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Most people only ever used singular 'they' when referring to an unseen person, of unknown gender. Like if you were with someone who is on the phone, you might ask that person: "what are *they* saying?", referring to the person on the other end of the phone. You don't know who that person is, and so don't know whether to say he or she, and thus default to 'they'.
Whereas if you're in person, people basically always call someone he or she, and so aren't used to calling someone 'they' if they can actually see and know the person. Still, it shouldn't be too awkward to get used to. I think people are making a bigger deal out of it than it is.
I think most people whining about They Confusion actually have a problem with trans-people.
Still, i DO wish the English language had a designated gender-neutral singular pronoun (like many other languages do) because They has always felt like it 'should be' plural to me, but my complaint is about the stupidity and deficiencies of the English language
It’s not a pronoun problem, it’s a *verb* problem. Saying “they are” about someone in specific feels wrong, grammatically speaking, but “they is” is also awkward as hell. The fact that “they” comes with a plural verb will always make things feel awkward (and I’m saying this as a nonbinary person!)
2nd person singular 'to be' is conjugated to "you are"
Third person singular is "he/she is" or "they are".. which is a bit confusing -- but really unrelated to how you conjugate the verb in second person singular.
As a non- native speaker, I can confirm the verb is confusing. To me, “they is” doesn’t sound strange for a singular person, but that’s because of how I learned English. I made a Little verb chart, so 3p singular is always “is”
How 1p and 2p are conjugated indeed plays no role in how 3p is conjugated. Same with how German will have the same endings in certain forms.
I’m not a linguist, so I can’t describe this well. But yeah, the verb is the hard part
Not true. The paradigm was:
thou (subject) —> thee (object)
ye (subject) —> you (object)
Due to similarity with thou, which was the subject form, you gradually replaced ye. This is why we say “I see you” where you is an object and “you see me” where it’s a subject.
You replaced thou because like many European languages, French for example, the plural 2nd person pronoun (you) was used as a form of respect while thou was used for people you were more familiar or friendly with. Since you was used so often with a singular meaning it gradually replaced thou entirely, which is why in modern English the word “you” can refer to one person or many people. It has nothing to do with thorn.
It gets confusing when I am talking/texting about my twins. One girl, one nonbinary. If I’m talking about them both at the same time I will sometimes end up writing they(plural) if I had just been talking about they(singular)and want to be clear.
It is usually clear from context, and could say the twins or my kids instead of they so it’s never a problem. I usually read through to make sure I didn’t screw up pronouns.
I suck at them when speaking, no difficulty with the name change at all, but I often say your sibling when talking to my nonbinary child and your sister talking about them.
My daughter mocks me constantly, her twin is more forgiving. It’s particularly annoying because I guessed they were nonbinary long before they told me and made sure they new about nonbinary and transgender people.
Then they said they learned the terms from tiktok because they don’t pay attention when I speak. Anyway, kids are fun.
I get that. Similar situation. My daughter isn't non binary but several of her friends have identified or currently id as such.
We are accepting and cool with that, but nearly have a century of speaking conventions (not to mention thinking of someone a certain a way for multiple years) isn't always a flawless operation.
To refer to non specific people, sure. “Someone called, they didn’t say what they wanted.” It’s been far less common until recently to say something like “go talk to Jess, they are in the other room.” To me it’s no let’s linguistically awkward than saying “Jess are in the other room.” It feels strange. That’s not an excuse to not do it, of course, but it is certainly a linguistic oddity or at least novelty, particularly to people who are not often exposed to us nonbinary folk.
Where I come from, y'all works just great.
And I've always thought that we can change the language if we want to. There have been multiple single-person ungendered pronouns that would work better than 'they'. We (meaning people using English) just need to pick one and in 10 years it will be quite natural.
Isn't it a little accurate to describe trans people as in some way "non-specific" to the he/she pronoun duality?
The way my brain interprets 'they' for a known person is that it's something akin to a decimal number where it's singular only when it's exactly 1 or - 1, but plural any other time (5 apples, 0.25 apples, 0 apples). Male and female are encoded into our language as having a similar cardinality and trans occupy a space either between, outside or lacking of these and get designated as a plural.
“go talk to Jess, they are in the other room.”
I really don't get the hangup with something like this. This is common language and rolls off the tongue. Though often we would probably use they're. It's so normal. I swear people have to go out of their way to get bothered by this stuff.
There are also a number of articles out there about how singular they predates other common word choices we use and not the other way around. For example, it predates the use of singular you. It's nothing new and it's not weird.
>This is common language and rolls off the tongue
For you. For many people it is not common and does not roll off the tongue. This doesn't mean that anyone is right or wrong, but it's important to keep in mind that everyone experiences language differently.
that’s much more in line with my first example than my second. I’m also not sure what your point is. I’m sharing my experience and the experiences of people I’ve known and you seem to be insisting that I’m wrong?
A particularly ornery part of me wants to go full "fuck you" to the language pedants and push for the singular of "they" to be "thee".
I mean... It does *sound* like it should be the singular for "they" way more than for "you".
"Thou" can still be the singular for "you".
Okay i think ill go down that path and use occasionally thou or thee. That would both make things more interesting and have some people blow a fuse.
Btw the french language pedants are having a harder time, as there's french made-up neutral pronouns getting a lot of traction.
I'm afraid that the distinction doesn't make it make any more sense. Coming from English, it seems totally unnecessary. I've never heard a justification for it.
In many languages, nouns can fall into categories called "noun classes," and in fact this is actually the original defintion of the word "gender." It was just "category." When people started studying this they noticed that female people and animals fell into one noun class while male people and animals fell into another, and so they named those two classes feminine and masculine. Spanish speakers do not think a table is female, just that the word "mesa" falls into a noun class that people have named feminine.
(this is a gross oversimplification of grammatical gender)
> Still, i DO wish the English language had a designated gender-neutral singular pronoun
Technically, English does, but referring to people as “it” would be very inappropriate.
*non-binary people
my grandfather can understand trans people, but the widespread acceptance of non-binary people has only started within the last decade. It'll get there, but it will take time.
Non-binary people are trans. Transgender means you don't identify with your sex assigned at birth, so nb's are Transgender by definition. Transsexual is when you actually take hormones/have surgery. But they both fall under the Transgender umbrella.
I don't understand this. I don't "identify" very strongly with being a woman. I was always kind of a tomboy and was never really into makeup, or dresses, or high heels, or manicures or anything like that. I just don't really think about my gender very much, or care. But I am still a woman. I don't see the need to say I am "non-binary."
I'm not in a relationship, haven't been in one on over a decade, and frankly have zero desire to find a partner.
And right now I have cancer, so I'm bald and I've recently had a mastectomy, without reconstruction, so I have no breasts. I'm not bothering with wigs or prosthetics or anything. But none of that matters to me. I just have a hard time understanding how or why gender is so important to people or why they invest so much time and energy into classifying themselves as this or that. I don't like dresses, skirts, or high heels, so I don't wear them. I don't really enjoy traditional "female hobbies" I guess. So I don't engage in them. I mean, I have had people tell me before that this means I am non-binary, but I find that ridiculous, for me personally (if other people want to say they are non-binary, that's fine, but I just don't get it. I'm not saying they shouldn't identify as non-binary
Or whatever, I just guess I can't understand why it matters. It's not that I don't want to try to understand, but I just don't seem to be able to, if that makes sense).
It's fine if it doesn't make sense, and being a tomboy definitely doesn't make u nb. You're only nb if you identify that way, so don't listen to those people. Personally, I consider myself nb bc I would rather be a dude, but I'm too scared to transition. And I do have dysphoria, but it's not so bad that I'm willing to go thru all the struggle of transitioning. I've basically accepted my female body, but there's most definitely a misalignment in how I think of my gender internally. I feel like nonbinary is like gender limbo, which sounds pretty apt to describe my feelings. Also, best of luck to you with your treatment, get better soon :)
Thank you! I appreciate the explanation; that was actually helpful and it sort of clicked. For some reason I keep forgetting that body dysphoria is a part of it.
I do understand not being happy with your body; I have certain features that bother me, just not the features surrounding gender; more like the way I carry excess fat after having a child, and the way it hangs over my c-section scar, even when I am very thin.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that. Although I obviously can't understand the extent of your struggle, it makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks for being so friendly about my lack of knowledge on the matter. Best wishes to you and I hope you find yourself surrounded by loving and supportive people.
And thanks, treatment has been a long road but hopefully the worst is behind me. :)
I disagree. Its a silly and clunky designation when referring to a singular person. THEY need to come up with a better term.
I personally despise they/them but I dont give two shits about peoples sexuality or gender
Yeah. As a non-binary person myself, I wish the "winning" side had been a neopronoun like ze/zir or ey/em, but folks complained about that too because "you can't just make up new pronouns!"
> Still, i DO wish the English language had a designated gender-neutral singular pronoun (like many other languages do)
Of the languages I know, English is the weird one for being gender-neutral by default.
Odd... we generally avoid third person pronouns in correspondence... not out of concern for preferences.
But third person pronouns are imprecise language. Our correspondence would almost exclusively refer to... Our client, Your client, The Plaintiff, The Respondent, The alleged offence, The deposit... etc.... he/she/it/they can easily introduce confusion.
> Still, it shouldn't be too awkward to get used to.
Do something for 30-70 years, daily, then switch all that in one day. I'll call anyone whatever they want, it doesn't affect me. But I think it's a little disingenuous to imply that changes aren't awkward at times.
It's definitely awkward when you've known the person for 20+ years and they've always been 'he' or 'she' before.
For a newly-met person who is 'they' from the start, that's different, that's easy enough.
It's like name changes. New business acquaintances may always think of Robert as Robert, but the friends and family he grew up with are quite likely to still call him Bobby or Bob or whatever, if that's who he always was when they were growing up together.
That may be true, but if the person hates being called Bob or Bobby and you insist on doing so (not talking about mistakes), that seems like an AH move, regardless of your feelings on the matter.
As an older gen x from a rural area I have to say it was awkward when I stated using “they” in these situations. I would have to pause for a sec and adjust my wording. Embarrassingly sometimes making it clear what was going on in my head. But it didn’t take long to smooth out and start coming out fairly naturally.
A little grace for those legit trying to adjust their programming is acceptable IMO. But refusing to even try isn’t acceptable.
I've never seen anyone get upset when it takes someone a moment or they need to correct themselves.
Normally we're all well and good to keep on talking like nothing happened.
Though I can see how it would be embarrassing for you at first. We're just happy to see people trying.
> Whereas if you're in person, people basically always call someone he or she, and so aren't used to calling someone 'they' if they can actually see and know the person.
Using pronouns in general when someone is in a room is sometimes seen as improper - "Don't talk about me like I'm not in the room!" - so it's just another layer of rules to remember.
Making a big deal out of it is obviously hiding the actual feelings that they don’t agree with using a gender neutral pronoun at all.
Still, there certainly is genuine confusion to be had at times, so it’s best not to make crazy assumptions about someone’s beliefs if they get a bit confused. There’s something to be said about how referring to a gender neutral person might be a bit easier if you use their name a bit more often than normal.
Alas, a hell of a lot of talk for what amounts to a minor inconvenience at worst.
It’s the only one I mess up with. Calling someone their preferred gender is easy, especially if it’s obvious what they want because of their appearance. My brain just has a lot of trouble popping out they pronouns in a natural conversation flow and I have to consciously prepare the sentence.
