The singular they is actually such a natural part of the English language, the people complaining about it almost certainly use it without noticing

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• FBJimmy@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The thing that really grinds my gears is the excessive use of “he/she”. Workplace training is a regular offender for this. Just use the word “they” FFS, it’s sat right there on the shelf for you.

  Or don’t, just go with “he” or “she”, this fictional person in your ‘case study’ isn’t real, they don’t give a shit.

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  • Meron35@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Some academic fields a decade or two ago went through a phase where they intentionally used “she” for all pronouns. The idea was because academia was so male dominated, even a neutral pronoun would still make people inagine a male lab worker, statistician, etc when reading. Intentionally using “she” was thought to force people to imagine a woman and normalise that image.

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    • Apytele@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Reminds me of Ancillary Justice / The Imperial Radch series. Every once in a while you get hints like “she could tell this person had a specific gender in this culture based on how she wore her facial hair, but she could never remember” because the main character (and most of the story) is in the context of a society where gender doesn’t exist and everyone is referred to with English feminine pronouns.

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  • TherapyGary@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    James Acaster bit about this:

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt5qJC1xQ8A

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• SARGE@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve started yelling “NO PRONOUNS” and “USE HE/SHE BECAUSE HE/SHE IS NOT AN OBJECT” at my conservative relatives and acquaintances who complain about pronouns and gender-neutral anything.

  No, Deborah, the non-binary person who helped you figure out your phone today is not the cause of societies’ downfall, nor are they responsible for high grocery prices.

  They complain about pronouns, but use them constantly. Clearly they don’t truly know what a pronoun is. They complain about gender neutral stuff, but use neutral language all the time.

  So I’ve been loudly pointing out every time they do.

  I’ve been uninvited from a lot of future family gatherings. oh nooooooooooo

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• Boiglenoight@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  They don’t now what they talkin bout

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• TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  They usually only use it for unknown people though, which is why it sounds strange to them to use for a known person.

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  • podian@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This contextual nuance is mostly lost or went over the heads of young learners today, for better or for worse. I like to think that’s why “they” was word of the year for a few dictionaries in the last decade or two, for the benefit of young and old alike.

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• rowinxavier@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Of course they do, especially when the number of people is ambiguous or when they are speaking about someone titled as a profession such as “I went to the doctor and they said…”

  It is all a manufactured situation used to push hate and attack the marginalised. Singular they has been around for a very long time and there were options before they was they, not to mention in all the other myriad languages in the world.

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  • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Honestly I’ve always just put it down to another fault of the English language being weird. There should be a more concise word for a singular person where the gender is not defined, but there just isn’t so people use “they”.

    It’s acceptable to me if the number of people isn’t known but in your case of the doctor I would not find it ideal but acceptable just because there isn’t another proper word if you don’t want to / can’t use the word he/she.

    To me in an ideal world They would strictly be for multiple people or an unknown number, and another word for those who don’t identify as he/she or for cases where gender isn’t relevant like title professions and whatnot.

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• AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  My English teacher back in highschool was very picky about using “they” like most people do. I can hear him say “you have to use FORMAL LANGUAGE” in my head still lol

  If it’s an unknown person we were told to use “he or she” instead of “they” and “his or her” instead of “their” despite the fact that no one fucking talks that way when referring to an unknown individual.

  Like even saying “everyone should bring their laptop to class” would be marked wrong because “everyone” is singular so the “correct” version is “everyone should bring his or her laptop to class” which imo is way more confusing

  However, he was also fine with us using masculine singular pronouns when the gender of a person wasn’t known, which I guess is kind of the case in like Spanish and some other Latin languages but still, just really weird rules

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  • FishFace@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    no one fucking talks that way

    What part of “formal language” did you not understand :P

    I think it’s changed now but I think this is exactly it: for a long time, singular they has been held to be informal. It doesn’t matter how people normally talk, because rules of formality are not about that.

    English lessons (or any lesson teaching you about your native language) are often expressly about teaching you a formal, standardised version of the language. Sometimes that’s for reasons of control and the imposition of a hierarchy, but there’s a practical element to it, as well. If you’re somewhere where different registers of a language are spoken, being able to write and speak the formal register (or the “prestige dialect") unlocks opportunities and jobs.

    Understanding of linguistic subtleties like “formal register” and “prestige dialect” is often lacking though so teachers often say that informal or regional dialect versions are wrong rather than merely not the preferred dialect you are learning in these lessons. I suppose there’s an argument that, in context, those two things are synonyms.

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  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    so the “correct” version is “everyone should bring his or her laptop to class” which imo is way more confusing

    Only if you’re used to hearing it the wrong way.

    ‘Emails’[sic] probably sounds more ‘correct’ to you, even though it’s like ‘deers’ and ‘happies’.

