In “who left their bag here”'s case, the gender of the person is not known because their identity isn’t known, so it doesn’t feel strange to use (for us old farts). It can take some effort to retrain your brain to use “they” when it’s a single person whose identity is known (speaking from experience as a Gen Xer).
Or the person might just be a transphobic asshole. But I like to think that most just need to educate themselves on using pronouns correctly.
One thing that might help it feel less strange is realising that you already use a grammatically plural pronoun to refer to individuals all the time: the word “you”. It’s always “you are tall”, not “you is tall”, same as “we” or “they” instead of “he” or “she”. This is because it was historically plural, and “thou” was the singular. Over time we started using the plural to be more polite, and then eventually always using it.
I’m joining in the “this blew my mind” sentiment and just want to say thanks for sharing this tidbit of info.
Thee has had thee mind blown?
“Thou is tall” sounds weird though.
you already use a grammatically plural pronoun to refer to individuals all the time: the word “you”. It’s always “you are tall”,
This made my brain short circuit lol. Can’t believe I never noticed.
It’s “thee is tall.”
He, she, thee.
No, that’s incorrect.
It’s “Thou are tall” or “Thou art tall”
Nominative Oblique Possessive Thou Thee Thy/Thine* I Me My/Mine* He Him His She Her Her/Hers** You You Your/Yours*** Used as an object (It is thine) or historically, when the following word started in the vowel (Thine eyes sparkle like diamonds, Mine ears ache)
** Used as an object (it is hers)
Yes I too, read the Wikipedia entry for thou/thee.
Are the Outlander writers just dumb or something then? Or is what you’re referring to (“thou art”) just a different context.
Because in Outlander, the quakers clearly use “thee is” and not “thou art/are”.
Because they use it as the second person singular.
Minor spoilers for latest season of Outlander
Ahhh, that makes so much more sense.
That’s because “is” is the third person conjugation of Be, not the second. Of course it sounds weird.
“Thou are”, and the actually correct “thou art” both feel much more natural.
But we’re back to plural, they said thou is singular.
The conjugation of Be, “is” is not used in the second person (you, be it singular or plural) any more than “am” is (“am” is first person singular form.) regardless of the plurality (or lack thereof) in the subject.
The correct Be conjugations for second person subjects are “art” (2nd, singular, archaic) and “are”.
So is thou/you plural or singular? I’m very confused. I’m not a grammar person lol. This conversation began because someone said thou is singular.
Thou is singular and you is plural. Thou art. You are.
Yeah but that’s because you see it in archaic contexts. How do you feel about ‘thou art tall’?
But art sounds like are. Is art singular?
From the dictionary: (archaic) second-person singular simple present indicative of be
So, yes?
Why the question mark?
To convey uncertainty, because the dictionary classification of the word was a bit of a mouthful, and I was only 90% certain that I was interpreting it correctly.
It only feels strange because of how it’s been used previously in my lifetime, not from historical usage. But as you’ve shown, language changes over time, and not having a singular neutral pronoun has proven to be a big omission in English (since “they” has only traditionally been used that way in certain limited cases). If it was good enough for “you,” it’s good enough for “they!”
I mean, I’m mid 30s, and it took me a long time to internalize “he, she, they” rather than “he, she, it”. It’s just how they were used when I was growing up. Fortunately, I’ve had the opportunity to learn and grow. At the end of the day, just speak with respect and make sure you listen as much as, or more than, speak.
I’m 47 and it just came naturally to me. 🤷
“They” made more sense to me than “it” in the first place.
Come to think of it, I still call babies “it” when I don’t know the gender all the time though.
I agree. It’s hard to put myself back in the old mindset (and I was definitely not supportive of this type of thing back in pre-2014) but I really do think I used to use “his or her” more often than “their”, or at least in more formal settings.
I remember on Mark Rosewater’s Tumblr blog he ran a Q&A (he is the lead designer of Magic: The Gathering). Someone was asking about cards using “his or her” instead of “their” because not everyone uses he/she pronouns. His response was basically that the reason they did that was because they used the Chicago style guide and it said to use “his or her” when referring to a single person of unknown gender. Basically he said that he understood players have different genders, but it was just a style thing, and that the rules even said something about “his or her” referring to the player (regardless of gender). Since then, I believe Magic cards now use “their”, so it’s possible Chicago’s style guide changed (or at least Wizards’ policy did).