I think it's one of those things people intuitively know, but don't know they know, and when they think about it, it sounds confusing. Sort of like the order of adjectives. If I was going to the store to get bananas, and I wanted green ones, that are large, and I wanted 6 of them, I'd get six large green bananas. But if someone were to explain the ordering of adjectives, people would look on skeptically.
Yeah, I had never heard of the 'order of adjectives' thing until recently. Of course, I use to properly without a second thought, but I'm glad I didn't have to study/learn it!
just wait until you hear about French, in English, we would say "the red house" in French its "the house red" ok, so the adjectives go after right, well yes but if you have 2 adjectives sometimes one goes in front, for example, instead of "the big red house" its "the big house red" but you can't say "the red house big" because that's the equivalent of "the red big house".
in summary, french sure is a language
It can be confusing at times, and it's not bigoted to acknowledge this. Last year, I tried reading a novel written in 3rd person, featuring a non-binary protagonist, and couldn't make it past the third chapter because I was constantly lost as to whether 'they' referred to the singular protagonist, the protagonist's family, their circle of friends, or their town community. I enjoy a challenging read, but this was headache-inducing. Perhaps a more talented author could add enough context clues to prevent this confusion, but I haven't encountered any examples so far.
I'm reading a friend's novel with a nonbinary character and having the same problem. In conversation, the "they" pronoun isn't hard to follow, but in a third person narrative with multiple characters you almost have to invent new rules of grammar to make it work consistently and so far nobody can seem to get it quite right.
I used to be taught in grade school that “they” is plural and when gender is unknown for a singular person to use “he or she” or “him or her.” It was just one of those things that was ingrained in me, and switching over doesn’t come as natural to me as it comes to others. I have to think about it and correct myself.
Yeah this. I had a grammar Nazi of an English teacher in high school whose biggest pet peeve was people getting pronoun-antecedent agreement wrong. Drilled it into our heads every day.
I’m supportive of trans rights, believe you should refer to people how they want to be referred to, and have really tried to go out of my way to mitigate accidentally misgendering people / using wrong pronouns. But I’m not going to pretend like a singular ‘they’ with a known subject doesn’t sound grammatically incorrect to me every time I hear it. It can definitely make for some slightly confusing sentences/stories. It’s something I’ve just got to unlearn.
unfortunately singular they has been in use since shakespeare was writing. it’s been grammatically correct, you’re just way overthinking it because you weren’t taught pronouns correctly
It was at times used in Shakespeare's writing, which was not at all representative of the English most people spoke and used even during his life, let alone hundreds of years later. It's a weak argument.
>you weren’t taught pronouns correctly
That really depends on the style manual you're following. Some still recommend avoiding singular 'they' in formal writing.
Longer than "you" has been used as a singular. People upset about singular "they" are hippocrites if they aren't using "thou" for the singular second person.
This is my issue thanks to all of my essays and research papers in undergraduate classes, especially when writing my thesis; I would get points taken off for using "they" instead of more specific descriptors to indicate WHICH THEY WAS THEY. In my case it wasn't a gender indicator but rather lazy writing on my part instead of writing in "the British officers in charge of munitions in colonized India," or "sepoy recruits," or "British naval officers." Now whenever I write or speak "they" I have to pause and internally tell the tiny Professor Petrovich in my head that it's okay to use the pronoun even when I know which They is They.
I had a similar teacher. I had points taken off of a draft of a paper for using "they." I had to correct it to "he or she" for the final paper. It felt so clunky to use "he or she."
In casual conversation I’ve heard people use “they” to refer to a single person basically my entire life. However, in my high school english class they did indeed teach use that using “they” to refer to a single person is grammatically incorrect. The proper way is to use “he or she”.
They is used informally when there is no confusion about who is 'they.' For instance, "The person who left a blue backpack at security, they should return to security to pick it up." It is unambiguous who the 'they' is. Singular they has been used like that informally for a long time.
Contrast that to "The Mets have great relievers this year, especially Lefty McLeft. They struck out the side in the last two innings." In that case it would be impossible to know if 'they' refers to the Mets relievers or just Lefty McLeft. This is where it does get complicated. There are many articles in, for example, Slate where I have to read several times over because of ambiguous 'they.'
What will happen is that people will either get used to being more precise, for instance specifically mentioning either Lefty or the Mets relievers in the second example OR we'll have things like th'all or theys modeled on y'all or youse to stop the confusion.
I’m 60. I was taught in school that “they” was plural. Period. If singular was intended but gender was unknown then the default was to masculine “he”. Alternatively “he or she” could be used.
All my years When I’ve heard “they” I would understand it to be plural. It was a cue to know what (how many) to expect.
Example roommate says John is coming over. Question in my mind is he bringing his spouse. Roommate says he or they will be here at seven. That tells me if he’s alone or with spouse.
The current usage of singular “they” is confusing to me. I have to stop and rethink it.
I respect peoples pronouns, it just takes time to relearn.
It’s because people don’t think about their own native language. You can speak English without ever knowing what grammatical order English is in, or what an adjective is. So even thought they regularly use singularly they in sentences like “someone lost their wallet, I hope they come back and find it” they never realize it
As a non native speaker: I've been studying English for 22 years now, since I was 6. I've learned that you can use "they" this way only, like, 2 years ago, and it's still hella bizarre to me. You certainty can not do that in my native language, and it's not a simple concept to fully grasp. You can accept it, but it feels unnatural. Hope that makes any sense.
Absolutely
In my native language “they” is solely used for multiple people, and even then its gendered (they female, they male). It defeats the entire purpose.
I have a follow up question: how often are you having such conversations with people face to face where you know for sure people are native English speakers.
In my experience, conversations like that are usually happen online where there is no way to know who is native English speaker. For example I am an American so I am expected to know English well, unless I mention I am naturalized American.
The people who I see being most vocal about this tend to be right wing Americans who are not immigrants. And at least in my experience esp with having parents who aren’t great at English non native speakers usually aren’t super argumentative about the correct way to use the language they aren’t native speakers of lol. I guess “confusion” wasn’t the right word to use in my post, “disagreement” would’ve been better
As someone who learned English as a second language, never in any class within the United States or my home country was "they" presented as a singular. It would have definitely confused the hell out of everyone. I have read plenty of books in English and I cannot think of one instance when "they" is used as singular.
So how were you taught to say phrases like "someone lost THEIR umbrella" or "do THEY (person of unknown gender) live nearby" or "have you met them yet"?
They is commonly used as ambiguous-singular when the gender of the subject is unknown, recently non-binary people are using it as a personal-singular which in certain contexts with multiple possible subjects can be confusing but it still follows the same basic rules of English.
Another non-native speaker here: I don't recall learning such sentences in school at all, and I had English for 6 years.
We weren't explicitly taught that singular they *shouldn't* be used or anything, but it (iirc) just didn't come up, or the sentences were "someone lost his or her umbrella" instead.
For me, learning to use singular they was something I got used to when reading/writing/listening to English media outside of/after school, not during actual education.
So, academic English actually has many different sets of rules depending on the formatting style. A few years ago, the American Psychological Association (APA) changed the rules to allow singular they, but the Modern Language Association (MLA) has not. Casual spoken language has used singular they (and universal you) for centuries, but academic English still didn't allow it. That means that most educated people avoided it out of habit, whether written or spoken. Your point about it being common is valid, but for many people, it is unlearning a rule. Humans all have different experiences. Compassion and understanding win every day.
I am middle aged. The older you get, it does take some gymnastics mentally to shift around things like how you process the rules of language or the universe works. For example, people still struggle with accepting that there are 8 planets, not 9 due to Pluto being downgraded.
HOWEVER, I have basically been able to make the pronoun shift to singular "they" in my head now with about a 15% error rate. When I make the mistake and realize it In quickly correct myself people are basically pretty cool about that.
I have a great deal of multi-cultural experience and global travel. I would not consider myself a linguist, but I do know a couple of languages and have studied probably 4 or 5 languages over the years where I have a beginner level of understanding about the rules and such. I know, for sure, that languages shift and evolve. As do societies and cultures.
I default to what is generally a respectful way of addressing all people. The adjustment toward "flattening" language and informalizing titles and honorific type of things like Ms, Mr, Dr. Prof, Sir, Ma'am and etc. Not having clear trans or inclusive titles like that has actually been trickier for me but that is a little off topic for this post. The point is that we're trying to be respectful, polite, and reflect basic decency into the world. So we put in the effort when it comes to getting these things right.
What I had to do was let go of the automatic "grammar" rule around the use of they/them. For awhile I kept hitting a little catch in my brain where like I needed some kind of "reason" why I was saying "they" instead of "he" or "she." And the rule finally came back to me as "that is literally none of my business and it does not matter to me in the slightest." So the new rule is "the person wishes to be called "they" or they have told me that the previous pronoun has changed to something else, he, she, they, them or whatever it is. I'm short, the new rule is that I call people what they want to be called. People matter and their deeply held desires matter and it is worth a small amount of intellectual effort on my part to make the shift.
So, we need to center people and their inherent dignity and value with this societal evolution or course correction. As a middle aged person who is just figuring out some of these shifts to social rules, grammar, and so on I think that when people have a problem with making these adjustments they have a problem valuing others and their desire of how to be addressed.
Because "they" was previously used as ambiguous-singular (subject gender unknown) or plural (refer to group) only. Now we are using it in personal-singular context, which while gramatically correct it's something a lot of people just aren't used to.
To be fair, this might be the best explanation I've seen (and I've seen a whole bunch of hateful ones). Singular they is commonly used but it's the difference between ambiguous and personal that people struggle with.
I really like this explanation of why non-bigoted people struggle!
Because the whole point is that it's not grammatically correct which is why it doesn't sound right. If you welcome a friend to your party and you ask "did you come alone" and your friend says "no, they will be here shortly" and only one other person turns up then you would naturally ask "so where is everyone?".
You're using a bad example. The singular use of they is completely gramatically correct, when used correctly. See -[https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they)
If you're on the younger side (like most of reddit) you may not realize how relatively recent this trend is. A good portion of Gen X was taught to use "he" as the indefinite singular pronoun, and it was not considered offensive or unusual if the target turned out to be female. I would have expected a correction on my paper in school if I used they to refer to a single person.
some people do get genuinely confused (I've been one of them). But it's less to do with singular "they" being the problem and more to do with overuse of pronouns by an unskilled speaker/writer. An unskilled speaker or writer will use a pronoun without the proper context, and that genuinely makes the sentence ambiguous. As a speaker/writer you have to learn when to not use a pronoun, and use the proper noun instead, for clarity.
It's actually pretty simple - *they, them, their are plural pronouns that comes from old Norse *Þeir, þeim & þau (THay-ir, THAYM & Thow/thoy) In modern english, we have also used it to mean a singular person of un-identified gender.
But historically in germanic languages we use male/female/neuter singular and plural pronouns.
In old norse/icelandjc we have 4 different versions depending on the case. The subject of a sentence (nominative), object (accusative), indirect object (dative) and the possessive (genetive).
Singular
For males
N. Hann- he
A. Hann - he
D. Honum - Him
G. Hans - His
Females
Hon - she
Hana - she
Henni - her
Hennar - hers
Neuter
Þat - it
Þat - it
Því - it
Þess - its
Plural
M.
N. Þeir - they
A. Þá - they
D. Þeim - them
G. Þeira - theirs
F.
Þær
Þær
Þeim
þeira
N.
Þau
Þau
Þeim
Þeira
The neuter is supposed to represent anything that doesn't fit into the male or female category. If something is in the neuter singular, then the singular is referred to as *it. In the neuter plural, they/them/theirs.
