4 ms·
I think "they" is preferred over "it", and not rude at all.
by neeee 13y ago
I think "they" is preferred over "it", and not rude at all.
- chipsy 13y agoWhen pronoun is unknown, "they" is the common choice. At queer conferences it is becoming the practice to include preferred pronouns on your name tag.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoI demand to be formally addressed as the Wizard of Speed and Time.
- nostromo 13y agoReally? That sounds worse to me... "How old are they?" "When did you have them?" "Are they a boy or a girl?" "They are adorable." I would probably just drop the pronoun completely. "How old?" "When did you give birth?" "Boy or girl?" "So adorable!"
- rdouble 13y agoIf you say "how old is they?" or "they is adorable" it will sound cooler, like you're speaking some sort of patois.
- nostromo 13y agoI just read this fun Wikipedia article for language nerds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- Dewie 13y agoThat's pretty cool. The verb conjugation for "to be" seems to be actually useful in this context. It sounds a little wrong to me, but that's just a matter of habit, and it would probably flow better in written English than writing he/she.
- Dylan16807 13y ago>"How old are they?" "When did you have them?" "Are they a boy or a girl?" "They are adorable." Those sentences sound completely normal and grammatical to me.
- ars 13y ago> Those sentences sound completely normal and grammatical to me. Only if you are talking about more than one person. If you are talking about a single person those sentences sound bizarre.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago'They' is fine as a singular, for instance the person that you have just replied to, they say that you are completely wrong, and I agree with them. See? Look up the "epicene they".
- meepmorp 13y agoYou're in dangerous territory if you ask boy or girl - people often assume their child's gender is as obvious to you as it is to them. I've gotten some unexpected hostility from strangers this way.
- theaeolist 13y ago"How old is your child?" "How old is the little one?"
- Ziomislaw 13y agowell, it is highly dependant on the language, some require distinction between sexes, and using a gender neutral term is sometimes offensive.