natural Language Processing) by computers difficult.

More: Matthew 25:38 Hosting strange and hostile guests and ghosts

To achieve clarity (as in legal documents), one can repeat the noun (as in plaintiff, defendant, etc.) instead of using generic and ambiguous pronouns.

The ambiguous pronoun in the above verse is "them".

M. R. Ducks. (Them are ducks).
M. R. not. (Them are not).

Who is the "them"? The obvious choices are the following.

The small group of disciples receiving a private briefing.
A large group of the crowd receiving a public briefing.

What difference might it make in one case or the other?

How does what is said apply to a much larger group, if it is a private briefing to a small group?

Mark 11:2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him. [kjv]

και λεγει αυτοις υπαγετε εις την κωμην την κατεναντι υμων και ευθυς εισπορευομενοι εις αυτην ευρησετε πωλον δεδεμενον εφ ον ουδεις ουπω ανθρωπων εκαθισεν λυσατε αυτον και φερετε [gnt]

11:3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither. [kjv]

και εαν τις υμιν ειπη τι ποιειτε τουτο ειπατε ο κυριος αυτου χρειαν εχει και ευθυς αυτον αποστελλει παλιν ωδε [gnt]

In the lead up to the triumphal entry into Jerusalem celebrated on Palm Sunday, Jesus gives a command to get a colt.

I always had the idea that the colt would be sent immediately to Jesus, where the "him" refers to the colt.

The RSV (Revised Standard Version) has the following translation of the verse.

@OMIT(t=[If]) any one says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.

So can this be taken two ways, or should it be translated only one way. Which way?

Mark 11:2

All

KJV: And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him.

Greek: και λεγει αυτοις υπαγετε εις την κωμην την κατεναντι υμων και ευθεως ευθυς εισπορευομενοι εις αυτην ευρησετε πωλον δεδεμενον εφ ον ουδεις ουπω ανθρωπων κεκαθικεν λυσαντες εκαθισεν λυσατε αυτον αγαγετε και φερετε

Mark 11:3

All

KJV: And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither.

Greek: και εαν τις υμιν ειπη τι ποιειτε τουτο ειπατε οτι ο κυριος αυτου χρειαν εχει και ευθεως ευθυς αυτον αποστελει αποστελλει παλιν ωδε

Latin: et si quis vobis dixerit quid facitis dicite quia Domino necessarius est et continuo illum dimittet huc

Wycliffe: And if ony man seye ony thing to you, What doen ye? seie ye, that he is nedeful to the Lord, and anoon he schal leeue hym hidir.

Tyndale: And if eny man saye vnto you: why do ye soo? Saye that the Lorde hath neade of him: and streight waye he will sende him hidder.

Gothic: jah jabai hvas iggqis qithai: duhve thata taujats? qithaits: thatei frauja this gairneith; jah sunsaiw ina insandeith hidre.

Luther: Und so jemand zu euch sagen wird: Warum tut ihr das? so sprechet: Der Herr bedarf sein; so wird er's bald hersenden.

Many languages have gender-specific pronouns. In some languages, this is just a "grammatical gender" that may or may not mean a physical gender.

The usual pronouns are for masculine as in "he", feminine as in "she" and neuter as in "it".

Some languages have only two such as masculine and feminine.

The German word "das Kind" ≈ "the baby" which is neuter. Thus, someone coming from German (or Greek, etc.) might say something like the following using a quote fragment from Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian-British philosopher) .

"Das Kind learn eine Menge Dinge glauben. Es learn nach diesen Glaube handeln." (German)
"The child learns to believe a lot of things. It learns to act according to those beliefs." (English)

Book of quotes: Ludvig Wittgenstein: On certainty. 1969. (translation).

In English, some people can get upset by hearing a baby referred to as an "it".

More: Ludwig Wittgenstein

Like many Indo-European languages, Greek nouns have a gender, which may or may not have anything to do with the gender of humans, animals, etc. Adjectives need to agree by gender (and number and person, etc.). The Greek definite articles (nominative case, singular) are the following.

"ο" (o) ≈ "the - masculine"
"η" (ee) ≈ "the - feminine"
"το" (to) ≈ "the - neuter"

Many PIE (Proto Indo-European) languages have a case and gender system. This idea is sometimes called "grammatical gender".

The German word "der Mann" ≈ "the man" which is masculine.
The German word "die Frau" ≈ "the woman" which is feminine.
The German word "das Kind" ≈ "the child, baby, unborn child" which is neuter.

In some languages, such as German, the "grammatical gender" may be at times arbitrary.

The German word "das Messer" ≈ "the knife" which is neuter.
The German word "die Gabel" ≈ "the fork" which is feminine.
The German word "der Löffel" ≈ "the spoon" which is masculine.

In Russian and Greek, the gender of a knife, fork and spoon is arbitrary.

In Russian, the speaker uses different endings for past tense verbs, some adjectives, etc., based on the gender of the speaker.

What does one do if a student wants to have a different gender pronoun (or name) used as they fell like it for any given day?

The English word "antonym", from 1870, means a word that has the opposite meaning of another word. It was constructed from the English prefix "anti" meaning "opposite" or "against" from the Greek prefix "anti" for "in place of" and the Greek word for "word" (or "noun").

The modern Greek word "αντωνυμία" (an-to-nee-MEE-a) ≈ "pronoun" comes from the Greek prefix "anti" and the Greek word for "noun". The meaning is that of a something used "in place of" a noun which is a pronoun.

More: The prefix anti in place of against