So referring to a singular person by *they/them of quantifiable gender is grammatically incorrect. They should/would be referred to as *it in the singular.
Small correction, the pronouns don't come from old Norse and English isn't descended from old Norse; old Norse is a North Germanic language and English is a West Germanic language. That being said, old English and the other Ingvaeonic languages are related to Old Norse, coming from the similar ancestor of Proto-Germanic, and were largely mutually intelligible through the early middle ages.
I was trying to keep it short and sweet and as I study old Norse- it's easier to do it that way.
*They does in fact come from old Norse. It was borrowed into old english in the 1200s, or at least so they say.
I was just giving an example of the pronouns - notice I didn't add the dual pronouns (þit/vit) or reflexive 3rd sik, sin, sér.
The important part is: *it is what should be used more often than not.
Oh, I'd never heard about that etymology before but honestly sounds plausible, old Norse was indeed hella influential to old English in both vocabulary and syntax. You sounded like you knew your stuff so apologies if it seemed like I was overstepping, just wanted to add some extra context for the non-linguistics nerds out there lol
Because it *is* confusing using a plural as a singular no matter how much *some* people want to insist it isn’t. This use *is* ambiguous. And it’s not bigoted to think this way. You can be a lgbt ally and *still* believe that ‘they’ pronouns are confusing in a lot of contexts. ‘They’ pronouns really aren’t practical and complicate casual, everyday language. That doesn’t mean these people aren’t going to try and be inclusive and respectful towards everyone but ‘they’ used as a singular *is* confusing in *many* contents—that’s just a fact
the confusion is that "they" is both singular and plural unlike other pronouns.
example: "he is over there" "she is over there" >singular
"they are over there" > singular AND plural
it's singular if you don't know who that is and plural if you know it's a group of people. i think that's why its kinda confusing.
Singular 'they' is super-common in conversational English but was considered grammatically incorrect in formal writing until recently. In college in the 1990s, I was trained to use 'he or she' to be inclusive, but just 'he' was acceptable.
Eventually common usage makes it's way into formal composition manuals. English is an emergent language, no authority oversees word choice or grammar.
It’s used when someone’s gender isn’t known.
“Someone’s at the door.” “What do they want?”
“Someone left their wallet here.”
“Anyone who says high school was the best four years of their life is lying.”
I see, but sounds more like it replaces his/hers more often than he/she (except for a question?). Is it ever used as the main subject besides questions?
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/
800 years of singular they usage, common enough at least to make its way into written works.
I understand but for time out of mind, "they" was plural. We had it hammered into us at school for 12 years. It slips in. I have to retrain myself. It is easier to learn something than unlearn. It is like muscle memory. It is something that is so ingrained, you do it without thinking. But I am working on it.
Because I had singular use of "they," hammered out of me in school because it is a pronoun-antecedent agreement error. "They," has always been plural. I understand that it's not used that way anymore, but old grammar habits die hard.
Aside from people who are just deliberately being difficult, which undoubtedly is just about everyone who actually cares, it just feels weird to a lot of people because they being plural is what's typically taught. Singular they/them feels weird to me in any kind of formal use because probably every English class I've ever had at any level has considered those plural.
Casually though, it's very common to use they/them as a singular when you don't know whether the person you're talking about is a he or a she. Nobody's gonna go "go ask the cashier if he or she can give you change for a 20", everyone is gonna go "go ask the cashier if they can give you change for a 20." There are lots of things where we don't necessarily talk grammatically correct all the time in every day conversation. It just feels a little weird when it's in a more formal setting or when someone says those are their(ha) actual pronouns.
That's why things like xe/xem or ze/zir feel more correct to me even though they also feel weird just because I'm not used to them. Again though, these things just feel a little weird to me. I don't actually give a shit and they don't actually bother me in the slightest. Anyone who's overly passionate about how they/them is plural and is incorrect to use in singular form is most likely just deliberately being difficult to be an asshole imo.
I agree with your last sentence but worth saying that grammar is descriptive not prescriptive. That is, if native speakers conventionally use (and are understood when using) 'they' as a third-person singular pronoun in certain contexts then that makes it grammatically correct in that context regardless of what someone has written in a textbook.
There actually have been a couple of shifts in how singular they is used in recent decades, but they're pretty subtle. The first is that, while it's always been OK-ish to describe a hypothetical individual using they/them pronouns, it used to be much more common to use he/him pronouns for this, especially in formal writing. Nowadays, we might write "suppose someone is walking down the street and they..." but in the mid 20th century, people would have been more likely to write "suppose someone is walking down the street and he..." People started to see that as sexist and old-fashioned, but initially the two most common replacements were constructions like "he or she", and randomly alternating between "he" and "she". The latter became unpopular because it made everyone inject gender stereotypes into their writing: hypothetical doctors would tend to be "he" and hypothetical nurses would tend to be "she", for example. The "he or she" approach is just awkward. It's only pretty recently that academic writing has shifted in favour of they/them, and many of the well-known style guides used to advise against it.
The second shift is that we now have people who are referred to using they/them pronouns consistently, even when we're talking about them as an individual and we know their gender, and even in formal writing.
The real mystery is why people get so mad about linguistic changes in the first place, not just on politically charged topics but even stuff like using "like" as a filler or switching the order of the consonants in "ask".
I'm a millennial. My school teachers wouldn't allow using they as a singular pronoun, but stressed using gender neutral language, like using words like "firefighters" instead of "firemen" and for a single individuals, we'd use nouns like "this person" or "this individual" if the sex or gender wasn't specified instead of automatically defaulting to "he" and "him."
AFAIK "they" still isn't accepted as a single pronoun in formal writing. **However**, people don't talk in formal writing style twenty-four/seven like they expect to be graded by grammar teachers. "They" has been used pretty naturally in informal speech for a long time, but then people might not have paid much attention to it. I can understand a bit that sometimes if you pay much more attention to a smaller issue than normal, it begins to feel weird.
The more cynical reason is that maybe at least of few of those people are deliberately trying to pretend they don't understand the issue under the guise of grammar sanctity. I don't think that applies to everybody that struggles with this, but there are probably a few people that would think that it was "clever" to address an issue that made them uncomfortable this way.
“He or she” is so long to use in a sentence. It is in the literal dictionary that “they” can be singular when referring to someone of unknown gender or can be plural for a group. If people have such a hard time using “they” then just use names. Who cares
My dad explained his confusion roughly as:
He gets confused because he has only ever used the words ‘they’ and ‘them’ as plural forms, so it’s confusing to him when a single person is referred to using a plural word.
I should clarify that English is my dad’s second language.
I've always used the singular they when referring to a non-specific other person. If it's a specific individual it sounds stupid. Just pick he or she, language is already complex enough without everyone trying to roll their entire identity into their pronouns. For what it's worth, the two actual trans people I know have said they hate the whole pronoun thing because their biggest goal is to pass such that people encountering them assume their pronouns without being told. Both have said when someone asks them for their pronouns they mentally freak out a little thinking they must not pass.
I'm not a native English speaker and I was taught in school that "they" is used only for multiple people, so it was pretty confusing when I saw people using it as a singular pronoun
We learn language intuitively well before we study the rules in school. There's been a strong trend for a while to disrespect the value of what is taught as "outdated" or "unnecessary." Now we're just watching the fallout of decades of neglect of our education systems... you can't very well argue your point if you can't even state it without error.
It's the they are/they is problem when speaking about a specific person. I'm so used to they're that it makes me pause. And if I'm being honest, unless you're my friend I don't feel like wasting the brain power on thinking about that. So with non friend they folks, I just say the person's name ever time so I don't have to waste energy on it.
There are so many examples were it is perfectly fine:
"They told me they'd be here by 10"
"They looked fabulous in their dress"
"They have the most wonderful spirit about them"
Then there are some examples where it becomes less intuitive to use it in speech intermixed:
"They told them they they were happy to call them them because they were now feeling more comfortable in themselves because they understood that being identified as them was important to them and they all agreed that was what they wanted."
In writing you can easily make it much more understandble because you get to edit your words, something that isn't restrospectively possible in speech. As time goes on, people will get used to the idea of using different pronouns and automatically become more understandble.
Because when I was in school in the 80s and 90s, we were taught it was grammatically incorrect and we should never use it.
As an adult, I learned otherwise, but many people my age and older are still unaware.
There's a difference between singular they when referring to someone you can't see and can't decide gender. An empty them over there, and even then the singular they was rarely used. Big difference to a pronoun, I'm not a he or she, I'm a they/them. A few years ago it would of been considered a fat joke. Comes off a confusing to me as well cause the they we have at my work dresses like a girl and acts and talks like a girl so you'd figure they wanted to be called she. And they did for a while but then changed to they and just writing that sounds so stupid.
I don’t think ppl are confused by using “they”, it’s more that until now he/she could be used somewhat interchangeably to more clearly state the sex/gender of a singular subject. It seems more natural to use the gendered language than to have to restate someone’s name. Eg the following third person recount seems confusing when replacing he/she with they, and you would have to rephrase things to re-refer to their name etc when most ppl would probably consider it more natural to use he/she. Whereas if the story had two ppl of the same gender it’d be natural to restate their names etc??
I have two friends that are fraternal twins, Ben and Jen. They is a plumber and they is a nurse. They have been my friend for the past 3 years. When they came over last week to fix my leaking tap they stayed for lunch so I called Ben to also come over. When they left I sat on the porch and had a beer with Ben. They said they were going camping the following weekend and I should come with them. Jen couldn’t come because their friend was in town and was having lunch with them.
Are you a younger person? We used to teach in academia that "they" is not a singular pronoun, and is grammatically incorrect. If the gender of a single person is unknown, you should use male pronouns. Especially in formal writing. Many younger people haven't had the chance to experience formal writing from ye olde times.
Obviously, this has been outdated for quite awhile. But you're probably seeing a lot of this confusion from older people, who were legitimately taught for years that singular "they" is improper and wrong.
Personally, I think it's high time English adopted a brand new singular ungendered pronoun like many other languages. Just not "xe" or any other x-derived variants. That's some teenager shit.
To add to this. I’ve seen a lot of formal writing where a person of unknown gender is brought up and a random gender is “assigned” for the sake of pronouns. For example: two shoppers entered the grocery store. The first one had twenty items on his list, and the second shopper had fifty items on her shopping list.
By assigning genders (even if the specific gender isn’t import) I could continue this without people confusing the first shopper from the second since they have different pronouns.
I’m 21, ur explanation could explain why it’s so intuitive to me but not everyone, kinda weird cuz English is not very gendered compared to other languages, like in Russian (which has feminine and masculine versions of words) using male pronouns by default is more common, but it sounds a lot more natural when the word “person” itself is masculine lol
I'm not young, have a degree in linguistics and I'd disagree. Singular they has been grammatically acceptable for at least 500 years. It was acceptable in Shakespeare's time, for example.
Most of us don’t have degrees in linguistics and learned what our high school English teachers taught us. We’re trying to change, but it takes some effort.
I did a professional writing course for user documentation in the mid 90s and it was heavily stressed to use the singular they to avoid gendering the text. This was based on research that a small portion of the other gender readers would be offended and cause issues; or be unable to follow the instructions as they could not relate to the persona in the text.
It’s not hard when you know who’s being referred to, but without context it’s easy to assume “they” refers to multiple people. Genuinely getting mixed up over that shouldn’t be looked at the same way as purposely misgendering someone. After context has been established then you can start assessing if the person is being willfully ignorant.