It’s a stupid excuse, use a different style guide going forward that uses “their” to refer to third person.
I’m glad they changed it, I’m still burnt out of the game because of design issues (board wipes, counterspells), repetitive cards with little innovation, and shitty business practices.
I get where you’re coming from, but if you have a problem with the Chicago Manual of Style then you have a problem with me, and I suggest you let that one marinate.
Reminder: this was over a decade ago.
Yeah it can take a while to get used to, especially if you knew the person before they changed their pronouns. But the point is it isnt incompatible with our language at all. I think the last panel would be better if it showed the (transphobic) guy and another person and he says “this activist said the craziest thing to me today” and then the second person says “oh yeah, what’d THEY say” because then the ‘they’ pronoun would be directly referring to the person who wanted to be called ‘they’ in the first place.
Oh yeah it took me a while to default to ‘they’ instead of ‘he/she’ lol
Sometimes I still mess up and assume, and sometimes I say ‘they’ when I don’t mean to also. Brains are weird.deleted by creator
Always liked this one:
But this one is good too…
Not complaining or calling it out but I’ve seen the words in the 2nd applied to sooo many different comics. I think that’s actually kind of great that it’s so flexible 😆
I think it’s originally from Red vs Blue
I remember as a kid the teachers were desperately trying to make “he or she” a thing and told us the singular “they” would never be acceptable.
I’m personally glad that movement failed.
looking back, some of my educators were monumentally stupid
OVERSHARING TIME
My body doesn’t burp; when I drink something carbonated I have to physically gag myself with something to get the air out. When I was a kid I didn’t know this and would get pain in my stomach and didn’t understand why.
Coke with my lunch two days in a row resulted in trips to my home room teacher to ask to see the nurse, or go home. My home room teacher crossed her arms and said, “this is the second day in a row you’ve done this to us,” and lectured me about trying to get out of class. I had no way of proving that I was actually in pain. I was angry and scared and couldn’t do anything about it. Do not give me the keys to the time machine or there will be violence.
While we’re oversharing, I had a similar issue:
I had bad asthma as a kid and stress would bring on an asthma attack. An inhaler wasn’t enough, I had to go to the nurse and use this loud, ugly machine called a nebulizer. Obviously, one of the most stressful times in school is during a test, so taking a test could easily trigger an attack. Teachers always begrudgingly wrote me a pass to the nurse and made it clear to me that they “knew” I was faking to get out of the test.
Not one of them got the idea into their heads to just make me take the test with me. I would have been able to take it just fine while breathing through the stupid nebulizer. It’s not like I enjoyed being hooked up to the damn thing or enjoyed not being able to breathe well.
The good news is I only have to have an inhaler now, which takes care of the asthma when it comes up maybe once or twice a year. And that’s only if I have a cold. I hear others are not so lucky.
jesus
that sounds awful.
I love how teachers take it personally that you don’t want to do mandatory work lol. anyway. glad you made it out of there.
Me too. Thanks.
I had a math teacher that was there to coach football… instead of the normal method for balancing equations and such he’d insist you use his wonky play call diagrams.
Which made all the other algebra and trig teachers have re-teach kids coming out of his last class.
Dude was a stereotypical jock that was going to give one of his athletes a free pass for stuffing a friend of mine into a locker. At least until i stuffed the tight end in his locker, instead.
So. How about this. We swap the keys and go all strangers on a train?
You sound fun to hang out with. I’m in.
I had this exact same problem growing up. When I started drinking excessive amounts of beer the pressure became enough to break through, and I finally started burping. That somehow fixed my body completely, and I’ve been able to burp normally ever since, but my God I’ll never forget the pain of being unable to burp. Literally the worst pain of my life
I’m glad you can belch now. 🍻
Hey I remember a Hank Green video about this. I suffer from time to time with not being able to burp either, so I tried to remember this. Basically, botox injections are found to help for not burping, I think a specific variety, where a muscle is not working right. I think it’s more in the testing phase, but maybe, you too could burp someday!
naw bro I get chopsticks on amazon
Are you a horse ?
On the internet nobody knows you are a horse.
