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"It's so much trouble remembering modern pronou-"
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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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“Singular They” has been in use since at least Early Modern English.
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
Singular 'they' predates
Singular 'you'"
Right? I feel like I’m not taking my anti-crazy pills every time I hear people get mad about not using he/she. It’s just so easy to use “they” and it makes perfect sense. And we should just use it permanently for everyone.
My main problem with it is the namespace ambiguity, especially with respect to plurality. For simple statements it's fine, if you're saying something about one person it's going to be clear they are the one you refer to. If you're talking about their relationship to a group though, unlike a singular pronoun it is no longer explicit that you refer to them but not them, for instance. You compensate for this by making sure your meaning is clear in other ways and it can be made to work, but the fact you have to put in extra effort to make up for "they"'s relative lack of structural utility is a serious problem with the word.
I still use it for lack of a better way to avoid implying knowledge/relevance of gender, but it would be nice if some overtly singular gender neutral pronoun like xe would catch on.
We might end up doing that after some time. It’s similar to why we use “you” instead of “thee/thy/thou.”
Speak for thineself!
Since I don't know you, and I assume you don't know me, the way you have pointed your language at me demands that I challenge you to a duel.
"Thee/thy/thou" was the familiar or informal, while "you" was formal. You would use the informal with someone who was close to you, a friend or a romantic interest. You would also use the informal as an insult to people you didn't know well, as a kind of "I'm better than you, so I can use this intimate form to refer to you" thing.
Ultimately, "you" became standard in all cases, because it avoided the possibility of unintended insult. In similar fashion, I think we'll end up using "singular they" a lot more often, because of the rapidly increasing awareness about gender fluidity and wanting to avoid unintended insult, just like with "you."