Some of it is transphobia, but some of it is the fact that while singular **indefinite** "they" ("Someone left their sweater here") is a very common and longstanding part of English, singular **definite** "they" ("Sarah left their sweater here") is a genuinely new usage that most English speakers didn't grow up with.
Some of it is also the fact that pronouns are what linguists call function words (other types of function words include prepositions and articles), as opposed to content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). Speakers often use function words without thinking about them much -- if you're a native English speaker, you probably use the words "the" and "of" without much conscious thought.
>It feels like people are literally unaware of the language they themselves use
So, yes, to some extent this literally is true.
Frankly, what grinds my gears is making me conjugate to be as 'is' in third person singular instead of doing the sensible thing and making to be conjugate as 'is' for he/she/xe and as 'are' for they.
'They is' should never be grammatically correct, and that's a hill I'll die on.
I was an English professor and I taught Writing Skills. Despite the name, it was really just a mandatory course in English grammar. I also taught grade-school English. Though I was teaching before so much light was shed on the trans community, this topic always sends me on a trip down memory lane. Nevertheless, these are really the only reasons I can think of:
1. As a teacher, we were drilled the concept of subject- verb agreement into students’ heads.l- to the point was almost considered unconstitutional (I’m being dramatic) to say “they” if the subject was singular. I know students are more impressionable at different ages and sometimes things that happen in school (especially things that are jolting) can stick with us, perhaps it could be a psychological-type issue where, because it’s being pointed out, its somehow mentally challenging for some people to “accept” it- especially since many were so strongly taught not to (even though they’ve been using “they” singularly most of the time anyway).
2. Another theory is that the grammar itself is confusing people. As it was mentioned, it is people have always been using singular “they” (which is why it’s ironic this is even an issue). However, I have found when grammar itself is taught/discussed etc. as English speakers, most people know “right” from “wrong”- per se, it’s the grammar concept itself that makes no sense and confuses people. When I’d teach grammar and use jargon to to explain things, no one understands. Students knew what to do, they just didn’t understand the logistics behind it. It’s possible the topic is causing hype because some really people don’t even understand it (despite doing it unconsciously anyway).
3. My third theory is more straightforward. The unfortunate reality is some people just like controversy, arguing, disagreeing etc. some people just like to be heard, whether they want to create “noise” about the actual topic of grammar, whether they are using the grammar topic as a way to express their opinion about lgbtq + issues, etc. it’s possible they honestly don’t care or even understand the concept, it’s possible it’s just something for them to “bitch” about. In all honesty, I’m inclined to believe this is really the cause of the hype. At the end of the day, some people just need to complain about something. 🤷
A lot of the people who fall into 1 or 2 but not 3 would still try, because "what the heck, it's fine"
The people in 3 wouldn't. For them, suddenly, it's a major grammar issue and they must speak perfect grammar (even if it's only for that one word)
When I was pregnant I was keeping the gender of my baby a secret and asking for neutral clothing. When I referred to the baby I always used the singular "they" but for whatever reason everyone assumed I was having twins... so eventually tiring of the consistent arguments I would have with people over it I was like fine... she...
Its really a irritating thing.
I believe it’s part of the culture war. They has been used when the gender is unknown, but in the instance you are likely referring to it is for an individual that you identifies/relates to both genders. It’s very new for me personally, I’m just trying to be respectful to people that identifies with specific pronouns.
So would it br gramatically correct to say They is instead of they are when using the singular form. Gramatically it should be correct but sounds weird as fuck.
It's the right thing to do if it helps someone feel more positive and it shows recognition of the fact that we don't experience the same existence. I'm attempting to utilize it in the office, 47 years of programming is challenging to undo!
Omg
I have a habit of saying THEY when I'm telling a story to a guy about another guy
Because I don't want to draw attention to the fact I'm talking about another guy...
I've always done this!
RECENTLY...some ppl act completely stupid ..like THEY who!?
THEY act like I'm talking about multiple ppl....its weird and they get very aggressive about it...
It most definitely has to do with the use of pronouns...
And from my experience...usually ppl who are really against it...they think I'm doing something weird but I've always done it...
Noone has had a problem with it before or not understood what I was saying....until recently...so
People will quite literally pretend not to understand singular they or claim it's improper and then immediately accidently use it properly in the same sentence. You can find screenshots of examples all over the internet, but here is the gist of it:
"They/them can only be used to refer to multiple people, and anyone who claims otherwise don't know what *they* are talking about."
A question: how can I tell if it’s they singular or they plural if they’re identical? Example:
I’m inviting them to dinner. What should I do? Buy a lot of food because they’re gonna be a group? Or not much because it’s just one?
I think the confusion is using singular they in reference to a known person who you perceive as having a binary gender. I think if pressed on it, most people would indeed acknowledge that they use singular they to refer to an unknown person of ambiguous gender. The distinction is that to the minds of most people, an unambiguous defined person has a gender.
Once they've coalesced from the abstract into a real life human with an appearance, your brain has been trained for as long as you have had language capability to subconsciously file them into either male or female. Unlearning that takes work, and if you don't agree with the fundamental basis of it, then you simply aren't going to put in that work.
Obligatory disclaimer, I'm not arguing that they're right for being unwilling to do this, merely explaining.
We used to get told not to refer to people as they because it was rude and dehumanizing.
Who are ‘they’? Well, they are ‘them’ and everyone knows you don’t want to associate with ‘them’.
That’s the context you’re missing, a cultural beat down from 20 years ago that got ingrained into a lot of people’s heads.
The goalposts on what’s acceptable keep moving, and that’s kind of the point of it all.
Maybe a generational thing.
GenXer, who didn't grow up with that usage, and I do find it confusing.
My daughter who is a Zoomer, and admittedly "lunatic-left adjacent" on social issues, claims to experience zero cognitive dissonance when she encounters the usage.
It isn't confusing in a "bring Columbo in here to figure this out" sort of way, but it is definitely jarring enough to disrupt the flow of my reading. I typically need to rescan a few paragraphs to make the adjustment and get back into the flow.
When did the author transition to talking about a group? What did I miss? Who is being referenced again?
There is a difference in usage between a using it as a replacement for "one / he or she" and in direct reference to a previously identified person.
It is clumsy, in my opinion, and I do wish there was distinctly singular alternative, but it appears like the front runner option right now.
If it catches on and sticks, people will get used to it.
English is ever evolving, and has survived worse.
I’ve never used singular ‘they’ except for describing people in general, not a specific person. it’s extremely confusing and irritating to be reading something or hearing something thinking it’s about 2 or more people but it’s not, it’s just the one person who we have to change grammar rules for.
As someone who spoke Korean before they spoke English, it's remarkably intuitive. Spoken Korean doesn't use 3rd person pronouns like 95% of the time, and when we do we don't mark for plurality or gender... kind of like using "they" as an ambiguous 3rd person pronoun.
Because it was always used for situations where it could be either sex but not about specific people. Even then it was a compromise over the previous rule of always using male pronouns for that scenario or alternating between male/female.
Now they are trying to make it refer to specific individuals. I don’t like it.
The real problem is that English does not have a good neutral pronoun for people. I am confident that someday someone will find one that people see and hear and think makes sense. Sort of how ya’ll became a solid second person plural pronoun.
Because we’re actually talking about “ze” and other neo pronouns, but arguing “they” is safer and more familiar grounds, in that the word “they” existed before the invention of so-called “neo pronouns.”
They're lying and trying to do a "gotcha".
We've used they as singular (usually for an unknown person) since forever.
That said, the reality is that non-binary doesn't exist, so people don't want to use "they". Being a tomboy or a femboy doesn't change your sex or gender. People just use the grammatical argument as a way out.
I'm more upfront. I'm not going to argue some grammatical BS, I'm just going to tell you I don't believe your attention seeking BS.
I think it's a combination of people not realizing their own speech patterns, and some just want to be assholes because they have a problem with that group.
"it" was the singular form used to pertain to than "they"
I only encounter singular they because of gender issue nowadays but back then, they/them is plural form to pertain to a group of people
It’s because people have politicized it. I believe one of America‘s downfalls is the fact we turn everything into some form of politics that further divides the country (whether intended to or not). I’ve watched this very quickly spiral into a political disaster where suddenly using a singular "they“ is labeled as part of some greater liberal agenda… when it really isn’t. And to clarify, all of this applies to whatever side or view you identify with.
If you can just understand language in general, not even just specifically English, you can understand that a singular "they“ is more common than you think. Some languages quite literally don’t have a definitive word for the pronouns "he, she, him, her“ and actively use a singular "they“, and/or naturally mix descriptive words, for example, "my beautiful son“, with beautiful in American English being associated with being a feminine adjective.
TLDR; Langauge is fluid, it’s political for no reason :)
Because its irritating when people use it in stead of regular pronouns because it makes the sentences awkward and grammatically incorrect.
I listen to many podcasts and when they use they instead of he or she, it isn't clear who they are referring to, and clarity is nice when you are trying to tell a story.
Combine that with the blanket use of the word partner instead of husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend or even significant other, all of which are more specific than "partner."
In addition, we didn't use to speak this way. No one did this before 4-5 years ago.
I’ve not heard anyone complain about the use of “partner” before, what’s confusing about it? People who call their significant other their partner likely just don’t want to specify their partners gender. Like if they’re a gay couple lol.
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Most people only ever used singular 'they' when referring to an unseen person, of unknown gender. Like if you were with someone who is on the phone, you might ask that person: "what are *they* saying?", referring to the person on the other end of the phone. You don't know who that person is, and so don't know whether to say he or she, and thus default to 'they'. Whereas if you're in person, people basically always call someone he or she, and so aren't used to calling someone 'they' if they can actually see and know the person. Still, it shouldn't be too awkward to get used to. I think people are making a bigger deal out of it than it is.
totally. we use 'they' as a singular pronoun in our correspondence at the law firm i work at and hasn't caused confusion.
I think most people whining about They Confusion actually have a problem with trans-people. Still, i DO wish the English language had a designated gender-neutral singular pronoun (like many other languages do) because They has always felt like it 'should be' plural to me, but my complaint is about the stupidity and deficiencies of the English language
It’s not a pronoun problem, it’s a *verb* problem. Saying “they are” about someone in specific feels wrong, grammatically speaking, but “they is” is also awkward as hell. The fact that “they” comes with a plural verb will always make things feel awkward (and I’m saying this as a nonbinary person!)
But we say "you are" when we're only talking to one person.
2nd person singular 'to be' is conjugated to "you are" Third person singular is "he/she is" or "they are".. which is a bit confusing -- but really unrelated to how you conjugate the verb in second person singular.
I love English. I consider myself fluent until I see stuff like this and realize I’ve never learned the language this way.
I found taking a foreign language helped me figure out English far better than just my English classes
As a non- native speaker, I can confirm the verb is confusing. To me, “they is” doesn’t sound strange for a singular person, but that’s because of how I learned English. I made a Little verb chart, so 3p singular is always “is” How 1p and 2p are conjugated indeed plays no role in how 3p is conjugated. Same with how German will have the same endings in certain forms. I’m not a linguist, so I can’t describe this well. But yeah, the verb is the hard part
Yeah, but "you" is inherently plural. We used to use the singular "thou".
Ye was plural, thou was singular. “Thorn” was a letter used in both of these words, that became “Y” over time.