I learned English at school and the first time I encountered singular they was when my teacher explained it to us. Sometimes non native speakers are less prescriptive than native speakers
No, it’s just been a thing forever, and will always be thing. Those teachers, if they ever existed, which I doubt, were just dumb fucks from Dumbfuckistan.
Teachers didn’t know vapid influencers would exist.
Someone correct me, but “you” was originally plural. The correct way to address a singular person is “thou”.
Also singular they is older than singular you. So any idiots who complain that “they” should only be plural should only be using thou/thee for second person singular.
We use ты for second person singular.
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Other commenters have already covered the you/thou thing, so to cover the printing press bit: that did happen, but with a different word. “Ye” as in “Ye Olde Village Inn” is the one. The “ye” here is “the”, and it was pronounced as “the” too. It would have been spelled “þe” before, and in blackletter style (𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔰𝔱𝔶𝔩𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤), “y” and “þ” looked awfully similar. If your press came from a country that didn’t use the thorn - and many presses in Europe did - and therefore didn’t have that character available, then you’d just use the y since they were close enough anyway
A similar thing happened with the letter yogh (ȝ) in Scotland. It wasn’t in most presses, but it looks close enough to a z, so just use a z, and now the name “Menzies” is spelled that way despite being pronounced “ming-iss”
That this “ye” is spelled the same way as the second person plural subject pronoun “ye” is a total coincidence
Wait, was ‘Ye Olde …’ really still pronounced ‘The old’? Holy crap, why did nobody ever correct how stupid I am. I thought people just said things funny back then. Sigh
Stop. You are making some of the senseless things in English make sense. How I’m I supposed to feel superior because my first language is read the way it is written? 😩
That’s the annoying part of English. How we got here is perfectly logical for the most part, and that does absolutely nothing to make any of it make sense.
Yesn’t. Actually no.
The singular was thou for subject and thee for object and the plural was ye/you. In formal speech the plural was used and the subject pronoun was replaced by the object but I can’t tell you in which order.
The þ-thing didn’t effect the pronoun but some surnames and the article. I think some pubs have names like “ye old”. They used to be “þe(=the) old” and have nothing to do with þe old pronoun, even tho it is written the same.
God rest ye merry gentleman is the “ye” example I like to think of.
Man Christmas dinner is gonna rock this year. Just like my mom will play dumb and look confused that I used “they” as a singular, I’m going to play dumb and look confused when she says “you”. I see no downsides.
Thou was singular subject and thee was singular object.
https://activeenglishcee.blogspot.com/2020/10/thou-thee-thy-thine-ye-meanings-usage.html
pou
Thou are correct.
*art
It was a funny comment, but I wouldn’t call it art.
Trolling is a art
*are
Okay, if you say so.
Art are correct.
Yeah. And
Y'allalso used to be plural. Now it can be singular and we useAll Y'allto clarify when we need people to know we mean plural. Language is bonkers.I have never heard y’all used singular, growing up in the American South. Instead, as I understand it:
-
Y’all: You all, referring to a group of people (Can potentially be a subset of a larger group, e.g. talking to one couple at the table among a group of friends). “When are y’all having the wedding again?”
-
All y’all: shorthand for “all of y’all” Explicitly referring to “all of the members of the group in question”, requiring that at least one member of said group is being addressed by the speaker. The difference is there are no exceptions (apart from exaggeration) “Ain’t a single one of you innocent, all y’all had a hand in this” or “All y’all need to put on your seatbelts, I ain’t going to jail for any of y’all’s comfort”.
-
Roses are red Violets are blue The singular “they” Pre-dates singular “you”
Thou shalt use proper pronouns and not be lazy recycling plural pronouns in the singular. What next, are thou planing to use a singular “we” like inbred royalty?
Youse guys should use the plural you
By chance I actually do come from an area that uses it! Although it’s more of a “yiz” here
Only bogans tend to use it though.
The singular “they” Pre-dates singular “you”
The same way rights were ore-dated by no rights?
‘older’ is not always ‘better’. Make your point, but don’t hinge it on a false comparison.
