All I'm saying is according to English grammatical rules it's a perfectly valid method of referring to a singular person when gender is unknown.
Now according to societal politeness rules on the other hand, it's rude as fuck.
It's not rude, it's dehumanizing. Slightly worse, right?
Unless it identifies as another species, then it's still dehumanizing but also affirming I guess.
Lmao I was thinking that you mean they and was so fucking confused for a while thinking how rude I've been for YEARS.
I default to whatever the traditional apparent gender would be assumed I.E. you look like traditional woman/man I refer to you as such. Then I allow myself to be corrected if it's inaccurate.
The intent isn't offensive and I'm not going to ask each individual what pronouns are preferred but will respect whatever I'm informed is correct in each instance. I think it's being made into a mountain when it's really just a mole hill. You can't expect every human to automatically be correct or informed or even default to a neutral when it is not yet the norm.
It seems too trivial to be butthurt over if it isn't malicious, especially upon first interaction. Let the person know, then if ignored or dismissed it can be considered offensive.
I don't get upset when people call my Bugles potato chips, they are little crunchy cones of heaven
I started using they after 2 years accidentally misgendering a colleague from another country because it looked like she had a beard in Teams profile picture
That sounds reallllly rough haha, hopefully it was taken with more humor than insult. I just go with ye ol "assume ignorance or mistake over malice" anytime an interaction like that happens. Majoritively it is one of the former and there was never an issue to begin with. Sorta like getting some fused Bugles, I doubt the company intended to send it to me, just a simple double delicious mistake
I understand not wanting to ask everyone all the time, but defaulting to a neutral pronoun isn't going to become the norm unless people start using it even when it isn't the norm. That said, it does feel a lot less natural in Ukrainian and Russian to me, so I'm still trying to figure out the best option there. But in English, singular "they" is pretty widespread already, I think.
I don't think singular "they" is that common except among very young people, and does lead to confusion.
As an example, my brother once showed me a picture of a person on a dating app and said "they are nice" and I thought he was talking about the person's breasts...
Also, "it" is dehumanising, I'd feel uncomfortable calling someone "it" even if they told me it was their preferred pronoun.
Singular they has existed in English before the times of Shakespeare. It's not a fad. It's a bloody grammatical reality.
Context matters. Sometimes it's confusing!
Singular they has also always been used when the person is unidentified. "Somebody left their umbrella here!" It's when the person is identified that it feels awkward at first for us Gen Xers and older in particular.
Y'all.
Could you give this drink to the person of unknown gender over there? Y'all seems to have finished y'all's previous drink and we want to keep everyone happy!
I just call everyone dude.
"Hey, dude."
"Wassup, dude?"
"My dudes!"
"Dude's crazy!"
There's people who don't like dude being used as unisex
Can't help people who take offence when none is given. People need to stop taking what isn't theirs.
People need to stop taking what isn't theirs.
I'm going to be referring to people taking offense to things like that or being offended for another group of people as "stealing offense" now.
Well, those dudes suck.
They aren't dudes.
Those people should stay in their homes and off the internet, so no one has to see them or speak to them.
Gendered pronouns in most sentences are a waste and often lead to a false ascertainment. While I don't use 'it' for everyone, I would love to get used to it.
This is why the universal language should be Indonesian. No gendered words, no pronouns, heck there's even no tenses. By the way, you also pronounce the words the way it was written like Latin so there's no confusion on how to pronounce the words. The grammar is also straightforward enough you can just grab a dictionary and start speaking coherent Indonesian.
After trying to learn Portuguese this sounds like heaven.
While I don't care about the gender crap (use what ever), I appreciate having a different pronoun for people or conscious things vs objects of any kind. They/them still holds info over it/that.
I admit I am a poisoned well, though. I was taught 'it' is outright disrespectful. Even before I knew LGBTQ+ anything, so it implicitly doesn't apply to people, IMO.
Refer to people as "it" if you want to sound like a serial killer. "It puts the lotion on its skin..."
I was on Reddit and used he/she. I was scolded by about 15 posters as to why I should be using they.
smh
Then you have the Japanese that just refer to everyone by name and only use pronouns when you don't know the person's name
Learn turkish. We only have one pronoun (two if you count the plural). Also, no gender in job titles (or anything else).
My vote is with for them/they.
I just use the humanoids name for everything. Go ask Bob over there. It's Bob's turn. I didn't do it, Bob did it. And then Bob said let there be light.
Jokes aside, they/them is fucking convinient and I use it all the time in english, I wish German had a equivalent!
Me with a bad case of dwarf brain where everyone is he/him unless obvious or told otherwise
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