It's not right. There are linguistic restrictions on gender-neutral, singular 'they'.[1] When the referent is known, it can't be used (i.e. it's not about 'patr

It's not right. There are linguistic restrictions on gender-neutral, singular 'they'.[1] When the referent is known, it can't be used (i.e. it's not about 'patrick' and 'he' matching up, it's about 'they' not being usable with a known person).[2] My favourite real-life example of it's usage is one in which we know that the gender is female, and we know it's singular: "If a mother wants to use the nursing room, they can just key in the code in their pamphlet". [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/3cgbyv/limitations_of_singular_they_usage_singular_they/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/3cgbyv/limitat... gives some good discussion [2] I can't help but feel that these restrictions are related to nondefinite contexts for "(negative polarity items)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_item]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_item]", like 'no-one' and 'any', where you can't say e.g. *I ate any cake but you can say: I didn't eat any cake but you can also use it in questions: Did you eat any cake? This seems related to usages like If someone comes, tell them to wait vs *If John comes, tell them to wait.