The point isn’t to say that the singular they is somehow better than the singular you, it’s to point out that it is not a modern invention. People that dislike usage of the singular they often argue that it is an unnatural change being forced upon the language, when in fact it has been in use for so long that it was used by Shakespeare
When I started interacting with a non-binary person more often, the only reflexive pronoun that came to mind was ‘themselves.’ As in, “They bought themselves a pair of socks for their birthday.” It felt a bit awkward since I couldn’t shake the plural association in my head, but I still used it to be respectful.
Then I remembered that the word ‘themself’ exists and I felt stupid.
That’s something I wonder about as a non native speaker: it’s singular they but verbs are still plural (they are, not *they is, they come
s). Maybe this will change some day, maybe not. Singular s might die out anyway or maybe because of singular they.
Calling people what they ask to be called just doesn’t have to be this difficult.
And yes, his royal lordship Starn, the majestic, that goes for you, too. It’s fine. We’re cool with your chosen name. And I admit, the opera cape absolutely works for you.
And I don’t need to know what genitalia most other people are rocking. That’s none of my business, unless we’re really into each-other, in a very intimate way.
It takes all my willpower not to be get pretty inappropriate every time a government form asks my birth sex:
“Oh! We just met at this office of motor vehicles…I didn’t know you felt that way about me! This is so much to process. I admit there’s a mutual attraction. Of course I feel it too. I’m delighted that you had a special form made up to ask! I’m flattered! Want to grab dinner, and see where this goes?”
Calling people what they ask to be called just doesn’t have to be this difficult.
We in fact do it all the time. It’s just people have gotten used to using names. But it’s not like you were born with a Dave chromosome. Your parents decided to call you Dave, so in the end it’s also just a made up name/sound.
Calling people what they ask to be called just doesn’t have to be this difficult.
Yeah, I don’t really understand why people get so upset about Drag specifically, like it’s not that hard once you figure it out.
I, too, thought about Drag several times while reading the thread
If you’re introducing yourself to me, I only need your name.
So you’re going to refer to John by John’s name exclusively? Sounds a bit awkward, but okay.
I’m tired of calling John, John, every time I refer to Join, but I wasn’t paying attention to John’s pronouns, so now I’m stuck until I have a chance to ask John, when I next see John.
Source: I’ve done this, actually. I hope I was more subtle.
Or you could just use “they.” Convenient!
Yeah. Lol. I figured that out, too, eventually.
Remember when we just conversed like human beings and didn’t have all this convoluted nonsense about worrying over pronouns?
If the person is called John, 99.9% of the time, you know what the pronouns would be, because not everyone is terminally online.
because not everyone is terminally online.
LGBT people exist irl too, you’d be surprised how many there are once you get to know them. People you never would’ve thought were lgbt you can now recognize. I’m from Florida which is pretty conservative and I know 5+ trans people (including non-binary).
They’re pretty cool too! I have a trans guy friend who will absolutely LOVE to talk about how cars work and fishing spots given the chance. He taught me how to change the oil on my car. I’m hoping to get him a blahaj for Christmas :)
The “terminally online” aspect is the obsession with pronouns, which doesn’t seem to exist in reality.
I know quite a few LGBT people and even work with someone who is trans. None of them have ever once mentioned anything about pronouns. Because we just conversed like normal people.
I get irked when someone says “he or she,” especially repeatedly, because the singular “they” is so much easier to hear and read.
me copy pasting a line of code in 20 different places just to go back and make a function for it
In Finnish language there are no gender specific pronouns only gender neutral one hän/hänen.
They/them still sounds weird to use even if I know it can be used to refer single person. When talking or writing fast I’ll still often accidentally default to using he/him even for females which I then have to correct.
In my language everything little word is gendered so everything you talk about is bound by it. It’s extremely confusing thinking or understanding how to describe something in terms “non-gendered”.
I really am supportive of all the changes needed in the world, but the use of “they” is very confusing in a singular form for people who don’t have it as first language and concepts and everything was learned by mapping stuff to other language, so please invent some word for it and go with it. It’s already strange and always difficult understanding the usage of “you” in singular vs plural and formal or not speech.
I really wish my language also had gender neutral pronouns, it just sound so much simpler and better.
please invent some word for it and go with it
There
isare more than one word. It’s going to take quite some time until agreement on the use will distill and become accepted, though.
