4 ms·

Singular they predates singular you in the English language by about three hundred years.

• sanedigital 4y ago
  That doesn’t mean the “they” here isn’t unclear. I wasn’t sure whose Mastodon handle Paul Graham shared. I certainly didn’t think OP meant he shared his own handle.
  • edmundsauto 4y ago
    To be perfectly pedantic, this should only be confusing if referring to the Mastadon employees. Otherwise, if referring to the non-person entity, singular or plural appropriate syntax would be “it”.
• blast 4y ago
  How do you know that? I know singular they goes a long way back, but this is an extreme claim that I've never heard before.
  • sammax 4y ago
    They originated around the same time, but singular you was initially only used for addressing superiors/showing respect (using the plural second person pronoun as a singular for this purpose is still a thing in a bunch of languages), a few hundred years later “you” became the standard second person singular pronoun while “thou” fell out of favour.