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Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year

77 points by secondary 11y ago

padobson 11y ago
This bit: Singular they was Word of the Year back in 1365, when it first appeared in English as a gender-neutral English pronoun. It won again in 1885, when it was praised in the Atlanta Constitution for triumphing over the ignorant opposition of grammarians and lexicographers. Reads like an Onion article. Am I not in on the joke?
- qntty 11y ago
  Truth in advertising: The Web of Language Distinguished Usage Panel, charged each year with picking the Word of the Year, consists entirely of me.
- Shog9 11y ago
  Black humor, I think. The author is ruefully noting that, while this usage has existed for hundreds of years, it manages to keep dropping out of fashion only to be reinvented in a new generation.
- bitwize 11y ago
  I find it interesting that a joke article has a better choice for Word of the Year than the OED's actual Word of the Year (the emoji U+1F602, "FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY").
untothebreach 11y ago
> turning either to invented pronouns like xe and zie This made me pause...aren't all pronouns (and for that matter, words in general) "invented?" Are they (see what I did there...) just making a distinction between words that are adapted or modified from other words, and ones that aren't?
- jnevill 11y ago
  Perhaps "Newly invented pronouns" would have been more clear. The distinction being Singular "They" has been around for a long time, and "Xe" can't be pronounced by the human mouth and confuses the older folk. Or something...
  - untothebreach 11y ago
    Ha, well as one of the "older folk," I will say that while "xe" doesn't confuse me, it is definitely a bit jarring when I see it used. I have no problem with it's use, I am just not used to seeing it. I recently read a book by a fantasy author whose stories I enjoy, but in this latest book she used "xe" quite often to describe some non-binary characters, and it always managed to pull me out of the story.
    - coke12 11y ago
      I'm reading Greg Egan's Diaspora right now and he uses ve, ver, and vis for the (post-/non-human) main characters. It's definitely exciting in a worldbuilding sort of way but I still prefer they, them, and their because it's much less jarring.
  - deleted 11y ago
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- chc 11y ago
  AFAIK most words in our language are evolved rather than invented. You may as well call our height "invented."
DennisP 11y ago
I've never liked this, but I have to admit that logically, a mismatch in number is no worse than the mismatch in gender we get by using "he," which has the disadvantage of being annoying to many people. And I don't think efforts to make up a new pronoun are likely to succeed. Singular "they" might well be the future. But if I could have my pick I'd go with "um."
- cpeterso 11y ago
  > Singular "they" might well be the future. As the article describes, singular they is also the past. Its usage has a long historical precedent over 650 years.
- baddox 11y ago
  The interesting thing is that the singular usage of "they" doesn't get used with singular verbs. It seems that the syntactic pluralness of "they" is too strong for it to simply get thrown in place of "he" or "she" without changing the verbs. I would say "she is here" or "he is here," but not "they is here."
  - davesque 11y ago
    In that case, it seems like you would say "they are here." and realize that it's only one person from context.
  - progval 11y ago
    One of the things I find weird in English is you do that too “you”: “you are” even when talking to a single person; whereas in French (for instance) there are two different pronouns for the singular and plural use of “you” (“tu” and “vous”), with different forms forms for the verbs. So using plural form of verbs with singular “they” does not seem that surprising to me.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      English "you" is the grammatically plural (previously used also to denote formality, where it is not semantically plural) form, corresponding to French "vous". The English grammatically singular form ("thee/thou") corresponding to French "tu" has generally fallen out of use, so "you" has in effect become the all-purpose 2nd-person pronoun, but its still grammatically plural. Likewise, "they" is grammatically plural, regardless of its contextual semantics.
patrickfl 11y ago
Scanned the article, can someone give me a solid example of how this is used in a sentence?
- untog 11y ago
  "patrickfl didn't bother to read the article, as a result they were uninformed."
  - g4k 11y ago
    This may be right, but it does not sound right.
    - dang 11y ago
      It doesn't sound right because the username includes "patrick", which implies a "he". Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It sounds a bit more natural if you say "That user didn't read the article, so they were uninformed."
      - warfangle 11y ago
        > Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It does when the gender identity of the subject is known to be neither he nor she!
      - warfangle 11y ago
        > Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It does when the gender identity of the subject is known to be neither he nor she!
    - untog 11y ago
      Why not? This is not new at all, I've used it whenever I'm not sure of the gender of a subject for as long as I can remember.
    - Afton 11y ago
ryangittins 11y ago
I've had enough of this discussion! The new gender-neutral singular pronoun is thou! That's right, thou was the answer we were looking for.
- jnevill 11y ago
  Is "thou" third-person though? I never use it, so it might be. I dunno.
  - thescriptkiddie 11y ago
    It's second-person. The third person singular pronoun is "it".
  - mordechai9000 11y ago
    It's the informal version of 'you', so it is second-person singular. You can use 'thou' to force Google translate to translate from English to the informal form of another language. Otherwise, it will give you the formal translation. This is safer if you don't know the social/cultural implications of using the informal form (it can be insulting or inappropriate in some contexts), but it's not always what you want.