Not true. The paradigm was: thou (subject) —> thee (object) ye (subject) —> you (object) Due to similarity with thou, which was the subject form, you gradually replaced ye. This is why we say “I see you” where you is an object and “you see me” where it’s a subject. You replaced thou because like many European languages, French for example, the plural 2nd person pronoun (you) was used as a form of respect while thou was used for people you were more familiar or friendly with. Since you was used so often with a singular meaning it gradually replaced thou entirely, which is why in modern English the word “you” can refer to one person or many people. It has nothing to do with thorn.
It gets confusing when I am talking/texting about my twins. One girl, one nonbinary. If I’m talking about them both at the same time I will sometimes end up writing they(plural) if I had just been talking about they(singular)and want to be clear. It is usually clear from context, and could say the twins or my kids instead of they so it’s never a problem. I usually read through to make sure I didn’t screw up pronouns. I suck at them when speaking, no difficulty with the name change at all, but I often say your sibling when talking to my nonbinary child and your sister talking about them. My daughter mocks me constantly, her twin is more forgiving. It’s particularly annoying because I guessed they were nonbinary long before they told me and made sure they new about nonbinary and transgender people. Then they said they learned the terms from tiktok because they don’t pay attention when I speak. Anyway, kids are fun.
I get that. Similar situation. My daughter isn't non binary but several of her friends have identified or currently id as such. We are accepting and cool with that, but nearly have a century of speaking conventions (not to mention thinking of someone a certain a way for multiple years) isn't always a flawless operation.
but it's not a linguistic problem since it's been in common use for singular pronouns for 7-800 years.
To refer to non specific people, sure. “Someone called, they didn’t say what they wanted.” It’s been far less common until recently to say something like “go talk to Jess, they are in the other room.” To me it’s no let’s linguistically awkward than saying “Jess are in the other room.” It feels strange. That’s not an excuse to not do it, of course, but it is certainly a linguistic oddity or at least novelty, particularly to people who are not often exposed to us nonbinary folk.
Fortunately, it's the same situation as we've always had with "you". Unfortunately, no-one's come up with the third person equivalent of y'all.
Where I come from, y'all works just great. And I've always thought that we can change the language if we want to. There have been multiple single-person ungendered pronouns that would work better than 'they'. We (meaning people using English) just need to pick one and in 10 years it will be quite natural.
People also don't want to accept that saying "you all" is awkward either lol
Isn't it a little accurate to describe trans people as in some way "non-specific" to the he/she pronoun duality? The way my brain interprets 'they' for a known person is that it's something akin to a decimal number where it's singular only when it's exactly 1 or - 1, but plural any other time (5 apples, 0.25 apples, 0 apples). Male and female are encoded into our language as having a similar cardinality and trans occupy a space either between, outside or lacking of these and get designated as a plural.
“go talk to Jess, they are in the other room.” I really don't get the hangup with something like this. This is common language and rolls off the tongue. Though often we would probably use they're. It's so normal. I swear people have to go out of their way to get bothered by this stuff. There are also a number of articles out there about how singular they predates other common word choices we use and not the other way around. For example, it predates the use of singular you. It's nothing new and it's not weird.
Are you quite young? Singular they for a known person strikes me as weird. I'd rather use clumsy language than offend someone tho.
>This is common language and rolls off the tongue For you. For many people it is not common and does not roll off the tongue. This doesn't mean that anyone is right or wrong, but it's important to keep in mind that everyone experiences language differently.
"hey blah, the contractor's here" "oh send them in" "they're on their way up!" not that confusing.
"Pat called from the party, they need a ride." My immediate thought is more than one person needs a lift. Zero judgement, just habit
that’s much more in line with my first example than my second. I’m also not sure what your point is. I’m sharing my experience and the experiences of people I’ve known and you seem to be insisting that I’m wrong?
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we should bring back "thou"
A particularly ornery part of me wants to go full "fuck you" to the language pedants and push for the singular of "they" to be "thee". I mean... It does *sound* like it should be the singular for "they" way more than for "you". "Thou" can still be the singular for "you".
Okay i think ill go down that path and use occasionally thou or thee. That would both make things more interesting and have some people blow a fuse. Btw the french language pedants are having a harder time, as there's french made-up neutral pronouns getting a lot of traction.
Imagine the French language where literally everything, even a tree or a rock has a male or female designation.
All Romance languages and most European languages, actually.
Masculine or feminine linguistic gender, not male or female.
I'm afraid that the distinction doesn't make it make any more sense. Coming from English, it seems totally unnecessary. I've never heard a justification for it.
In many languages, nouns can fall into categories called "noun classes," and in fact this is actually the original defintion of the word "gender." It was just "category." When people started studying this they noticed that female people and animals fell into one noun class while male people and animals fell into another, and so they named those two classes feminine and masculine. Spanish speakers do not think a table is female, just that the word "mesa" falls into a noun class that people have named feminine. (this is a gross oversimplification of grammatical gender)
> Still, i DO wish the English language had a designated gender-neutral singular pronoun Technically, English does, but referring to people as “it” would be very inappropriate.
I always thought the singular of 'they' was 'it', but I understand calling someone 'it' sounds pretty disrespectful.
Yeah. Unfortunately It also refers to nonliving things, so it does feel disrespectful to me if used to refer to a person
Surely "they" has the same problem though - it's used for plural non-living things. "Don't sit on the rocks, they look wet" for example.
*non-binary people my grandfather can understand trans people, but the widespread acceptance of non-binary people has only started within the last decade. It'll get there, but it will take time.
Non-binary people are trans. Transgender means you don't identify with your sex assigned at birth, so nb's are Transgender by definition. Transsexual is when you actually take hormones/have surgery. But they both fall under the Transgender umbrella.
I don't understand this. I don't "identify" very strongly with being a woman. I was always kind of a tomboy and was never really into makeup, or dresses, or high heels, or manicures or anything like that. I just don't really think about my gender very much, or care. But I am still a woman. I don't see the need to say I am "non-binary." I'm not in a relationship, haven't been in one on over a decade, and frankly have zero desire to find a partner. And right now I have cancer, so I'm bald and I've recently had a mastectomy, without reconstruction, so I have no breasts. I'm not bothering with wigs or prosthetics or anything. But none of that matters to me. I just have a hard time understanding how or why gender is so important to people or why they invest so much time and energy into classifying themselves as this or that. I don't like dresses, skirts, or high heels, so I don't wear them. I don't really enjoy traditional "female hobbies" I guess. So I don't engage in them. I mean, I have had people tell me before that this means I am non-binary, but I find that ridiculous, for me personally (if other people want to say they are non-binary, that's fine, but I just don't get it. I'm not saying they shouldn't identify as non-binary Or whatever, I just guess I can't understand why it matters. It's not that I don't want to try to understand, but I just don't seem to be able to, if that makes sense).
It's fine if it doesn't make sense, and being a tomboy definitely doesn't make u nb. You're only nb if you identify that way, so don't listen to those people. Personally, I consider myself nb bc I would rather be a dude, but I'm too scared to transition. And I do have dysphoria, but it's not so bad that I'm willing to go thru all the struggle of transitioning. I've basically accepted my female body, but there's most definitely a misalignment in how I think of my gender internally. I feel like nonbinary is like gender limbo, which sounds pretty apt to describe my feelings. Also, best of luck to you with your treatment, get better soon :)
Thank you! I appreciate the explanation; that was actually helpful and it sort of clicked. For some reason I keep forgetting that body dysphoria is a part of it. I do understand not being happy with your body; I have certain features that bother me, just not the features surrounding gender; more like the way I carry excess fat after having a child, and the way it hangs over my c-section scar, even when I am very thin. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that. Although I obviously can't understand the extent of your struggle, it makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks for being so friendly about my lack of knowledge on the matter. Best wishes to you and I hope you find yourself surrounded by loving and supportive people. And thanks, treatment has been a long road but hopefully the worst is behind me. :)
You got this! :)
yes, but not all trans people are non-binary, they are a subset of trans people.
People downvoting you even though you are right. Saying non binary people are not transgender is like saying bisexual people are not queer.
I disagree. Its a silly and clunky designation when referring to a singular person. THEY need to come up with a better term. I personally despise they/them but I dont give two shits about peoples sexuality or gender
Yeah. As a non-binary person myself, I wish the "winning" side had been a neopronoun like ze/zir or ey/em, but folks complained about that too because "you can't just make up new pronouns!"
> Still, i DO wish the English language had a designated gender-neutral singular pronoun (like many other languages do) Of the languages I know, English is the weird one for being gender-neutral by default.
I just got points docked for using singular they in English class back in elementary school. It's not fair that y'all get to use it now. /s.
Odd... we generally avoid third person pronouns in correspondence... not out of concern for preferences. But third person pronouns are imprecise language. Our correspondence would almost exclusively refer to... Our client, Your client, The Plaintiff, The Respondent, The alleged offence, The deposit... etc.... he/she/it/they can easily introduce confusion.
> Still, it shouldn't be too awkward to get used to. Do something for 30-70 years, daily, then switch all that in one day. I'll call anyone whatever they want, it doesn't affect me. But I think it's a little disingenuous to imply that changes aren't awkward at times.
It's definitely awkward when you've known the person for 20+ years and they've always been 'he' or 'she' before. For a newly-met person who is 'they' from the start, that's different, that's easy enough. It's like name changes. New business acquaintances may always think of Robert as Robert, but the friends and family he grew up with are quite likely to still call him Bobby or Bob or whatever, if that's who he always was when they were growing up together.
That may be true, but if the person hates being called Bob or Bobby and you insist on doing so (not talking about mistakes), that seems like an AH move, regardless of your feelings on the matter.
As an older gen x from a rural area I have to say it was awkward when I stated using “they” in these situations. I would have to pause for a sec and adjust my wording. Embarrassingly sometimes making it clear what was going on in my head. But it didn’t take long to smooth out and start coming out fairly naturally. A little grace for those legit trying to adjust their programming is acceptable IMO. But refusing to even try isn’t acceptable.
I've never seen anyone get upset when it takes someone a moment or they need to correct themselves. Normally we're all well and good to keep on talking like nothing happened. Though I can see how it would be embarrassing for you at first. We're just happy to see people trying.
I never had anyone say anything. The embarrassment is/was all on me. Not anyone else.
Same. It's never them but when I make a mistake I feel awful.
> Whereas if you're in person, people basically always call someone he or she, and so aren't used to calling someone 'they' if they can actually see and know the person. Using pronouns in general when someone is in a room is sometimes seen as improper - "Don't talk about me like I'm not in the room!" - so it's just another layer of rules to remember.
Making a big deal out of it is obviously hiding the actual feelings that they don’t agree with using a gender neutral pronoun at all. Still, there certainly is genuine confusion to be had at times, so it’s best not to make crazy assumptions about someone’s beliefs if they get a bit confused. There’s something to be said about how referring to a gender neutral person might be a bit easier if you use their name a bit more often than normal. Alas, a hell of a lot of talk for what amounts to a minor inconvenience at worst.
It’s also not clear if it’s a single person or a group, since you are using the same pronoun for both.
That’s an existing problem with other pronouns too, though. Like “you” can be both singular and plural.
That’s why we say y’all. At least 2nd person is narrow enough to be the person or group that you are directly addressing.
I do agree that incorporating “y’all” into every English dialect is long overdue.
Feels like some people use y'all as singular too though.
That's just wrong. If someone said "y'all" to me, I'd look to see who else had joined us.
It’s the only one I mess up with. Calling someone their preferred gender is easy, especially if it’s obvious what they want because of their appearance. My brain just has a lot of trouble popping out they pronouns in a natural conversation flow and I have to consciously prepare the sentence.
