FreshParsnipThe singular they is actually such a natural part of the English language, the people complaining about it almost certainly use it without noticing
They usually only use it for unknown people though, which is why it sounds strange to them to use for a known person.
They don’t now what they talkin bout
The thing that really grinds my gears is the excessive use of “he/she”. Workplace training is a regular offender for this. Just use the word “they” FFS, it’s sat right there on the shelf for you.
Or don’t, just go with “he” or “she”, this fictional person in your ‘case study’ isn’t real, they don’t give a shit.
TʜᴇʀᴀᴘʏGⒶʀʏ⁽ᵗʰᵉʸ‘ᵗʰᵉᵐ⁾James Acaster bit about this:
James Acaster Stand-up | A Word Men Have Never Heard | Netflix
Some academic fields a decade or two ago went through a phase where they intentionally used “she” for all pronouns. The idea was because academia was so male dominated, even a neutral pronoun would still make people inagine a male lab worker, statistician, etc when reading. Intentionally using “she” was thought to force people to imagine a woman and normalise that image.
ApyteleReminds me of Ancillary Justice / The Imperial Radch series. Every once in a while you get hints like “she could tell this person had a specific gender in this culture based on how she wore her facial hair, but she could never remember” because the main character (and most of the story) is in the context of a society where gender doesn’t exist and everyone is referred to with English feminine pronouns.
geekwithsoulAnd it goes back to at least Chaucer, so it’s been in recorded use for like six centuries. Most definitely not “new”.
You can find critics of its use that are almost as old as its use. Oddly, for some reason critics of its use don’t seem to show up… Until it started being used.
Poets and authors have been artistically butchering, changing, and shaping language for as long as language has existed. This is neither an argument for nor against any particular change. Just look at the nonsense that James Joyce did.
I have a non-binary partner and I respect their pronouns, but personally if I cared enough to change my pronouns I would be more comfortable with “it” to avoid any confusion when discussing a mixture of singular and plural nouns. Heck, if I was going to make my own language from scratch singular vs plural pronouns would be much more commonly used while gendered pronouns would be reserved for specific scenarios where gender is relevant.
henfredemarsI wish my English teachers didn’t beat me up so hard (figuratively) as incorrect use of ‘they’ when it has a long history of usage in the singular.
I’m really curious as to how singular they started being taught as incorrect. I really don’t think it was originally intended to be transphobic.
I imagine it was fashionable at some point in the last six centuries.
Kristellwww.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pronoun If wewbull is using a different definition of pronoun than Merriam-Webster (and all dictionaries), then I guess wewbull is the one who’s correct, and not Merriam Webster.
You is a second person pronoun, it’s used in place of a proper noun. A person’s name when talking to them, in this case
FriendOfDeSotoI don’t think this would’ve happened though if there hadn’t been the societal impetus that aided adoption. The singular they may have been around since Chaucer or Shakespeare - ~30 years ago, people didn’t really use it. There was far more “he or she” going on, that’s now been more commonly replaced with a “they,” also because it’s shorter. English benefits from the fact that the neutral pronoun slots right in to the existing grammar. Other languages struggle with finding such a neutral replacement because it’s more often than not a new word and a slightly altered grammatical function. English is okay on the first problem and arguably okay to mostly okay on the second.
I think singular they was still used naturally and unconsciously even when it was taught to be incorrect. People don’t naturally say “he or she”
「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」 | (aka: 鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma)Chinese language is gender neutral:
他 (tā) - he/she/it, singular
(Edit: “it” is actually “它”, but its the same pronunciation)
他们 (tā mén) - they, plural
So simple… there’s no fuss about pronouns lmfao
Imagine all the problems that would go away if the US just used a better language xD
Better than some languages like German, where even inanimate objects have gender. That would be nicer though.
It’s cute when someone with a first language like that carries it over to English. “The coffee maker… he is broken 😞” I’m so sad for him!
Never thought of that, but personalizing objects is kind of cute, I agree.
Mostly. The characters are gender specific. 他=male 她= female and 它 is ambiguous.
Miles O'BrienI’ve started yelling “NO PRONOUNS” and “USE HE/SHE BECAUSE HE/SHE IS NOT AN OBJECT” at my conservative relatives and acquaintances who complain about pronouns and gender-neutral anything.