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  I think thou is second person ("you"), not third ("he" and "she"). We are in need of a second person plural though--at least outside of the South where they have "y'all" and NJ where they have "youse guys".
  - jnevill 11y ago
    Let's not forget about the folk's from the "Show Me" state's second-person plural: "Ya'llsins"
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    Don't forget "all y'all" when referring to more than a couple people. "Y'all" is plural, "all y'all" is more plural.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Strilanc 11y ago
Using the post's title on hacker news is probably misleading. It sounds more official out of context, whereas in the post the "award" is just a tongue-in-cheek framing device: > -Truth in advertising: The Web of Language Distinguished Usage Panel, charged each year with picking the Word of the Year, consists entirely of me. The comments keep up the joke: > Kudos to the Distinguished Usage Panel! "They" chose wisely and well.
- dang 11y ago
  I see your point, but all "word of the year" awards are made up anyhow. If anybody suggests a more accurate title we can change it.
dkarapetyan 11y ago
I use this all the time. Easier than worrying about gendered nonsense.
- nailer 11y ago
  +1. Reading Ben Horowitz's book, every fictional CEO is 'he' or 'she' which makes you think you've missed something and they're not fictional. 'They' could have sufficed perfectly.
dimitar 11y ago
I've noticed that economists and other academics like to use "she" in the same cases as the singular "they" - a common-gender third-person pronoun, the "he or she". Yes, it intentionally uses the feminine third-person, but I guess it makes a point about inclusion this way.
- lsaferite 11y ago
  It's a political statement. Usage of the male pronoun is historic just like the usage of the plural pronoun. The choice to go agains hundreds of years of usage is very political. Personally I prefer the plural when you do not know or do not wish to highlight the gender. It jibes more with my personal sense of right.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    I was taught that "he" is gender-neutral as/when needed, and in true Humpty-Dumpty fashion that's what I use.
- efes 11y ago
  > Yes, it intentionally uses the feminine third-person, but I guess it makes a point about inclusion this way. I end up feeling suspicious of an author that uses she about ~75% of the time since it seems they remember to use it more often when referring to people in a customer/student/etc role or with an example question/mistake, yet more often use he or avoid pronouns when referring to an expert or people with titles. Meanwhile, they works perfectly fine, if it confuses someone that is their problem and if I said her problem there it would be because I was sexist for one reason and his for another. :)
seivan 11y ago
He, she or they is an(?) agenderphobic microaggression against gender agnostic singular people who do not want to be called in plural. They is a bigot.
dcole2929 11y ago
Does this article really not give a single example of use of singular 'they' or did I just read too fast?
- jpmattia 11y ago
  > or did I just read too fast? I must have read too fast as well. The author would have done well to include several examples, and they doesn't include any examples. Almost makes me feel like they is pranking me, to be frank.
  - mhurron 11y ago
    > The author would have done well to include several examples, and they doesn't include any examples. There's your example.
    - dang 11y ago
      I think jpmattia was joking. But it's fascinating how, when someone mistakenly thinks that it's a new proposed rule and tries to apply it, they frequently come up with an awkward overcorrection, when they're almost certainly already using it naturally in their own speech without noticing. If anyone wants examples there are 500 years' worth here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150328135337/http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150328135337/http://www.crossm.... And as many again from Jane Austen alone: http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html.
      - mhurron 11y ago
        > I think jpmattia was joking. Honestly, with the way the comments are for this article, it's impossible to tell.
      - jpmattia 11y ago
        > I think jpmattia was joking. Guilty as charged, your honor. > But it's fascinating how, when someone mistakenly thinks that it's a new proposed rule and tries to apply it, they frequently come up with an awkward overcorrection I'd note that there is a great deal of verbiage about grammar rules requiring rewrite to allow singular they . For example: A foreign speaker would be well within bounds to look at the first google hit for "define are" [1] : are1 är,ər/ 2nd person singular present and 1st, 2nd, 3rd person plural present of be. Google should note that "are" is also 3rd person singular present, consistent with 500 years of usage. But we also have to point out that singular "are" is disallowed in cases other than they, and we can't even add a gender-specific conjugation, since the neuter "it" is still not paired with "are". Fortunately, rules in language are not subject to mathematical rigor, and people and authors and poets (and smartasses) are given free license to use language in any way that facilitates communication.
tosseraccount 11y ago
They be utterly pretentious. Germanic languages have gender. Language change should be natural, not forced based on some nebulous social engineering goal. Speakers of Old English considered each noun to have a grammatical gender. If anyone has a serious citation for "he" was imposed by "meddling grammarians", please let us know. Don't we already have a neutral pronoun: "it"?
- dang 11y ago
  The point is that it has nothing to do with language change. It has been settled usage since Chaucer. It's generic 'he' that was the interloper. Ironically, the language engineers of today have most in common with the meddling grammarians who tried (never entirely successfully) to impose it.
  - deleted 11y ago
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- Avshalom 11y ago