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• henfredemars@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I wish my English teachers didn’t beat me up so hard (figuratively) as incorrect use of ‘they’ when it has a long history of usage in the singular.

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  • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’m really curious as to how singular they started being taught as incorrect. I really don’t think it was originally intended to be transphobic.

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    • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I imagine it was fashionable at some point in the last six centuries.

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• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Chinese language is gender neutral:

  他 (tā) - he/she/it, singular
  他们 (tā mén) - they, plural

  So simple… there’s no fuss about pronouns lmfao

  Imagine all the problems that would go away if the US just used a better language xD

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  • FerretyFever0@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Better than some languages like German, where even inanimate objects have gender. That would be nicer though.

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    • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s cute when someone with a first language like that carries it over to English. “The coffee maker… he is broken 😞” I’m so sad for him!

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    • klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I remember when I was trying to learn German, one sentence the app gave got burned into my brain forever:

      Der Tisch hat kein Geschlecht.

      I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with the point of the table not having a gender; you just called him a man.

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    • Slashme@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Das Mädchen seht am See und es sieht ihn.

      The girl stands at the lake and it sees him.

      In German, a lake is masculine and all diminutives are neuter, and that includes Mädchen (girl), which is a diminutive of the obsolete word “Magd” (a cognate of “maid”).

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  • taygaloocat@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Mostly. The characters are gender specific. 他=male 她= female and 它 is ambiguous.

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• geekwithsoul@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  And it goes back to at least Chaucer, so it’s been in recorded use for like six centuries. Most definitely not “new”.

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  • paultimate14@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You can find critics of its use that are almost as old as its use. Oddly, for some reason critics of its use don’t seem to show up… Until it started being used.

    Poets and authors have been artistically butchering, changing, and shaping language for as long as language has existed. This is neither an argument for nor against any particular change. Just look at the nonsense that James Joyce did.

    I have a non-binary partner and I respect their pronouns, but personally if I cared enough to change my pronouns I would be more comfortable with “it” to avoid any confusion when discussing a mixture of singular and plural nouns. Heck, if I was going to make my own language from scratch singular vs plural pronouns would be much more commonly used while gendered pronouns would be reserved for specific scenarios where gender is relevant.

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• FishFace@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  To me it’s quite unnatural to use singular they about someone whose gender I actually know.

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  • Zoomboingding@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “There’s someone at the door”

    “what does he or she want?” -nobody

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    • Diddlydee@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You’d realistically say ‘who is it?’

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  • melfie@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I don’t mind using they / them for non-binary people. It’s just that it takes a lot of mental energy to not embarrass myself by forgetting and using the gendered pronoun.

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  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    what if their gender is they?

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• notreallyhere@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  it genuinely causes confusion though, someone told me “they” (a different person), were going to be there early and I was like “they’re all going to come early?!”

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  • rbos@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    ‘You’ has a similar ambiguity, being a plural word originally, but most people muddle through that.

    I do think we should bring back thee/thy/thou as singular, but whatever.

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    • teft@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This is one area where spanish is better. They have tu, vos, and usted (depending on formality) for singular you and they have ustedes and vosotros for you guys.

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  • Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Skill issue. Sounds like they need to hear it more often tbh.

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• unknown1234_5@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  they have half a point in that its typically only applied to people when a gender is unknown or you are referring to a group. that falls apart pretty quick though because unknown gender is barely any different from someone choosing not to identify with one. also, half a point is no good in the first place.

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  • wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Is normally unknown due to not knowing the person though. Using “they” with someone known to you feels rude. As if you’re saying “I don’t include Grace in my circle, so I use “they” to keep them distant”.

    It really sticks in the throat.

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    • unknown1234_5@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      yeah, but there's a difference between feeling weird and being incorrect

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• SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  On the other hand, some people blow their tops when I match singular they to singular verb forms. I think people just like getting angry.

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  • moody@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why is they so uppity?

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• FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t think this would’ve happened though if there hadn’t been the societal impetus that aided adoption. The singular they may have been around since Chaucer or Shakespeare - ~30 years ago, people didn’t really use it. There was far more “he or she” going on, that’s now been more commonly replaced with a “they,” also because it’s shorter. English benefits from the fact that the neutral pronoun slots right in to the existing grammar. Other languages struggle with finding such a neutral replacement because it’s more often than not a new word and a slightly altered grammatical function. English is okay on the first problem and arguably okay to mostly okay on the second.

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  • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think singular they was still used naturally and unconsciously even when it was taught to be incorrect. People don’t naturally say “he or she”

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• boaratio@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Rich guy has thoughts about us plebs.

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• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  But for a linking word. It’s a comma splice.

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  • DomeGuy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Since both clauses are interdependent and incorrect on their own, the join here with merely a comma is entirely proper and not a comma slice

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