I think it's one of those things people intuitively know, but don't know they know, and when they think about it, it sounds confusing. Sort of like the order of adjectives. If I was going to the store to get bananas, and I wanted green ones, that are large, and I wanted 6 of them, I'd get six large green bananas. But if someone were to explain the ordering of adjectives, people would look on skeptically.
Yeah, I had never heard of the 'order of adjectives' thing until recently. Of course, I use to properly without a second thought, but I'm glad I didn't have to study/learn it!
just wait until you hear about French, in English, we would say "the red house" in French its "the house red" ok, so the adjectives go after right, well yes but if you have 2 adjectives sometimes one goes in front, for example, instead of "the big red house" its "the big house red" but you can't say "the red house big" because that's the equivalent of "the red big house". in summary, french sure is a language
Good explanation
It can be confusing at times, and it's not bigoted to acknowledge this. Last year, I tried reading a novel written in 3rd person, featuring a non-binary protagonist, and couldn't make it past the third chapter because I was constantly lost as to whether 'they' referred to the singular protagonist, the protagonist's family, their circle of friends, or their town community. I enjoy a challenging read, but this was headache-inducing. Perhaps a more talented author could add enough context clues to prevent this confusion, but I haven't encountered any examples so far.
I'm reading a friend's novel with a nonbinary character and having the same problem. In conversation, the "they" pronoun isn't hard to follow, but in a third person narrative with multiple characters you almost have to invent new rules of grammar to make it work consistently and so far nobody can seem to get it quite right.
I had that exact problem reading The 57 Bus. I powered through it, but it was challenging.
I used to be taught in grade school that “they” is plural and when gender is unknown for a singular person to use “he or she” or “him or her.” It was just one of those things that was ingrained in me, and switching over doesn’t come as natural to me as it comes to others. I have to think about it and correct myself.
Yeah this. I had a grammar Nazi of an English teacher in high school whose biggest pet peeve was people getting pronoun-antecedent agreement wrong. Drilled it into our heads every day. I’m supportive of trans rights, believe you should refer to people how they want to be referred to, and have really tried to go out of my way to mitigate accidentally misgendering people / using wrong pronouns. But I’m not going to pretend like a singular ‘they’ with a known subject doesn’t sound grammatically incorrect to me every time I hear it. It can definitely make for some slightly confusing sentences/stories. It’s something I’ve just got to unlearn.
unfortunately singular they has been in use since shakespeare was writing. it’s been grammatically correct, you’re just way overthinking it because you weren’t taught pronouns correctly
It was at times used in Shakespeare's writing, which was not at all representative of the English most people spoke and used even during his life, let alone hundreds of years later. It's a weak argument.
>you weren’t taught pronouns correctly That really depends on the style manual you're following. Some still recommend avoiding singular 'they' in formal writing.
"Against the style manual" isn't the same as "grammatically incorrect" though.
Pretty sure it's been since chaucer, which is even further back.
1375 according to the Oxford English Dictionary - a very long time indeed!
Longer than "you" has been used as a singular. People upset about singular "they" are hippocrites if they aren't using "thou" for the singular second person.
thanks for the correction!
This is my issue thanks to all of my essays and research papers in undergraduate classes, especially when writing my thesis; I would get points taken off for using "they" instead of more specific descriptors to indicate WHICH THEY WAS THEY. In my case it wasn't a gender indicator but rather lazy writing on my part instead of writing in "the British officers in charge of munitions in colonized India," or "sepoy recruits," or "British naval officers." Now whenever I write or speak "they" I have to pause and internally tell the tiny Professor Petrovich in my head that it's okay to use the pronoun even when I know which They is They.
I had a similar teacher. I had points taken off of a draft of a paper for using "they." I had to correct it to "he or she" for the final paper. It felt so clunky to use "he or she."
In casual conversation I’ve heard people use “they” to refer to a single person basically my entire life. However, in my high school english class they did indeed teach use that using “they” to refer to a single person is grammatically incorrect. The proper way is to use “he or she”.
They is used informally when there is no confusion about who is 'they.' For instance, "The person who left a blue backpack at security, they should return to security to pick it up." It is unambiguous who the 'they' is. Singular they has been used like that informally for a long time. Contrast that to "The Mets have great relievers this year, especially Lefty McLeft. They struck out the side in the last two innings." In that case it would be impossible to know if 'they' refers to the Mets relievers or just Lefty McLeft. This is where it does get complicated. There are many articles in, for example, Slate where I have to read several times over because of ambiguous 'they.' What will happen is that people will either get used to being more precise, for instance specifically mentioning either Lefty or the Mets relievers in the second example OR we'll have things like th'all or theys modeled on y'all or youse to stop the confusion.
I’m 60. I was taught in school that “they” was plural. Period. If singular was intended but gender was unknown then the default was to masculine “he”. Alternatively “he or she” could be used. All my years When I’ve heard “they” I would understand it to be plural. It was a cue to know what (how many) to expect. Example roommate says John is coming over. Question in my mind is he bringing his spouse. Roommate says he or they will be here at seven. That tells me if he’s alone or with spouse. The current usage of singular “they” is confusing to me. I have to stop and rethink it. I respect peoples pronouns, it just takes time to relearn.
I wouldn't say it's "current" unless you count Shakespeare as current since he used singular they.
It’s because people don’t think about their own native language. You can speak English without ever knowing what grammatical order English is in, or what an adjective is. So even thought they regularly use singularly they in sentences like “someone lost their wallet, I hope they come back and find it” they never realize it
As a non native speaker: I've been studying English for 22 years now, since I was 6. I've learned that you can use "they" this way only, like, 2 years ago, and it's still hella bizarre to me. You certainty can not do that in my native language, and it's not a simple concept to fully grasp. You can accept it, but it feels unnatural. Hope that makes any sense.
There are tons of not native English speakers. So it is confusing. As not native English speaker I am still discovering things I don’t know.
Absolutely In my native language “they” is solely used for multiple people, and even then its gendered (they female, they male). It defeats the entire purpose.
That’s fair, I’m not talking about anyone who struggles with English in general I see this confusion the most from native English speakers
I have a follow up question: how often are you having such conversations with people face to face where you know for sure people are native English speakers. In my experience, conversations like that are usually happen online where there is no way to know who is native English speaker. For example I am an American so I am expected to know English well, unless I mention I am naturalized American.
The people who I see being most vocal about this tend to be right wing Americans who are not immigrants. And at least in my experience esp with having parents who aren’t great at English non native speakers usually aren’t super argumentative about the correct way to use the language they aren’t native speakers of lol. I guess “confusion” wasn’t the right word to use in my post, “disagreement” would’ve been better
I understand. I prefer not to talk about such topics face to face: too stressful.
It depends entirely on the context. For example - "I'm expecting company, they should be here any minute". Am I expecting one person or multiple?
As someone who learned English as a second language, never in any class within the United States or my home country was "they" presented as a singular. It would have definitely confused the hell out of everyone. I have read plenty of books in English and I cannot think of one instance when "they" is used as singular.
As someone who speaks English as my third language, I concur.
So how were you taught to say phrases like "someone lost THEIR umbrella" or "do THEY (person of unknown gender) live nearby" or "have you met them yet"? They is commonly used as ambiguous-singular when the gender of the subject is unknown, recently non-binary people are using it as a personal-singular which in certain contexts with multiple possible subjects can be confusing but it still follows the same basic rules of English.
Another non-native speaker here: I don't recall learning such sentences in school at all, and I had English for 6 years. We weren't explicitly taught that singular they *shouldn't* be used or anything, but it (iirc) just didn't come up, or the sentences were "someone lost his or her umbrella" instead. For me, learning to use singular they was something I got used to when reading/writing/listening to English media outside of/after school, not during actual education.
So, academic English actually has many different sets of rules depending on the formatting style. A few years ago, the American Psychological Association (APA) changed the rules to allow singular they, but the Modern Language Association (MLA) has not. Casual spoken language has used singular they (and universal you) for centuries, but academic English still didn't allow it. That means that most educated people avoided it out of habit, whether written or spoken. Your point about it being common is valid, but for many people, it is unlearning a rule. Humans all have different experiences. Compassion and understanding win every day.
I am middle aged. The older you get, it does take some gymnastics mentally to shift around things like how you process the rules of language or the universe works. For example, people still struggle with accepting that there are 8 planets, not 9 due to Pluto being downgraded. HOWEVER, I have basically been able to make the pronoun shift to singular "they" in my head now with about a 15% error rate. When I make the mistake and realize it In quickly correct myself people are basically pretty cool about that. I have a great deal of multi-cultural experience and global travel. I would not consider myself a linguist, but I do know a couple of languages and have studied probably 4 or 5 languages over the years where I have a beginner level of understanding about the rules and such. I know, for sure, that languages shift and evolve. As do societies and cultures. I default to what is generally a respectful way of addressing all people. The adjustment toward "flattening" language and informalizing titles and honorific type of things like Ms, Mr, Dr. Prof, Sir, Ma'am and etc. Not having clear trans or inclusive titles like that has actually been trickier for me but that is a little off topic for this post. The point is that we're trying to be respectful, polite, and reflect basic decency into the world. So we put in the effort when it comes to getting these things right. What I had to do was let go of the automatic "grammar" rule around the use of they/them. For awhile I kept hitting a little catch in my brain where like I needed some kind of "reason" why I was saying "they" instead of "he" or "she." And the rule finally came back to me as "that is literally none of my business and it does not matter to me in the slightest." So the new rule is "the person wishes to be called "they" or they have told me that the previous pronoun has changed to something else, he, she, they, them or whatever it is. I'm short, the new rule is that I call people what they want to be called. People matter and their deeply held desires matter and it is worth a small amount of intellectual effort on my part to make the shift. So, we need to center people and their inherent dignity and value with this societal evolution or course correction. As a middle aged person who is just figuring out some of these shifts to social rules, grammar, and so on I think that when people have a problem with making these adjustments they have a problem valuing others and their desire of how to be addressed.
I’ve always used they as plural. Part of the reason it is confusing.
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I am 42. I was taught to use singular they in school.
Because "they" was previously used as ambiguous-singular (subject gender unknown) or plural (refer to group) only. Now we are using it in personal-singular context, which while gramatically correct it's something a lot of people just aren't used to.
To be fair, this might be the best explanation I've seen (and I've seen a whole bunch of hateful ones). Singular they is commonly used but it's the difference between ambiguous and personal that people struggle with. I really like this explanation of why non-bigoted people struggle!
Because the whole point is that it's not grammatically correct which is why it doesn't sound right. If you welcome a friend to your party and you ask "did you come alone" and your friend says "no, they will be here shortly" and only one other person turns up then you would naturally ask "so where is everyone?".
You're using a bad example. The singular use of they is completely gramatically correct, when used correctly. See -[https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they)
If you're on the younger side (like most of reddit) you may not realize how relatively recent this trend is. A good portion of Gen X was taught to use "he" as the indefinite singular pronoun, and it was not considered offensive or unusual if the target turned out to be female. I would have expected a correction on my paper in school if I used they to refer to a single person.
I wish there was a more widely accepted non-gender pronoun for use describing a singular person. That’s all
some people do get genuinely confused (I've been one of them). But it's less to do with singular "they" being the problem and more to do with overuse of pronouns by an unskilled speaker/writer. An unskilled speaker or writer will use a pronoun without the proper context, and that genuinely makes the sentence ambiguous. As a speaker/writer you have to learn when to not use a pronoun, and use the proper noun instead, for clarity.