  Singular 'they' is one of the most natural changes to language I've ever been aware of. Certainly more natural than the 'he or she' malarkey people (and don't think I don't notice the precedent given to he) have been forcing on students in the name of better conforming to a nonexistent English grammar, that we only pretend exists so we can give people shit when they fail to remember when they should put it on.
- dang 11y ago
  > If anyone has a serious citation for "he" was imposed by "meddling grammarians" There are lots of citations about this on the web and even a whole bunch in past HN threads. This is one of the more fascinating articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-...
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Sorry. I removed the complaint. Thanks for the link. I'll note this ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Trend_to_prescription_of_generic_he_from_19th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Trend_to_prescri... reports that "In spite of continuous attempts on the part of educationalists to proscribe singular they in favour of he, its use remained widespread, and the advice was largely ignored".
jaquers 11y ago
I've noticed certain papers/essays posted here using "she" when referring to a hypothetical person, which I think is a nice touch—since "he" is contained within the word.
colept 11y ago
When writing "he or she" - they does seem like a viable substitute when gender is irrelevant. But I cannot stand this new trend of making gender irrelevant for the sake of pushing gender lines. We use gendered pronouns for context clues, metadata, and comedy. It's a natural construct and universal to many languages.
- davesque 11y ago
  Just because people use singular they doesn't mean we can't still use gender-specific, third-person pronouns.
  - thescribe 11y ago
    I think the grandfather post is saying that this is motivated by people who wish to eliminate gender, not that we are precluded from he or she.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  As ever: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
- warfangle 11y ago
  'They' isn't a viable substitute just when gender is irrelevant. There isn't really a label for what I identify as, but it is not 'she' or 'he,' it's somewhere in-between and neither at the same time. So even 'he or she' wouldn't apply to me: I'm not one or the other. I _prefer_ xe/etc; but I'm absolutely 100% fine with they/them. Just don't call me he (because I'm not) or she (because I'm not). ;) Does that make sense? > It's a natural construct and universal to many languages. I think this ignores too much how language imposes itself on a culture - and a culture on a language. The gender neutral pronoun is a natural construct and universal to many languages, too. We just don't have an "official" one in English.
  - mkrfox 11y ago
    I saw a comic strip once where someone was talking to a nonbinary person. Somewhere in it, the (presumably) cisgendered person said "but then I won't know your gender!" And the nonbinary person replied "that's okay, because I don't know it either." (I probably mis-remembered parts, and I'm not telling it anywhere near as well)
ChuckMcM 11y ago
A pretty fun read, I also like the disclaimer :-). I was always much more comfortable with the singular they and the plural yall.
n7c3c1 11y ago
"'He or She' is an agenderphobic microaggression, Sharon. You are a bigot." -Randy Marsh
- dang 11y ago
  Please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive and/or inflammatory comments to Hacker News. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly, and you've done it repeatedly.
  - n7c3c1 11y ago
    The quote is completely substantive. Just because you disagree doesn't make it uncivil. But is the irony of you threatening to ban me for "inflammatory comments" and the quote itself--about the culture of militant political correctness--not lost on you? Do you see the irony?
    - dang 11y ago
      I like South Park too but calling that contribution "substantive" is quite a stretch. There's no view that can't be expressed civilly and substantively, so accusations of politically correct censorship on HN don't hold much water in my opinion. It's usually just a fig leaf for low-signal ranting, when the correct thing to do is to be a good citizen and improve your behavior. Most HN users don't have trouble doing this, regardless of where they fall ideologically.
davesque 11y ago
I've always used this intentionally in spite of being fully aware that it's "ungrammatical." Saying that singular they is ungrammatical is rather like saying that irregular verbs are ungrammatical or uncountable nouns are ungrammatical. It doesn't matter because there are already a significant number of irregularities in English and having one more isn't going to cause any problems and, relatively speaking, isn't going to make English any less systematic.
- amsilprotag 11y ago
  I find myself doing the same, despite increasing preference for "she" by academicians and journalists. See the top post in another HN thread for my criticism, copied below. When "she" becomes the default, I find myself veering off from the topic at hand to consider gender politics and try to infer the author's intention. Does OP see makers as "us" and managers as "them"? Is OP using "she" because /they/ believe managers are disproportionately male and so chooses a pronoun to prevent further exclusion? An ideal grammar solution should not require the author to disclose his politics, either by omission or commission, just to communicate effectively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10658187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10658187 "Manager time" is a small allocation. Since the manager's heap only uses blocks this size, she can do this all day without any problems or fragmentation. "Maker time" is a large contiguous block. If the heap is empty, you can allocate them without any problem. But stick one manager-sized block in the middle and now you've split your heap such that the total time available is large enough, but it's not contiguous. Classic heap fragmentation[2].
0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