Dear native English speakers, would you mind inventing a new word either for gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, or one for what “they” mean to foreign English speakers since you are so insisted in differing its meaning from the text books you shipped us decades ago?
English is so inconsistent at this point. Only the third-person pronouns have gender in singular form, the plural form has no gender and now you are telling us the gender-less form can be singular now? How confusing!
English is widespread partly because it has simple alphabet and relatively easy grammar. I don’t mind someone being in LGBT+ group at all, but could you please don’t mess with the language?
Others have addressed some of your other points, but
would you mind inventing a new word either for gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, or one for what “they” mean to foreign English speakers
We actually have that. Xe / Xem / Xyrs. It isn’t very widely used though, and is generally considered a neo pronoun.
Honestly I don’t really expect it to get mainstream use anytime soon, in part because people are already accused to the singular They / Them / Theirs (except for when a nonbinary person asks to be refered to as such).
There’s more than one option, I for one prefer Elverson which is Ey/Em/Eirs
English is so inconsistent at this point.
At this point? At this very point, specifically due to the historically valid usage of one gender neutral pronoun? Now is the time that it’s finally become an inconsistent language? Singular “they” is the thing that has pushed English over the edge from logical and sensical to arbitrary and confusing? Of all the foibles and quirks, this is the one that is simply unforgivable and must be changed?
I didn’t say anything you said.
I think a more sensible way to include LGBT+ group is to just make “she/her” obsolete. We are all “he/him”, and we are “they/them” when in a group. Way cleaner than this, excuse me, shit that we foreign English speakers have to adjust to for every few years.
Mate, english is my second language too and this is not that confusing.
Singular they/them has been here for hundreds of years and using it as a gender neutral alternative to she/her and he/him isnt shit, its part of the english language.
We agree. We make he/him obsolete and we’re all she/her, as there are more female people on the planet, so less people have to adapt
“he/him” probably isn’t he/him in their non-gendered language. In some languages there’s no he or she, there’s only a pronoun that means “that person”
Armenian, Persian, Tagalog, Finnish, Georgian, Turkish, Swahili &c
That’s true, but you can’t help but notice that when people coming from this background are taught English, they are usually taught that ‘male’ pronouns are the default.
If anything, I would support the removal of ‘he/him’ for all the backlash it will generate.
in france “they” invented “iel”, a gender neutral pronoun, to replace “il” and “elle”. Young people (some?) adopted it rapidly and were using it naturally but the state banned the use of “inclusive language” on all official communications (which includes schools)
i remember thinking that inventing a new pronoun, like they did, was a better solution than choosing one of the two as gender neutral
I’m working in (local) French public service. We’ve developed apps with basic gender inclusive language (not iel, more like including genders in form titles and messages), a while before the government banned it from official communication.
As of now, nobody has done anything to remove that from the apps, because we don’t see the point and we have way more important things to do to actually improve services.
Outright banned, I’m guessing because blindly following rules by the book, but I think it’s not a move in the right direction.
In Spain people are trying to make neutral words by placing
wherea/oshould go in the gendered words, I think it never made to any documentation but it wasn’t banned yet, at least.
As the comic shows, “they” (“their,” in this case) was already used as a singular when the gender was unknown. The only change is it’s now also used if the person’s gender is known and isn’t “he” or “she.”
Don’t blame native speakers that your textbook is outdated
Naw.
These people don’t care if it’s grammatically correct. They just don’t like trans people.
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What is “JK” referencing to?
Rowling
ty
Ok, hear me out, super supportive, but I had an issue when a friend’s husband wanted me to use “their.”
Well… that is entirely a you problem. You should do a little soul searching to figure out why it is so difficult for you to pay someone dear to someone you call a friend the bare minimum amount of respect.
Would you be upset if your friends constantly misgendered you, then acted like you were the asshole because you took issue with it?
What issue? I fail to see how that impacts you negatively in any way.
No no, hear me out.
So you’re not, in fact, “super supportive” at all then, are you, and are not, in fact, worth hearing out… 🙄
That comment did not imply any of this in the least
Don’t use it then.
The only time you would ever need to use someone’s pronouns is when they’re not part of the conversation anyway.
I couldn’t care less what people refer to me as if I’m not there.