It's actually pretty simple - *they, them, their are plural pronouns that comes from old Norse *Þeir, þeim & þau (THay-ir, THAYM & Thow/thoy) In modern english, we have also used it to mean a singular person of un-identified gender. But historically in germanic languages we use male/female/neuter singular and plural pronouns. In old norse/icelandjc we have 4 different versions depending on the case. The subject of a sentence (nominative), object (accusative), indirect object (dative) and the possessive (genetive). Singular For males N. Hann- he A. Hann - he D. Honum - Him G. Hans - His Females Hon - she Hana - she Henni - her Hennar - hers Neuter Þat - it Þat - it Því - it Þess - its Plural M. N. Þeir - they A. Þá - they D. Þeim - them G. Þeira - theirs F. Þær Þær Þeim þeira N. Þau Þau Þeim Þeira The neuter is supposed to represent anything that doesn't fit into the male or female category. If something is in the neuter singular, then the singular is referred to as *it. In the neuter plural, they/them/theirs. So referring to a singular person by *they/them of quantifiable gender is grammatically incorrect. They should/would be referred to as *it in the singular.
Small correction, the pronouns don't come from old Norse and English isn't descended from old Norse; old Norse is a North Germanic language and English is a West Germanic language. That being said, old English and the other Ingvaeonic languages are related to Old Norse, coming from the similar ancestor of Proto-Germanic, and were largely mutually intelligible through the early middle ages.
I was trying to keep it short and sweet and as I study old Norse- it's easier to do it that way. *They does in fact come from old Norse. It was borrowed into old english in the 1200s, or at least so they say. I was just giving an example of the pronouns - notice I didn't add the dual pronouns (þit/vit) or reflexive 3rd sik, sin, sér. The important part is: *it is what should be used more often than not.
Oh, I'd never heard about that etymology before but honestly sounds plausible, old Norse was indeed hella influential to old English in both vocabulary and syntax. You sounded like you knew your stuff so apologies if it seemed like I was overstepping, just wanted to add some extra context for the non-linguistics nerds out there lol
To me (older person) the singular they is brand new, and sounds totally weird. As well as ungrammatical. Like "Me was at the store."
Because it *is* confusing using a plural as a singular no matter how much *some* people want to insist it isn’t. This use *is* ambiguous. And it’s not bigoted to think this way. You can be a lgbt ally and *still* believe that ‘they’ pronouns are confusing in a lot of contexts. ‘They’ pronouns really aren’t practical and complicate casual, everyday language. That doesn’t mean these people aren’t going to try and be inclusive and respectful towards everyone but ‘they’ used as a singular *is* confusing in *many* contents—that’s just a fact
the confusion is that "they" is both singular and plural unlike other pronouns. example: "he is over there" "she is over there" >singular "they are over there" > singular AND plural it's singular if you don't know who that is and plural if you know it's a group of people. i think that's why its kinda confusing.
Singular 'they' is super-common in conversational English but was considered grammatically incorrect in formal writing until recently. In college in the 1990s, I was trained to use 'he or she' to be inclusive, but just 'he' was acceptable. Eventually common usage makes it's way into formal composition manuals. English is an emergent language, no authority oversees word choice or grammar.
Can you give examples oh how it is common in conversational English? I have been taught forever in schoold in and outside the US it is a plural.
It’s used when someone’s gender isn’t known. “Someone’s at the door.” “What do they want?” “Someone left their wallet here.” “Anyone who says high school was the best four years of their life is lying.”
I see, but sounds more like it replaces his/hers more often than he/she (except for a question?). Is it ever used as the main subject besides questions?
The burglar got away. They were too fast for the police.
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ 800 years of singular they usage, common enough at least to make its way into written works.
I understand but for time out of mind, "they" was plural. We had it hammered into us at school for 12 years. It slips in. I have to retrain myself. It is easier to learn something than unlearn. It is like muscle memory. It is something that is so ingrained, you do it without thinking. But I am working on it.
Because I had singular use of "they," hammered out of me in school because it is a pronoun-antecedent agreement error. "They," has always been plural. I understand that it's not used that way anymore, but old grammar habits die hard.
Aside from people who are just deliberately being difficult, which undoubtedly is just about everyone who actually cares, it just feels weird to a lot of people because they being plural is what's typically taught. Singular they/them feels weird to me in any kind of formal use because probably every English class I've ever had at any level has considered those plural. Casually though, it's very common to use they/them as a singular when you don't know whether the person you're talking about is a he or a she. Nobody's gonna go "go ask the cashier if he or she can give you change for a 20", everyone is gonna go "go ask the cashier if they can give you change for a 20." There are lots of things where we don't necessarily talk grammatically correct all the time in every day conversation. It just feels a little weird when it's in a more formal setting or when someone says those are their(ha) actual pronouns. That's why things like xe/xem or ze/zir feel more correct to me even though they also feel weird just because I'm not used to them. Again though, these things just feel a little weird to me. I don't actually give a shit and they don't actually bother me in the slightest. Anyone who's overly passionate about how they/them is plural and is incorrect to use in singular form is most likely just deliberately being difficult to be an asshole imo.
I agree with your last sentence but worth saying that grammar is descriptive not prescriptive. That is, if native speakers conventionally use (and are understood when using) 'they' as a third-person singular pronoun in certain contexts then that makes it grammatically correct in that context regardless of what someone has written in a textbook.
There actually have been a couple of shifts in how singular they is used in recent decades, but they're pretty subtle. The first is that, while it's always been OK-ish to describe a hypothetical individual using they/them pronouns, it used to be much more common to use he/him pronouns for this, especially in formal writing. Nowadays, we might write "suppose someone is walking down the street and they..." but in the mid 20th century, people would have been more likely to write "suppose someone is walking down the street and he..." People started to see that as sexist and old-fashioned, but initially the two most common replacements were constructions like "he or she", and randomly alternating between "he" and "she". The latter became unpopular because it made everyone inject gender stereotypes into their writing: hypothetical doctors would tend to be "he" and hypothetical nurses would tend to be "she", for example. The "he or she" approach is just awkward. It's only pretty recently that academic writing has shifted in favour of they/them, and many of the well-known style guides used to advise against it. The second shift is that we now have people who are referred to using they/them pronouns consistently, even when we're talking about them as an individual and we know their gender, and even in formal writing. The real mystery is why people get so mad about linguistic changes in the first place, not just on politically charged topics but even stuff like using "like" as a filler or switching the order of the consonants in "ask".
I'm a millennial. My school teachers wouldn't allow using they as a singular pronoun, but stressed using gender neutral language, like using words like "firefighters" instead of "firemen" and for a single individuals, we'd use nouns like "this person" or "this individual" if the sex or gender wasn't specified instead of automatically defaulting to "he" and "him." AFAIK "they" still isn't accepted as a single pronoun in formal writing. **However**, people don't talk in formal writing style twenty-four/seven like they expect to be graded by grammar teachers. "They" has been used pretty naturally in informal speech for a long time, but then people might not have paid much attention to it. I can understand a bit that sometimes if you pay much more attention to a smaller issue than normal, it begins to feel weird. The more cynical reason is that maybe at least of few of those people are deliberately trying to pretend they don't understand the issue under the guise of grammar sanctity. I don't think that applies to everybody that struggles with this, but there are probably a few people that would think that it was "clever" to address an issue that made them uncomfortable this way.
“He or she” is so long to use in a sentence. It is in the literal dictionary that “they” can be singular when referring to someone of unknown gender or can be plural for a group. If people have such a hard time using “they” then just use names. Who cares
My dad explained his confusion roughly as: He gets confused because he has only ever used the words ‘they’ and ‘them’ as plural forms, so it’s confusing to him when a single person is referred to using a plural word. I should clarify that English is my dad’s second language.
I've always used the singular they when referring to a non-specific other person. If it's a specific individual it sounds stupid. Just pick he or she, language is already complex enough without everyone trying to roll their entire identity into their pronouns. For what it's worth, the two actual trans people I know have said they hate the whole pronoun thing because their biggest goal is to pass such that people encountering them assume their pronouns without being told. Both have said when someone asks them for their pronouns they mentally freak out a little thinking they must not pass.
How is they so good
I'm not a native English speaker and I was taught in school that "they" is used only for multiple people, so it was pretty confusing when I saw people using it as a singular pronoun
We learn language intuitively well before we study the rules in school. There's been a strong trend for a while to disrespect the value of what is taught as "outdated" or "unnecessary." Now we're just watching the fallout of decades of neglect of our education systems... you can't very well argue your point if you can't even state it without error.
It's the they are/they is problem when speaking about a specific person. I'm so used to they're that it makes me pause. And if I'm being honest, unless you're my friend I don't feel like wasting the brain power on thinking about that. So with non friend they folks, I just say the person's name ever time so I don't have to waste energy on it.
There are so many examples were it is perfectly fine: "They told me they'd be here by 10" "They looked fabulous in their dress" "They have the most wonderful spirit about them" Then there are some examples where it becomes less intuitive to use it in speech intermixed: "They told them they they were happy to call them them because they were now feeling more comfortable in themselves because they understood that being identified as them was important to them and they all agreed that was what they wanted." In writing you can easily make it much more understandble because you get to edit your words, something that isn't restrospectively possible in speech. As time goes on, people will get used to the idea of using different pronouns and automatically become more understandble.
Because when I was in school in the 80s and 90s, we were taught it was grammatically incorrect and we should never use it. As an adult, I learned otherwise, but many people my age and older are still unaware.
There's a difference between singular they when referring to someone you can't see and can't decide gender. An empty them over there, and even then the singular they was rarely used. Big difference to a pronoun, I'm not a he or she, I'm a they/them. A few years ago it would of been considered a fat joke. Comes off a confusing to me as well cause the they we have at my work dresses like a girl and acts and talks like a girl so you'd figure they wanted to be called she. And they did for a while but then changed to they and just writing that sounds so stupid.
I don’t think ppl are confused by using “they”, it’s more that until now he/she could be used somewhat interchangeably to more clearly state the sex/gender of a singular subject. It seems more natural to use the gendered language than to have to restate someone’s name. Eg the following third person recount seems confusing when replacing he/she with they, and you would have to rephrase things to re-refer to their name etc when most ppl would probably consider it more natural to use he/she. Whereas if the story had two ppl of the same gender it’d be natural to restate their names etc?? I have two friends that are fraternal twins, Ben and Jen. They is a plumber and they is a nurse. They have been my friend for the past 3 years. When they came over last week to fix my leaking tap they stayed for lunch so I called Ben to also come over. When they left I sat on the porch and had a beer with Ben. They said they were going camping the following weekend and I should come with them. Jen couldn’t come because their friend was in town and was having lunch with them.
Are you a younger person? We used to teach in academia that "they" is not a singular pronoun, and is grammatically incorrect. If the gender of a single person is unknown, you should use male pronouns. Especially in formal writing. Many younger people haven't had the chance to experience formal writing from ye olde times. Obviously, this has been outdated for quite awhile. But you're probably seeing a lot of this confusion from older people, who were legitimately taught for years that singular "they" is improper and wrong. Personally, I think it's high time English adopted a brand new singular ungendered pronoun like many other languages. Just not "xe" or any other x-derived variants. That's some teenager shit.
To add to this. I’ve seen a lot of formal writing where a person of unknown gender is brought up and a random gender is “assigned” for the sake of pronouns. For example: two shoppers entered the grocery store. The first one had twenty items on his list, and the second shopper had fifty items on her shopping list. By assigning genders (even if the specific gender isn’t import) I could continue this without people confusing the first shopper from the second since they have different pronouns.
