ALT TEXT:
- Panel 1: A person with the text “Singular ‘they’” written on them smiling with open arms.
- Panel 2: “Singular ‘They’” beaten up by others who said, “Singular they is ungrammatical. It’s too confusing,” “How can anyone use plural pronouns for singular,” and “Every pronoun should only have one purpose.”
- Panel 3: “You” hiding from the mob who was beating “Singular ‘They’”
- Panel 4: “German ‘Sie’” hiding with even more fear next to “You”
I have normally used “they, their and them” when referring to a singular person for about twenty years because I thought that “he/she” and “his/hers” looked ridiculous in emails.
For example; “Next time the engineer feels like he/she needs to overhaul the code…” versus “Next time the engineer feels like they need to overhaul the code…”. Clean and simple.
Example of current use:
Bob - “Hey Jo, Frank thinks we should tweak widget X.”
Me - “Yeah well, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”
I don’t think that sounds weird.
I honestly have never understood why people take the effort to write he/she instead of singular they? Like it’s 2 words instead of 1, why bother? Even in academic articles which typically have word count limits lol
Not an expert, but I’ve followed the growth of this word a little on-and-off.
Disambiguity can be important in a language. But it’s complicated. Many times we use “he”, “she”, or “he/she”, gender is not required. Back in the 1800’s, the standard was to use “he” when gender was uncertain, unimportant, or ambiguous to a conversation. Obviously it had to do with the presumed defaultness of the male gender.
For a while, people toyed with “it” or “which”. Honestly, my personal feeling is that it was the way insult could easily be taken (or given) with “it” that it died out.
“They” probably should not be used in cases a less ambiguous word is more appropriate… But that’s when the bigots come out. In most cases, the most appropriate word to reference a person is that person’s preferred pronoun if you know it, even if it’s a genderfluid pronoun. Why? It’s significantly more descriptive than “him” or “her”. But these same people who consider “they” too general would break down to acknowledge any person having a gender identity different from their birth sex (and probably their genital birth sex for intersex folks, at that).
What all the offense is REALLY about is that they want to pretend some people are fiction, or subhuman. I think “it” would settle well with those folks. Which is why I’m glad that isn’t a default.
In German, there is no singular they, so enbies often have to use “it”. Fun times, really.
I just don’t get it, even before being aware of pronouns and such I used singular they all the time, e.g. “That’s what they did” (referring to one person) or “They’re thinking that aren’t they?”
Welcome to outrage politics. People decide to bring a common language feature back or into the mainstream and so the outrage gang has to get outraged
What even is “singular they”?? First time hearing of this. Is it some pseudo gender thing promoted by the lgbtqia+ communities?
… you’ve not heard of singular they, a pronoun used in english by Shakespear himself, that existed before singular you?
“Oh, somebody forgot their jacket” has existed since forever.
It’s using they to refer to a single person. Some people think it’s only supposed to be used for a group, but that’s completely wrong. It’s been used to refer to singular people since at least Shakespeare, if not longer. For example: “if some_one_ tells you they is singular, they are mindlessly consuming right wing media and not considering if it’s actually correct.”
So, to explain the German „sie/Sie“, it can be used as one of the following:
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formal version of both singular and plural you: used whenever you have or want to maintain a distance from someone, or with persons who demand respect/authority. Generally speaking, whenever you would say Mr/Mrs/Ms it’s „Sie“, if you’re on first name terms it’s „Du“. Fun fact: addressing an LEO, judge, etc. informally („Du“) is considered an insult, insulting someone is a misdemeanour (not kidding) in Germany, and you will usually be fined on the spot for doing so.
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Used to reference a woman/girl who has been mentioned before: What about Sally, is she coming today?
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Same as above but for inanimate objects or animals that are gendered female: Have you seen my camera, I have misplaced her. Look at the cat, she’s so cute. (In this case it’s a cat of either female or unknown gender, if you were talking about a male cat specifically, you’d use the male version of „cat“…)
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Same as above, but for all groups of people, animals, objects, regardless of gender, like plural they: Look at the guys/nuns/politicians/cats/helicopters, they’re drunk as fuck!
Great language, isn’t it.
Fun fact correction: if you happen to be Dieter Bohlen you are legally allowed to informally address everyone, including cops, and won’t be fined.
Yeah, that’s just the modern way of talking.
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