“I was with Dan the other day. They forgot their keys at home. They said they had to go back to get them.”
Literally not hard at all?
“I was with Dan (they/them) and Steve the other day. They hadn’t brought a poster they needed and went back to the car to get it.”
This demonstrates the semantic problem with using “they” as a pronoun: it isn’t clear who went back to the car, (1) just Dan or (2) both Dan and Steve. Nor is it clear who needed the poster and who hadn’t brought it.
If you’re with Dan (they/them) and Dan (he/him), you would also have the problem when saying
“I was with Dan and Dan the other day. Dan hadn’t brought the poster, so Dan went back to the car to get it.”
So to avoud confusion, people should not be allowed to be called Dan anymore. In fact everyone gets a UUID so there is no more confusion.
you would also have the problem when saying …
You would have a problem but it would not be the same problem as in my example. The problem here is not because of the choice of pronoun.
You’re going out of your way to create a problem that doesn’t exist. Just Dan? Say Dan went back to the car. Both Dan and Steve? Say they both went back to the car.
If you just don’t respect people’s identity then admit you’re bigoted instead of hiding behind faulty logic.
You’re going out of your way to create a problem that doesn’t exist.
The problem does exist, that’s why you’re making suggestions about how to work around the problem. I’ve been confused before by people using “they” as a pronoun in exactly this sense. I’m not going out of my way to create a problem, it’s a problem that I’ve experienced IRL. Please don’t try to invalidate my experience.
If you just don’t respect people’s identity then admit you’re bigoted instead of hiding behind faulty logic.
You’re jump to conclusions.
You’re jump to conclusions
Lol. Alright buddy, I’m done here.
You’re not going to bother to point out the fault in my logic?
It’s equally unclear if both Dan and Steve use “he”, it’s just the the options are “Dan / Steve” instead of “Dan / Dan and Steve”
I don’t understand what you’re trying to express. I can’t make sense of what you’ve written.
If the Dan in your example used he/him pronouns and so did Steve, then it is equally unclear
“I was with Dan (he/him) and Steve (he/him) the other day. He hadn’t brought a poster he needed and went back to the car to get it.”
There’s no way to know whether the “he” is Dan or Steve. The they/them pronoun isn’t the problem in your example, the structure of the sentence is.
There’s no way to know whether the “he” is Dan or Steve.
Your example sentence is always ambiguous because there is only one sense of the word “he” but two possible objects. My example sentence is always ambiguous because there are two senses of the word “they”. The two situations are completely different linguistic issues.
Your example is of a poor speaker. My example is of a poor pronoun choice.
The they/them pronoun isn’t the problem in your example, the structure of the sentence is.
I disagree entirely.
The only time you would ever need to use someone’s pronouns is when they’re not part of the conversation anyway.
no? it would be weird to use in a one-on-one conversation, true. but it is fairly common to use the third person pronoun of someone during a group conversation, even while they are there
it is fairly common to use the third person pronoun of someone during a group conversation, even while they are there
But is improper to do so. The proper way to refer to a person who is present is by using their name.
You don’t use the person’s name every time when you’re talking about them in their presence. If I’m with my friends Mark and Fergus, and I’m telling Mark a story about something that happened to me and Fergus earlier that day, I’m going to use “he” or “his” to refer to Fergus a lot.
“Can’t believe how close we came to an accident on the way here. We were walking past a building with some scaffolding on it, and a brick just about hit me on the head. Fergus was looking up at the site anyway because his company is advertising on the site, so he saw it fall and stopped me just on time.”
You don’t use the person’s name every time when you’re talking about them in their presence.
Those who appreciate polite behaviour do.
“Can’t believe how close we came to an accident on the way here. We were walking past a building with some scaffolding on it, and a brick just about hit me on the head. Fergus was looking up at the site anyway because Fergus’s company is advertising on the site, so Fergus saw it fall and stopped me just on time.”
Nobody talks like this
LOL people talk like this. I think perhaps you meant to say that nobody you know talks like this.
maybe i have never been in proper situations, then, because in my experience, people will use pronouns or names indistinctly
maybe i have never been in proper situations
Indeed. More information on proper communication for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization
I don’t do this, and growing up was taught that it was rude to refer to someone by anything other than their name in a group conversation.