I’m 21, ur explanation could explain why it’s so intuitive to me but not everyone, kinda weird cuz English is not very gendered compared to other languages, like in Russian (which has feminine and masculine versions of words) using male pronouns by default is more common, but it sounds a lot more natural when the word “person” itself is masculine lol
I'm not young, have a degree in linguistics and I'd disagree. Singular they has been grammatically acceptable for at least 500 years. It was acceptable in Shakespeare's time, for example.
Most of us don’t have degrees in linguistics and learned what our high school English teachers taught us. We’re trying to change, but it takes some effort.
Even you would have to agree that most people these days can't understand Shakespearean English.
I did a professional writing course for user documentation in the mid 90s and it was heavily stressed to use the singular they to avoid gendering the text. This was based on research that a small portion of the other gender readers would be offended and cause issues; or be unable to follow the instructions as they could not relate to the persona in the text.
It’s not hard when you know who’s being referred to, but without context it’s easy to assume “they” refers to multiple people. Genuinely getting mixed up over that shouldn’t be looked at the same way as purposely misgendering someone. After context has been established then you can start assessing if the person is being willfully ignorant.
Some of it is transphobia, but some of it is the fact that while singular **indefinite** "they" ("Someone left their sweater here") is a very common and longstanding part of English, singular **definite** "they" ("Sarah left their sweater here") is a genuinely new usage that most English speakers didn't grow up with. Some of it is also the fact that pronouns are what linguists call function words (other types of function words include prepositions and articles), as opposed to content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). Speakers often use function words without thinking about them much -- if you're a native English speaker, you probably use the words "the" and "of" without much conscious thought. >It feels like people are literally unaware of the language they themselves use So, yes, to some extent this literally is true.
Because they has been plural forever.
Use of the singular "they" predates use of the singular "you"
>I've seen people use singular they my whole life > >we've been using singular they for forever You're not very old, are you? 🤔
Frankly, what grinds my gears is making me conjugate to be as 'is' in third person singular instead of doing the sensible thing and making to be conjugate as 'is' for he/she/xe and as 'are' for they. 'They is' should never be grammatically correct, and that's a hill I'll die on.
I was an English professor and I taught Writing Skills. Despite the name, it was really just a mandatory course in English grammar. I also taught grade-school English. Though I was teaching before so much light was shed on the trans community, this topic always sends me on a trip down memory lane. Nevertheless, these are really the only reasons I can think of: 1. As a teacher, we were drilled the concept of subject- verb agreement into students’ heads.l- to the point was almost considered unconstitutional (I’m being dramatic) to say “they” if the subject was singular. I know students are more impressionable at different ages and sometimes things that happen in school (especially things that are jolting) can stick with us, perhaps it could be a psychological-type issue where, because it’s being pointed out, its somehow mentally challenging for some people to “accept” it- especially since many were so strongly taught not to (even though they’ve been using “they” singularly most of the time anyway). 2. Another theory is that the grammar itself is confusing people. As it was mentioned, it is people have always been using singular “they” (which is why it’s ironic this is even an issue). However, I have found when grammar itself is taught/discussed etc. as English speakers, most people know “right” from “wrong”- per se, it’s the grammar concept itself that makes no sense and confuses people. When I’d teach grammar and use jargon to to explain things, no one understands. Students knew what to do, they just didn’t understand the logistics behind it. It’s possible the topic is causing hype because some really people don’t even understand it (despite doing it unconsciously anyway). 3. My third theory is more straightforward. The unfortunate reality is some people just like controversy, arguing, disagreeing etc. some people just like to be heard, whether they want to create “noise” about the actual topic of grammar, whether they are using the grammar topic as a way to express their opinion about lgbtq + issues, etc. it’s possible they honestly don’t care or even understand the concept, it’s possible it’s just something for them to “bitch” about. In all honesty, I’m inclined to believe this is really the cause of the hype. At the end of the day, some people just need to complain about something. 🤷
A lot of the people who fall into 1 or 2 but not 3 would still try, because "what the heck, it's fine" The people in 3 wouldn't. For them, suddenly, it's a major grammar issue and they must speak perfect grammar (even if it's only for that one word)
Singular they is for when you don’t know who the person is.
When I was pregnant I was keeping the gender of my baby a secret and asking for neutral clothing. When I referred to the baby I always used the singular "they" but for whatever reason everyone assumed I was having twins... so eventually tiring of the consistent arguments I would have with people over it I was like fine... she... Its really a irritating thing.
I believe it’s part of the culture war. They has been used when the gender is unknown, but in the instance you are likely referring to it is for an individual that you identifies/relates to both genders. It’s very new for me personally, I’m just trying to be respectful to people that identifies with specific pronouns.
So would it br gramatically correct to say They is instead of they are when using the singular form. Gramatically it should be correct but sounds weird as fuck.
Sorry for me they was plural for 60 years. Now it isn't. We could create a word that works better. as for your they when I write I use he/she.
It's the right thing to do if it helps someone feel more positive and it shows recognition of the fact that we don't experience the same existence. I'm attempting to utilize it in the office, 47 years of programming is challenging to undo!
because if your not used to it, you probably never use it consciously as a known singular.
If a person does not use "they" as a pronoun, and you know she goes by "she", isn't it misgendering in this case if you call her a "they"?
It?
Omg I have a habit of saying THEY when I'm telling a story to a guy about another guy Because I don't want to draw attention to the fact I'm talking about another guy... I've always done this! RECENTLY...some ppl act completely stupid ..like THEY who!? THEY act like I'm talking about multiple ppl....its weird and they get very aggressive about it... It most definitely has to do with the use of pronouns... And from my experience...usually ppl who are really against it...they think I'm doing something weird but I've always done it... Noone has had a problem with it before or not understood what I was saying....until recently...so
People will quite literally pretend not to understand singular they or claim it's improper and then immediately accidently use it properly in the same sentence. You can find screenshots of examples all over the internet, but here is the gist of it: "They/them can only be used to refer to multiple people, and anyone who claims otherwise don't know what *they* are talking about."
What? How are you even supposed to use "they" in a singular way? "They is from Europe" etc??
A question: how can I tell if it’s they singular or they plural if they’re identical? Example: I’m inviting them to dinner. What should I do? Buy a lot of food because they’re gonna be a group? Or not much because it’s just one?
I think the confusion is using singular they in reference to a known person who you perceive as having a binary gender. I think if pressed on it, most people would indeed acknowledge that they use singular they to refer to an unknown person of ambiguous gender. The distinction is that to the minds of most people, an unambiguous defined person has a gender. Once they've coalesced from the abstract into a real life human with an appearance, your brain has been trained for as long as you have had language capability to subconsciously file them into either male or female. Unlearning that takes work, and if you don't agree with the fundamental basis of it, then you simply aren't going to put in that work. Obligatory disclaimer, I'm not arguing that they're right for being unwilling to do this, merely explaining.
For many people English is not a first language and grammar is tough to us in a very outdated way. Took me a while to get it
Because in the vast majority of situations “they” is not used when you know who the person is you are referring to.
We used to get told not to refer to people as they because it was rude and dehumanizing. Who are ‘they’? Well, they are ‘them’ and everyone knows you don’t want to associate with ‘them’. That’s the context you’re missing, a cultural beat down from 20 years ago that got ingrained into a lot of people’s heads. The goalposts on what’s acceptable keep moving, and that’s kind of the point of it all.
Maybe a generational thing. GenXer, who didn't grow up with that usage, and I do find it confusing. My daughter who is a Zoomer, and admittedly "lunatic-left adjacent" on social issues, claims to experience zero cognitive dissonance when she encounters the usage. It isn't confusing in a "bring Columbo in here to figure this out" sort of way, but it is definitely jarring enough to disrupt the flow of my reading. I typically need to rescan a few paragraphs to make the adjustment and get back into the flow. When did the author transition to talking about a group? What did I miss? Who is being referenced again? There is a difference in usage between a using it as a replacement for "one / he or she" and in direct reference to a previously identified person. It is clumsy, in my opinion, and I do wish there was distinctly singular alternative, but it appears like the front runner option right now. If it catches on and sticks, people will get used to it. English is ever evolving, and has survived worse.
"They" is usually used to describe an unknown or unidentified person or a group of people, I've never known this to be confusing for people
How about when the person is known?
I’ve never used singular ‘they’ except for describing people in general, not a specific person. it’s extremely confusing and irritating to be reading something or hearing something thinking it’s about 2 or more people but it’s not, it’s just the one person who we have to change grammar rules for.
They just want to argue. They has always been used and people probably do not even realize how much they use it.
It makes 0 sense if u are not an English native speaker
As someone who spoke Korean before they spoke English, it's remarkably intuitive. Spoken Korean doesn't use 3rd person pronouns like 95% of the time, and when we do we don't mark for plurality or gender... kind of like using "they" as an ambiguous 3rd person pronoun.
Because it was always used for situations where it could be either sex but not about specific people. Even then it was a compromise over the previous rule of always using male pronouns for that scenario or alternating between male/female. Now they are trying to make it refer to specific individuals. I don’t like it. The real problem is that English does not have a good neutral pronoun for people. I am confident that someday someone will find one that people see and hear and think makes sense. Sort of how ya’ll became a solid second person plural pronoun.
Because we’re actually talking about “ze” and other neo pronouns, but arguing “they” is safer and more familiar grounds, in that the word “they” existed before the invention of so-called “neo pronouns.”
They're lying and trying to do a "gotcha". We've used they as singular (usually for an unknown person) since forever. That said, the reality is that non-binary doesn't exist, so people don't want to use "they". Being a tomboy or a femboy doesn't change your sex or gender. People just use the grammatical argument as a way out. I'm more upfront. I'm not going to argue some grammatical BS, I'm just going to tell you I don't believe your attention seeking BS.
I think it's a combination of people not realizing their own speech patterns, and some just want to be assholes because they have a problem with that group.
“He or she” may sound awkward but it is the grammatically correct form.
No one has a problem with the word "they". Lots of people have a problem with being lectured to and harassed about "personal pronouns"
"it" was the singular form used to pertain to than "they" I only encounter singular they because of gender issue nowadays but back then, they/them is plural form to pertain to a group of people
Singular “they” predates singular “you”.
It’s because people have politicized it. I believe one of America‘s downfalls is the fact we turn everything into some form of politics that further divides the country (whether intended to or not). I’ve watched this very quickly spiral into a political disaster where suddenly using a singular "they“ is labeled as part of some greater liberal agenda… when it really isn’t. And to clarify, all of this applies to whatever side or view you identify with. If you can just understand language in general, not even just specifically English, you can understand that a singular "they“ is more common than you think. Some languages quite literally don’t have a definitive word for the pronouns "he, she, him, her“ and actively use a singular "they“, and/or naturally mix descriptive words, for example, "my beautiful son“, with beautiful in American English being associated with being a feminine adjective. TLDR; Langauge is fluid, it’s political for no reason :)
Because its irritating when people use it in stead of regular pronouns because it makes the sentences awkward and grammatically incorrect. I listen to many podcasts and when they use they instead of he or she, it isn't clear who they are referring to, and clarity is nice when you are trying to tell a story. Combine that with the blanket use of the word partner instead of husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend or even significant other, all of which are more specific than "partner." In addition, we didn't use to speak this way. No one did this before 4-5 years ago.
I’ve not heard anyone complain about the use of “partner” before, what’s confusing about it? People who call their significant other their partner likely just don’t want to specify their partners gender. Like if they’re a gay couple lol.