Tell CMOS then. You are in the same state after all. They said (tee hee hee) this: A. I’m afraid your gender-neutral pronoun (at least in the sense you need) does not exist in our lexicon. I agree that the plural pronoun with a singular noun seems inadequate; I would suggest that you recast the sentence altogether or at least make “mind” plural for agreement: their minds. Other writers alternate between using “his” and “her” in such constructions in order to give equal status to each pronoun. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pronouns.html?page=1 http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pr...
- untothebreach 11y ago
  Elsewhere on that page they seem to give, if not approval of the construct, than at least acknowledgment that it is solving the problem: > The use of they as a singular pronoun is a hot topic in online grammar forums. By traditional standards, the sentence is incorrect because it contains no plural noun for they to refer to. Traditionally, the correct versions are “The telltale sign of right-wingers: they can’t write in English to save their lives” and “The telltale sign of a right-winger: he can’t write in English to save his life.” > The growing acceptance of they as singular is in response to a need for a gender-neutral pronoun that avoids the use of he to mean he or she. Good writers would make right-winger plural to avoid the appearance of incorrectness or gender bias, but in other sentences the plural is not a good option: “Someone ate my Twinkie, and they’d better watch out!” In those contexts, many language experts now approve of the use of they. You can learn more by searching online for “singular they.”
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Tell CMOS then. The article specifically discusses the history of the CMOS with singular "they", which recommended singular they in the 14th Edition, and reversed for the following versions (15th and the current 16th.)
spdionis 11y ago
When I was taught italian grammar I was told explicitly that if the gender of the subject is unknown the masculine one should be used by default as a rule. Sounds totally alright to me. Now I'm wondering how many people would be offended by this.
sampo 11y ago
My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, and it is surprisingly difficult to learn to fluently and effortlessly use 'he' (or 'she') in English in situations when there is no need to specify the gender, or when the gender is not known ("After the user clicks the button, he/she receives ..."). My brain is just not wired that way, I feel like I am forced to create information when there is none, and potentially incorrect information, lies. Almost as if a language didn't have a construct to talk about cars without specifying their color at the same time, so you all the time have to create random colors in order to talk about cars in the abstract. I was very happy when I learned that 'they' is a mostly acceptable solution. I understand gendered nouns can also be a politically loaded topic, but I only meant this as a perspective from someone who learned English as a second language.
- kibwen 11y ago
  I don't think anyone would dispute that gendered pronouns make learning a language harder. Here in the US most kids will learn a rudimentary amount of a foreign language in school, at which point they realize just how lucky they are that most nouns in their native language use gender-neutral pronouns (I distinctly remember wondering just what made tables female when we were required to say la mesa). There's even a famous Mark Twain essay where he laments at length the chaos of German's genders: https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html
- gyardley 11y ago
  This is pretty close to how I, as a native English speaker, feel about gendered inanimate objects. I have no idea why so many other languages force you to stick a gender on something without any genitals. I would've preferred not to have to learn that something as simple as 'milk' is feminine in Spanish, masculine in Italian, and neuter in Russian - that hunk of my brain could surely be put to better use.
  - mitchty 11y ago
    The first thing you need to do is realize that grammatical gender has nothing to do with actual gender or lack thereof. Unless you really think a turnip is feminine, and a little girl has no gender like in German. All they're doing is describing a category of like nouns. The term for the grouping happens to be the word gender. The word is overloaded in this case to mean multiple things and is at best a false cognate. The fact that the same thing can have multiple genders or lack thereof as you noted should be the biggest clue that grammatical gender has nothing to do with genitals.
peteratt 11y ago
One of the advantages of Spanish over English is that the problem that singular 'they' is trying to solve doesn't even exist. Gotta love that always-on gender alignment feature :)
yarrel 11y ago
I've used this since the 90s, so - oh God, I'm a pronoun hipster. ;-(
Renevith 11y ago
Language Log has posted for many years about singular they, often spotting examples of it in well-edited publications. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27 See also the wikipedia page on singular they, chock full of usage examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
kbutler 11y ago
English already has a perfectly good singular, gender-netural pronoun: "it". We're just not used to using "it" for non-child people: When the baby is hungry, it eats. When the person is hungry, it eats. If you adopt "they", you have to either adopt plural verbs, or allow "they" to be associated with singular verbs: When the person is hungry, they eat. When the person is hungry, they eats.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If you adopt 'they', you have to either adopt plural verbs Which we already do with semantically singular uses of the first-person and second-person grammatically-plural pronouns in English, so that's not really a big deal. (And already do with semantically singular uses of "they": its been "adopted" in English-as-actually used for over half a millennium.)
- warfangle 11y ago
  "it" comes with the linguistic/cultural baggage of being associated primarily with inanimate objects, which I think you can understand is rather disconcerting to those who are genderqueer and very much alive.