No, Deborah, the non-binary person who helped you figure out your phone today is not the cause of societies’ downfall, nor are they responsible for high grocery prices.
They complain about pronouns, but use them constantly. Clearly they don’t truly know what a pronoun is. They complain about gender neutral stuff, but use neutral language all the time.
So I’ve been loudly pointing out every time they do.
I’ve been uninvited from a lot of future family gatherings. oh nooooooooooo
unknown1234_5they have half a point in that its typically only applied to people when a gender is unknown or you are referring to a group. that falls apart pretty quick though because unknown gender is barely any different from someone choosing not to identify with one. also, half a point is no good in the first place.
Is normally unknown due to not knowing the person though. Using “they” with someone known to you feels rude. As if you’re saying “I don’t include Grace in my circle, so I use “they” to keep them distant”.
It really sticks in the throat.
yeah, but there's a difference between feeling weird and being incorrect
On the other hand, some people blow their tops when I match singular they to singular verb forms. I think people just like getting angry.
My English teacher back in highschool was very picky about using “they” like most people do. I can hear him say “you have to use FORMAL LANGUAGE” in my head still lol
If it’s an unknown person we were told to use “he or she” instead of “they” and “his or her” instead of “their” despite the fact that no one fucking talks that way when referring to an unknown individual.
Like even saying “everyone should bring their laptop to class” would be marked wrong because “everyone” is singular so the “correct” version is “everyone should bring his or her laptop to class” which imo is way more confusing
However, he was also fine with us using masculine singular pronouns when the gender of a person wasn’t known, which I guess is kind of the case in like Spanish and some other Latin languages but still, just really weird rules
so the “correct” version is “everyone should bring his or her laptop to class” which imo is way more confusing
Only if you’re used to hearing it the wrong way.
‘Emails’[sic] probably sounds more ‘correct’ to you, even though it’s like ‘deers’ and ‘happies’.
no one fucking talks that way
What part of “formal language” did you not understand :P
I think it’s changed now but I think this is exactly it: for a long time, singular they has been held to be informal. It doesn’t matter how people normally talk, because rules of formality are not about that.
English lessons (or any lesson teaching you about your native language) are often expressly about teaching you a formal, standardised version of the language. Sometimes that’s for reasons of control and the imposition of a hierarchy, but there’s a practical element to it, as well. If you’re somewhere where different registers of a language are spoken, being able to write and speak the formal register (or the “prestige dialect") unlocks opportunities and jobs.
Understanding of linguistic subtleties like “formal register” and “prestige dialect” is often lacking though so teachers often say that informal or regional dialect versions are wrong rather than merely not the preferred dialect you are learning in these lessons. I suppose there’s an argument that, in context, those two things are synonyms.
But for a linking word. It’s a comma splice.
it genuinely causes confusion though, someone told me “they” (a different person), were going to be there early and I was like “they’re all going to come early?!”
Cevilia (they/she/…)Skill issue. Sounds like they need to hear it more often tbh.
rbos‘You’ has a similar ambiguity, being a plural word originally, but most people muddle through that.
I do think we should bring back thee/thy/thou as singular, but whatever.
teftOf course they do, especially when the number of people is ambiguous or when they are speaking about someone titled as a profession such as “I went to the doctor and they said…”
It is all a manufactured situation used to push hate and attack the marginalised. Singular they has been around for a very long time and there were options before they was they, not to mention in all the other myriad languages in the world.
PyrHonestly I’ve always just put it down to another fault of the English language being weird. There should be a more concise word for a singular person where the gender is not defined, but there just isn’t so people use “they”.
It’s acceptable to me if the number of people isn’t known but in your case of the doctor I would not find it ideal but acceptable just because there isn’t another proper word if you don’t want to / can’t use the word he/she.
To me in an ideal world They would strictly be for multiple people or an unknown number, and another word for those who don’t identify as he/she or for cases where gender isn’t relevant like title professions and whatnot.
To me it’s quite unnatural to use singular they about someone whose gender I actually know.
🔍🦘🛎
MinnesotaGoddamwhat if their gender is they?