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> they are probably an idiot. Did you mean "He is probably an idiot." or "They are probably idiots."?
by markokocic 15y ago
> they are probably an idiot.
Did you mean "He is probably an idiot." or "They are probably idiots."?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- StavrosK 15y agoNeither: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- Symmetry 15y agoI didn't downvote you myself, but the use of the singular 'they' to denote someone of unknown gender has been in use in English since at least the time of Shakespeare (he used it in places). There was a movement a long time ago to try to make English more like Latin, removing things like the plural they, the split infinitive and so on. Nowadays, with Latin no longer regarded as the highest form of language we really don't have any reason to look down on traditional usage.
- derleth 15y agoExcept the people who create those captchas will, by Murphy's Law or similar, be precisely the people most opposed to split infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions, and other matters of usage that are objectively correct grammatically but are historically declasse (and is leaving out the acute accents in that word a misspelling in English?).
- markokocic 15y agoThanks. It's good to know that this usage is correct. However, it's also good to know that it might not be safe to use it in language test because of the dispute ;)