77 points by secondary 11y ago

This bit: Singular they was Word of the Year back in 1365, when it first appeared in English as a gender-neutral English pronoun. It won again in 1885, when it was praised in the Atlanta Constitution for triumphing over the ignorant opposition of grammarians and lexicographers. Reads like an Onion article. Am I not in on the joke?

qntty 11y ago
Truth in advertising: The Web of Language Distinguished Usage Panel, charged each year with picking the Word of the Year, consists entirely of me.
Shog9 11y ago
Black humor, I think. The author is ruefully noting that, while this usage has existed for hundreds of years, it manages to keep dropping out of fashion only to be reinvented in a new generation.
bitwize 11y ago
I find it interesting that a joke article has a better choice for Word of the Year than the OED's actual Word of the Year (the emoji U+1F602, "FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY").

untothebreach 11y ago

> turning either to invented pronouns like xe and zie This made me pause...aren't all pronouns (and for that matter, words in general) "invented?" Are they (see what I did there...) just making a distinction between words that are adapted or modified from other words, and ones that aren't?

jnevill 11y ago
Perhaps "Newly invented pronouns" would have been more clear. The distinction being Singular "They" has been around for a long time, and "Xe" can't be pronounced by the human mouth and confuses the older folk. Or something...
- untothebreach 11y ago
  Ha, well as one of the "older folk," I will say that while "xe" doesn't confuse me, it is definitely a bit jarring when I see it used. I have no problem with it's use, I am just not used to seeing it. I recently read a book by a fantasy author whose stories I enjoy, but in this latest book she used "xe" quite often to describe some non-binary characters, and it always managed to pull me out of the story.
  - coke12 11y ago
    I'm reading Greg Egan's Diaspora right now and he uses ve, ver, and vis for the (post-/non-human) main characters. It's definitely exciting in a worldbuilding sort of way but I still prefer they, them, and their because it's much less jarring.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
chc 11y ago
AFAIK most words in our language are evolved rather than invented. You may as well call our height "invented."

DennisP 11y ago

I've never liked this, but I have to admit that logically, a mismatch in number is no worse than the mismatch in gender we get by using "he," which has the disadvantage of being annoying to many people. And I don't think efforts to make up a new pronoun are likely to succeed. Singular "they" might well be the future. But if I could have my pick I'd go with "um."

cpeterso 11y ago
> Singular "they" might well be the future. As the article describes, singular they is also the past. Its usage has a long historical precedent over 650 years.
baddox 11y ago
The interesting thing is that the singular usage of "they" doesn't get used with singular verbs. It seems that the syntactic pluralness of "they" is too strong for it to simply get thrown in place of "he" or "she" without changing the verbs. I would say "she is here" or "he is here," but not "they is here."
- davesque 11y ago
  In that case, it seems like you would say "they are here." and realize that it's only one person from context.
- progval 11y ago
  One of the things I find weird in English is you do that too “you”: “you are” even when talking to a single person; whereas in French (for instance) there are two different pronouns for the singular and plural use of “you” (“tu” and “vous”), with different forms forms for the verbs. So using plural form of verbs with singular “they” does not seem that surprising to me.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    English "you" is the grammatically plural (previously used also to denote formality, where it is not semantically plural) form, corresponding to French "vous". The English grammatically singular form ("thee/thou") corresponding to French "tu" has generally fallen out of use, so "you" has in effect become the all-purpose 2nd-person pronoun, but its still grammatically plural. Likewise, "they" is grammatically plural, regardless of its contextual semantics.

patrickfl 11y ago

Scanned the article, can someone give me a solid example of how this is used in a sentence?

untog 11y ago
"patrickfl didn't bother to read the article, as a result they were uninformed."
- g4k 11y ago
  This may be right, but it does not sound right.
  - dang 11y ago
    It doesn't sound right because the username includes "patrick", which implies a "he". Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It sounds a bit more natural if you say "That user didn't read the article, so they were uninformed."
    - warfangle 11y ago
      > Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It does when the gender identity of the subject is known to be neither he nor she!
    - warfangle 11y ago
      > Singular "they" doesn't replace "he" or "she" when gender is known. It does when the gender identity of the subject is known to be neither he nor she!
  - untog 11y ago
    Why not? This is not new at all, I've used it whenever I'm not sure of the gender of a subject for as long as I can remember.
  - Afton 11y ago

ryangittins 11y ago

I've had enough of this discussion! The new gender-neutral singular pronoun is thou! That's right, thou was the answer we were looking for.

