5 ms·
singular they is the generalization you're looking for
by throw_away 6y ago
singular they is the generalization you're looking for
- jws 6y agoI'm old enough that "they" is not singular, it is a grammatical error punishable by red ink and deducted points.
- Spivak 6y agoBut the usage of they to refer a single person is older than anyone alive if that makes you feel better about sticking it to your picky grade school teachers.
- jfk13 6y agoSo is the use of "he" to refer to an individual of unspecified gender. (The OED quotations for sense 2(b) "In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender" go back to at least 1200AD.)
- microtherion 6y agoYou're older than William Shakespeare? There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend
- staticassertion 6y agoDoubtful. > According to the third edition, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (edited by Burchfield and published in 1996) singular they has not only been widely used by good writers for centuries, but is now generally accepted, except by some conservative grammarians, including the Fowler of 1926, who, it is argued, ignored the evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they Elsewhere in the article you'll find dates like: 1375, 1382, 1400, 1489, 1759, etc, and references to these by Fowler's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_Modern_English_Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_Modern_English... Anyone arguing against singular 'they' may as well be arguing for a gender neutral 'he' - an argument lost over a century ago by virtually any modern English standard.
- Izkata 6y ago> Doubtful Absolutely true. At least one whole generation grew up taught in school that singular "they" isn't a thing. I was on the tail end of that and read a lot of books written by the previous generation, so it never stuck strongly in my head, but that's what GP is referring to.
- kelnos 6y agoI don't think that's the case. I think many people (myself included) were taught only that "they" is plural, not that it explicitly cannot be singular. The distinction there may be too subtle to matter for some people, though. Either way, clinging to a frozen-in-time interpretation of a living, changing language is foolish for anyone who would like to easily understand and be easily understood. And not waste time in our too-short lives on pointless language nitpickery like we're doing here.
- staticassertion 6y agoI suppose I should have said it's doubtful that you lived at a time when the argument against singular they was legitimate. I'm sure many teachers are teaching students incorrect things all the time. But by modern English standards, which I would define through works like Fowlers', the legitimate argument against singular they is long over.
- jhgb 6y ago> Anyone arguing against singular 'they' may as well be arguing for a gender neutral 'he' That seems like a flawed analogy; many people abuse the traditional generic usage of 'they' but I've seen few people abuse the traditional generic usage of 'he'.
- staticassertion 6y agoThe main historic arguments against singular they and for neutral he are intertwined.
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