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Many native English speakers don't know about it because it was technically incorrect when they were taught English ("he" was both gender-neutral and male), and

Many native English speakers don't know about it because it was technically incorrect when they were taught English ("he" was both gender-neutral and male), and sort of still is, even though language evolves and the gender-neutral-singular "they" has certainly entered the common parlance.

cyphar 7y ago
The singular "they" has been in use since the 14th century[1]. But there are plenty of people who speak English as a second language, where their mother tongue has gendered nouns (which includes effectively all European languages except English) -- so it's very hard for them to get over the mental hurdle of having to constantly reference gender in speech. For instance, in Serbian (my mother tongue) you cannot speak in a gender-neutral way because all verbs have different suffixes depending on the gender of the subject. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  It's been around for centuries, but if you're over 25, you were probably taught that it was wrong.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    I'm 22, and grew up in Australia -- the concept of singular "they" never sounded strange to me growing up (but I also don't ever recall being specifically taught that it was correct or incorrect). My parents remarked that it was weird that English had this concept which was so foreign to them -- but they probably ran across it when they were getting more fluent in English. I've never met someone (in person) who has had a strong opinion against the use of singular "they" (though I do know they clearly exist, Stallman being an obvious example). I wonder if it's a cultural difference between where I live in Australia and the US, or if I happened to fall into a filter-bubble of people who aren't against the concept.
scrollaway 7y ago
I'm 28 and singular-they was taught to me in school; year 2 of English as I said. This is in France which doesn't even have a great track record in producing anglophones. In French, there is a gender-neutral He and I can assure you you it is nothing like the English one. We quite literally have two very distinct and incompatible "il" ("he") words; the neutral one better translates to "it". (Il pleut => He is raining [sic] => It is raining). In unknowns, French genders to masculine by default, though some people may choose to disambiguate if targeting a group of people (Same as saying 'He or she' in English). French has plurals for both "he" and "she" ('hes' and 'shes' => "ils", "elles"). In English, you'd translate both to "they", because you simply do not have plural gender pronouns to work with. "Ils et elles" => "They". Translating back to french without the disambiguation, we use "Ils". But again, not the masculine one, the distinctly-neutral-albeit-grammatically-masculine-because-french-has-no-neutral-gender one. Which is simply the plural of "it". However, because it's dehumanizing/objectifying to refer to a person as "it", English uses "they". So there you go: - Je / Tu / Il / Elle / (Il|Il) => I / You / He / She / (It|They) - Nous / Vous / Ils / Elles / Ils => We / You / They / They / They. In English, this is all honestly very instinctive. There are only seven distinct pronouns! But that doesn't mean anglophones don't get to think about how to use them in all different circumstances… "they" is a multi-use tool, just like "you".

cyphar 7y ago

The singular "they" has been in use since the 14th century[1]. But there are plenty of people who speak English as a second language, where their mother tongue has gendered nouns (which includes effectively all European languages except English) -- so it's very hard for them to get over the mental hurdle of having to constantly reference gender in speech. For instance, in Serbian (my mother tongue) you cannot speak in a gender-neutral way because all verbs have different suffixes depending on the gender of the subject. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

i_am_proteus 7y ago
It's been around for centuries, but if you're over 25, you were probably taught that it was wrong.
- cyphar 7y ago
  I'm 22, and grew up in Australia -- the concept of singular "they" never sounded strange to me growing up (but I also don't ever recall being specifically taught that it was correct or incorrect). My parents remarked that it was weird that English had this concept which was so foreign to them -- but they probably ran across it when they were getting more fluent in English. I've never met someone (in person) who has had a strong opinion against the use of singular "they" (though I do know they clearly exist, Stallman being an obvious example). I wonder if it's a cultural difference between where I live in Australia and the US, or if I happened to fall into a filter-bubble of people who aren't against the concept.

scrollaway 7y ago

I'm 28 and singular-they was taught to me in school; year 2 of English as I said. This is in France which doesn't even have a great track record in producing anglophones. In French, there is a gender-neutral He and I can assure you you it is nothing like the English one. We quite literally have two very distinct and incompatible "il" ("he") words; the neutral one better translates to "it". (Il pleut => He is raining [sic] => It is raining). In unknowns, French genders to masculine by default, though some people may choose to disambiguate if targeting a group of people (Same as saying 'He or she' in English). French has plurals for both "he" and "she" ('hes' and 'shes' => "ils", "elles"). In English, you'd translate both to "they", because you simply do not have plural gender pronouns to work with. "Ils et elles" => "They". Translating back to french without the disambiguation, we use "Ils". But again, not the masculine one, the distinctly-neutral-albeit-grammatically-masculine-because-french-has-no-neutral-gender one. Which is simply the plural of "it". However, because it's dehumanizing/objectifying to refer to a person as "it", English uses "they". So there you go: - Je / Tu / Il / Elle / (Il|Il) => I / You / He / She / (It|They) - Nous / Vous / Ils / Elles / Ils => We / You / They / They / They. In English, this is all honestly very instinctive. There are only seven distinct pronouns! But that doesn't mean anglophones don't get to think about how to use them in all different circumstances… "they" is a multi-use tool, just like "you".