jnevill 11y ago
Is "thou" third-person though? I never use it, so it might be. I dunno.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  It's second-person. The third person singular pronoun is "it".
- mordechai9000 11y ago
  It's the informal version of 'you', so it is second-person singular. You can use 'thou' to force Google translate to translate from English to the informal form of another language. Otherwise, it will give you the formal translation. This is safer if you don't know the social/cultural implications of using the informal form (it can be insulting or inappropriate in some contexts), but it's not always what you want.
bradleyjg 11y ago
I think thou is second person ("you"), not third ("he" and "she"). We are in need of a second person plural though--at least outside of the South where they have "y'all" and NJ where they have "youse guys".
- jnevill 11y ago
  Let's not forget about the folk's from the "Show Me" state's second-person plural: "Ya'llsins"
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  Don't forget "all y'all" when referring to more than a couple people. "Y'all" is plural, "all y'all" is more plural.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Strilanc 11y ago

Using the post's title on hacker news is probably misleading. It sounds more official out of context, whereas in the post the "award" is just a tongue-in-cheek framing device: > -Truth in advertising: The Web of Language Distinguished Usage Panel, charged each year with picking the Word of the Year, consists entirely of me. The comments keep up the joke: > Kudos to the Distinguished Usage Panel! "They" chose wisely and well.

dang 11y ago
I see your point, but all "word of the year" awards are made up anyhow. If anybody suggests a more accurate title we can change it.

dkarapetyan 11y ago

I use this all the time. Easier than worrying about gendered nonsense.

nailer 11y ago
+1. Reading Ben Horowitz's book, every fictional CEO is 'he' or 'she' which makes you think you've missed something and they're not fictional. 'They' could have sufficed perfectly.

dimitar 11y ago

I've noticed that economists and other academics like to use "she" in the same cases as the singular "they" - a common-gender third-person pronoun, the "he or she". Yes, it intentionally uses the feminine third-person, but I guess it makes a point about inclusion this way.

lsaferite 11y ago
It's a political statement. Usage of the male pronoun is historic just like the usage of the plural pronoun. The choice to go agains hundreds of years of usage is very political. Personally I prefer the plural when you do not know or do not wish to highlight the gender. It jibes more with my personal sense of right.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I was taught that "he" is gender-neutral as/when needed, and in true Humpty-Dumpty fashion that's what I use.
efes 11y ago
> Yes, it intentionally uses the feminine third-person, but I guess it makes a point about inclusion this way. I end up feeling suspicious of an author that uses she about ~75% of the time since it seems they remember to use it more often when referring to people in a customer/student/etc role or with an example question/mistake, yet more often use he or avoid pronouns when referring to an expert or people with titles. Meanwhile, they works perfectly fine, if it confuses someone that is their problem and if I said her problem there it would be because I was sexist for one reason and his for another. :)

seivan 11y ago

He, she or they is an(?) agenderphobic microaggression against gender agnostic singular people who do not want to be called in plural. They is a bigot.

dcole2929 11y ago

Does this article really not give a single example of use of singular 'they' or did I just read too fast?

jpmattia 11y ago
> or did I just read too fast? I must have read too fast as well. The author would have done well to include several examples, and they doesn't include any examples. Almost makes me feel like they is pranking me, to be frank.
- mhurron 11y ago
  > The author would have done well to include several examples, and they doesn't include any examples. There's your example.
  - dang 11y ago
    I think jpmattia was joking. But it's fascinating how, when someone mistakenly thinks that it's a new proposed rule and tries to apply it, they frequently come up with an awkward overcorrection, when they're almost certainly already using it naturally in their own speech without noticing. If anyone wants examples there are 500 years' worth here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150328135337/http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150328135337/http://www.crossm.... And as many again from Jane Austen alone: http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html.
    - mhurron 11y ago
      > I think jpmattia was joking. Honestly, with the way the comments are for this article, it's impossible to tell.
    - jpmattia 11y ago
      > I think jpmattia was joking. Guilty as charged, your honor. > But it's fascinating how, when someone mistakenly thinks that it's a new proposed rule and tries to apply it, they frequently come up with an awkward overcorrection I'd note that there is a great deal of verbiage about grammar rules requiring rewrite to allow singular they . For example: A foreign speaker would be well within bounds to look at the first google hit for "define are" [1] : are1 är,ər/ 2nd person singular present and 1st, 2nd, 3rd person plural present of be. Google should note that "are" is also 3rd person singular present, consistent with 500 years of usage. But we also have to point out that singular "are" is disallowed in cases other than they, and we can't even add a gender-specific conjugation, since the neuter "it" is still not paired with "are". Fortunately, rules in language are not subject to mathematical rigor, and people and authors and poets (and smartasses) are given free license to use language in any way that facilitates communication.

tosseraccount 11y ago

They be utterly pretentious. Germanic languages have gender. Language change should be natural, not forced based on some nebulous social engineering goal. Speakers of Old English considered each noun to have a grammatical gender. If anyone has a serious citation for "he" was imposed by "meddling grammarians", please let us know. Don't we already have a neutral pronoun: "it"?

dang 11y ago
The point is that it has nothing to do with language change. It has been settled usage since Chaucer. It's generic 'he' that was the interloper. Ironically, the language engineers of today have most in common with the meddling grammarians who tried (never entirely successfully) to impose it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Avshalom 11y ago
Singular 'they' is one of the most natural changes to language I've ever been aware of. Certainly more natural than the 'he or she' malarkey people (and don't think I don't notice the precedent given to he) have been forcing on students in the name of better conforming to a nonexistent English grammar, that we only pretend exists so we can give people shit when they fail to remember when they should put it on.
dang 11y ago
> If anyone has a serious citation for "he" was imposed by "meddling grammarians" There are lots of citations about this on the web and even a whole bunch in past HN threads. This is one of the more fascinating articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-...
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  Sorry. I removed the complaint. Thanks for the link. I'll note this ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Trend_to_prescription_of_generic_he_from_19th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Trend_to_prescri... reports that "In spite of continuous attempts on the part of educationalists to proscribe singular they in favour of he, its use remained widespread, and the advice was largely ignored".

jaquers 11y ago

I've noticed certain papers/essays posted here using "she" when referring to a hypothetical person, which I think is a nice touch—since "he" is contained within the word.

colept 11y ago

When writing "he or she" - they does seem like a viable substitute when gender is irrelevant. But I cannot stand this new trend of making gender irrelevant for the sake of pushing gender lines. We use gendered pronouns for context clues, metadata, and comedy. It's a natural construct and universal to many languages.

davesque 11y ago
Just because people use singular they doesn't mean we can't still use gender-specific, third-person pronouns.
- thescribe 11y ago
  I think the grandfather post is saying that this is motivated by people who wish to eliminate gender, not that we are precluded from he or she.
Avshalom 11y ago
As ever: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
warfangle 11y ago
'They' isn't a viable substitute just when gender is irrelevant. There isn't really a label for what I identify as, but it is not 'she' or 'he,' it's somewhere in-between and neither at the same time. So even 'he or she' wouldn't apply to me: I'm not one or the other. I _prefer_ xe/etc; but I'm absolutely 100% fine with they/them. Just don't call me he (because I'm not) or she (because I'm not). ;) Does that make sense? > It's a natural construct and universal to many languages. I think this ignores too much how language imposes itself on a culture - and a culture on a language. The gender neutral pronoun is a natural construct and universal to many languages, too. We just don't have an "official" one in English.
- mkrfox 11y ago
  I saw a comic strip once where someone was talking to a nonbinary person. Somewhere in it, the (presumably) cisgendered person said "but then I won't know your gender!" And the nonbinary person replied "that's okay, because I don't know it either." (I probably mis-remembered parts, and I'm not telling it anywhere near as well)

ChuckMcM 11y ago

A pretty fun read, I also like the disclaimer :-). I was always much more comfortable with the singular they and the plural yall.

n7c3c1 11y ago

"'He or She' is an agenderphobic microaggression, Sharon. You are a bigot." -Randy Marsh

dang 11y ago
Please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive and/or inflammatory comments to Hacker News. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly, and you've done it repeatedly.
- n7c3c1 11y ago
  The quote is completely substantive. Just because you disagree doesn't make it uncivil. But is the irony of you threatening to ban me for "inflammatory comments" and the quote itself--about the culture of militant political correctness--not lost on you? Do you see the irony?
  - dang 11y ago
    I like South Park too but calling that contribution "substantive" is quite a stretch. There's no view that can't be expressed civilly and substantively, so accusations of politically correct censorship on HN don't hold much water in my opinion. It's usually just a fig leaf for low-signal ranting, when the correct thing to do is to be a good citizen and improve your behavior. Most HN users don't have trouble doing this, regardless of where they fall ideologically.

davesque 11y ago

I've always used this intentionally in spite of being fully aware that it's "ungrammatical." Saying that singular they is ungrammatical is rather like saying that irregular verbs are ungrammatical or uncountable nouns are ungrammatical. It doesn't matter because there are already a significant number of irregularities in English and having one more isn't going to cause any problems and, relatively speaking, isn't going to make English any less systematic.

amsilprotag 11y ago
I find myself doing the same, despite increasing preference for "she" by academicians and journalists. See the top post in another HN thread for my criticism, copied below. When "she" becomes the default, I find myself veering off from the topic at hand to consider gender politics and try to infer the author's intention. Does OP see makers as "us" and managers as "them"? Is OP using "she" because /they/ believe managers are disproportionately male and so chooses a pronoun to prevent further exclusion? An ideal grammar solution should not require the author to disclose his politics, either by omission or commission, just to communicate effectively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10658187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10658187 "Manager time" is a small allocation. Since the manager's heap only uses blocks this size, she can do this all day without any problems or fragmentation. "Maker time" is a large contiguous block. If the heap is empty, you can allocate them without any problem. But stick one manager-sized block in the middle and now you've split your heap such that the total time available is large enough, but it's not contiguous. Classic heap fragmentation[2].

0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago

Tell CMOS then. You are in the same state after all. They said (tee hee hee) this: A. I’m afraid your gender-neutral pronoun (at least in the sense you need) does not exist in our lexicon. I agree that the plural pronoun with a singular noun seems inadequate; I would suggest that you recast the sentence altogether or at least make “mind” plural for agreement: their minds. Other writers alternate between using “his” and “her” in such constructions in order to give equal status to each pronoun. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pronouns.html?page=1 http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pr...

untothebreach 11y ago
Elsewhere on that page they seem to give, if not approval of the construct, than at least acknowledgment that it is solving the problem: > The use of they as a singular pronoun is a hot topic in online grammar forums. By traditional standards, the sentence is incorrect because it contains no plural noun for they to refer to. Traditionally, the correct versions are “The telltale sign of right-wingers: they can’t write in English to save their lives” and “The telltale sign of a right-winger: he can’t write in English to save his life.” > The growing acceptance of they as singular is in response to a need for a gender-neutral pronoun that avoids the use of he to mean he or she. Good writers would make right-winger plural to avoid the appearance of incorrectness or gender bias, but in other sentences the plural is not a good option: “Someone ate my Twinkie, and they’d better watch out!” In those contexts, many language experts now approve of the use of they. You can learn more by searching online for “singular they.”
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Tell CMOS then. The article specifically discusses the history of the CMOS with singular "they", which recommended singular they in the 14th Edition, and reversed for the following versions (15th and the current 16th.)

spdionis 11y ago

When I was taught italian grammar I was told explicitly that if the gender of the subject is unknown the masculine one should be used by default as a rule. Sounds totally alright to me. Now I'm wondering how many people would be offended by this.

sampo 11y ago

My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, and it is surprisingly difficult to learn to fluently and effortlessly use 'he' (or 'she') in English in situations when there is no need to specify the gender, or when the gender is not known ("After the user clicks the button, he/she receives ..."). My brain is just not wired that way, I feel like I am forced to create information when there is none, and potentially incorrect information, lies. Almost as if a language didn't have a construct to talk about cars without specifying their color at the same time, so you all the time have to create random colors in order to talk about cars in the abstract. I was very happy when I learned that 'they' is a mostly acceptable solution. I understand gendered nouns can also be a politically loaded topic, but I only meant this as a perspective from someone who learned English as a second language.

kibwen 11y ago
I don't think anyone would dispute that gendered pronouns make learning a language harder. Here in the US most kids will learn a rudimentary amount of a foreign language in school, at which point they realize just how lucky they are that most nouns in their native language use gender-neutral pronouns (I distinctly remember wondering just what made tables female when we were required to say la mesa). There's even a famous Mark Twain essay where he laments at length the chaos of German's genders: https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html
gyardley 11y ago
This is pretty close to how I, as a native English speaker, feel about gendered inanimate objects. I have no idea why so many other languages force you to stick a gender on something without any genitals. I would've preferred not to have to learn that something as simple as 'milk' is feminine in Spanish, masculine in Italian, and neuter in Russian - that hunk of my brain could surely be put to better use.
- mitchty 11y ago
  The first thing you need to do is realize that grammatical gender has nothing to do with actual gender or lack thereof. Unless you really think a turnip is feminine, and a little girl has no gender like in German. All they're doing is describing a category of like nouns. The term for the grouping happens to be the word gender. The word is overloaded in this case to mean multiple things and is at best a false cognate. The fact that the same thing can have multiple genders or lack thereof as you noted should be the biggest clue that grammatical gender has nothing to do with genitals.

peteratt 11y ago

One of the advantages of Spanish over English is that the problem that singular 'they' is trying to solve doesn't even exist. Gotta love that always-on gender alignment feature :)

yarrel 11y ago

I've used this since the 90s, so - oh God, I'm a pronoun hipster. ;-(

Renevith 11y ago

Language Log has posted for many years about singular they, often spotting examples of it in well-edited publications. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27 See also the wikipedia page on singular they, chock full of usage examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

kbutler 11y ago

English already has a perfectly good singular, gender-netural pronoun: "it". We're just not used to using "it" for non-child people: When the baby is hungry, it eats. When the person is hungry, it eats. If you adopt "they", you have to either adopt plural verbs, or allow "they" to be associated with singular verbs: When the person is hungry, they eat. When the person is hungry, they eats.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> If you adopt 'they', you have to either adopt plural verbs Which we already do with semantically singular uses of the first-person and second-person grammatically-plural pronouns in English, so that's not really a big deal. (And already do with semantically singular uses of "they": its been "adopted" in English-as-actually used for over half a millennium.)
warfangle 11y ago
"it" comes with the linguistic/cultural baggage of being associated primarily with inanimate objects, which I think you can understand is rather disconcerting to those who are genderqueer and very much alive.