Nah. Maybe twenty years tops. That so many people fell for the fallacious line of argument you’re thinking of was part of the difficulty in trying to push for any of the various theoretically “better” choices that are still available should humanity unexpectedly swerve in the direction of caring about such things.
What would you say are better? I find singular they much more elegant than a lot of the new words that were made up. The fact that to apply it to a known individual, rather than an unknown individual seems like a natural extension of the usage that has existed for centuries.
I don’t really have a preference myself, but Richard Stallman’s continued insistence that “per” is the right answer is the example that comes to mind.
As he puts it, “most languages have genderless singular third-person pronouns which are distinct from the plural pronouns. English deserves to have them too.”
Perhaps in a hundred years, once the old way of making the distinction is long forgotten, a new one will arise.
Always say “they”. This violates the grammar of English so deeply that it feels terribly wrong. It also
results frequently in confusing expressions in which the referent of “they” is unclear.
I totally disagree with this. Singular they has been in use since the 14th century or so. It’s so deeply ingrained in the language that is perfectly simple to understand. In fact I’d say that people who claim to not understand it are doing so intentionally.
Perhaps a new word will develop naturally as you say. But personally I don’t see a need for it.
Not all of the complaints are motivated just by deliberate obstinance. I’m old enough that it was genuinely confusing for me at first in some situations, but young enough that I got used to it after some years. There are still plenty of people out there who haven’t done enough conversing with those who habitually default to “they” to get used to it. Not all of them are as old and cranky as Mr. Stallman.
Obviously it’s been used in some grammatical situations as a singular third-person pronoun since forever. It’s just as easy to come up with example phrases that would not sound in any way odd to a 20th-century person as it is to come up with examples from the 17th century. But its recent popularity as an all-purpose stand-in for “he” and “she” is indeed unprecedented, and even if it weren’t it’d be a notable change.
Of course it is not that it’s somehow a “stand in for he or she” inherently in current usage. It’s just that it has recently replaced those other pronouns in places where for some time they had held near-universal prevalence among most users of this language.
Just as some people who’ve never known the old ways think those people who still aren’t accustomed to it are putting on an act when they say it’s weird and confusing, I suppose it would be easy for those who’ve lived through the change to mistakenly assume that young people are being disingenuous when they act as if there’s been no change for hundreds of years and there’s nothing to remark on here. If you’re old enough to have seen it happen, the change in usage seems very obvious. If not, perhaps it isn’t.
I think the issue is that the “new” usage of “they” is seen as different, or incorrect, when that’s simply not the case. The strict usage of “they” as only a plural pronoun is not “correct.” It’s revisionist. Historically, “they” has been used as both a singular and plural pronoun, and it can be found in conversation and literature going back hundreds of years. At some point, we revised that they should be only plural, and that’s why it feels like things are changing in our current lifetimes. We aren’t changing how the word is used, we’re going back to how it’s been used for centuries.
Language is not a set of rules and strictures. It’s fluid, and the way people use words becomes grammatically correct. If these things could not change, then language couldn’t exist. You can feel uncomfortable that language has changed from what you’ve known, but don’t hold it back, or complain about the next generation. Language will change in their lifetimes too. Overall, it’s a good thing and pushes us to understand each other in the manner appropriate for the times. Right now, an easily recognizable and commonly accepted gender neutral, singular pronoun is more valuable to language than a strict usage or a new word for the use case.
“They left their bag.” “They went that way.” “I’ll find them later.”
All these examples could refer to either singular or plural cases, and maybe that confuses some people, but I think it’s very simple to determine with even the barest bit of context. It’s better than defaulting to “he” for any unspecified gender, as was “correct” for the last few decades, and allows for non-binary people to be referred to without needing oft-criticized neo-pronouns.
Using “he” as the default singular 3rd-person pronoun goes back centuries, not decades. It was sexist to varying degrees, but never all that close to truly gender-neutral since modern English itself goes back only so far as times that have been pretty close to maximally sexist. But you can see it plainly in the King James Version of the Bible for example. You won’t find any singular “they” there in the sort of places where its use today is novel. There are of course plenty of places where its use is not novel at all.
The late 20th-century innovation was to write out “he or she” in the many places where it seemed necessary, because we didn’t have any single word that would fit. Using “they” to refer to “someone”, “anyone”, or other referents like that was perfectly normal as it has always been. The examples you provide are most naturally thought of in that way and would not spook the old people today. Using “they” to refer to “a student” or some other specified but unnamed individual would on the other hand often seem wrong to people just 30 years ago, but one might sometimes get away with it depending on the audience and the grammatical circumstances. Using “they” to refer to “Jason” or other such specifically known and named people in general was not done, never had been done except perhaps by the occasional poet from centuries past, and everyone would just wonder who you were talking about even if they’d been named earlier in the same sentence. Calling Jason a “she” would also seem odd, but not nearly as odd as calling them a “they”; and if what I’ve read is at all representative then roughly similar logic would’ve usually applied in centuries going back to fairly near the start of modern English.
As may still come in handy on occasion, that short-lived move towards using the hideously awkward phrase “he or she” gave many of us plenty of practice in simply avoiding all phrases that call for a gender-neutral 3rd-person pronoun. Whatever else might be said about it, being able to use “they” is certainly an improvement over that situation.
Unfortunately you’re at least ten years too late in trying to get people to ask themselves this question
You mean 600 years too late.
Nah. Maybe twenty years tops. That so many people fell for the fallacious line of argument you’re thinking of was part of the difficulty in trying to push for any of the various theoretically “better” choices that are still available should humanity unexpectedly swerve in the direction of caring about such things.
What would you say are better? I find singular they much more elegant than a lot of the new words that were made up. The fact that to apply it to a known individual, rather than an unknown individual seems like a natural extension of the usage that has existed for centuries.
I don’t really have a preference myself, but Richard Stallman’s continued insistence that “per” is the right answer is the example that comes to mind.
As he puts it, “most languages have genderless singular third-person pronouns which are distinct from the plural pronouns. English deserves to have them too.”
Perhaps in a hundred years, once the old way of making the distinction is long forgotten, a new one will arise.
I totally disagree with this. Singular they has been in use since the 14th century or so. It’s so deeply ingrained in the language that is perfectly simple to understand. In fact I’d say that people who claim to not understand it are doing so intentionally.
Perhaps a new word will develop naturally as you say. But personally I don’t see a need for it.
Not all of the complaints are motivated just by deliberate obstinance. I’m old enough that it was genuinely confusing for me at first in some situations, but young enough that I got used to it after some years. There are still plenty of people out there who haven’t done enough conversing with those who habitually default to “they” to get used to it. Not all of them are as old and cranky as Mr. Stallman.
Are you saying that the singular use of ‘they’ is only about 20 years old?
Obviously it’s been used in some grammatical situations as a singular third-person pronoun since forever. It’s just as easy to come up with example phrases that would not sound in any way odd to a 20th-century person as it is to come up with examples from the 17th century. But its recent popularity as an all-purpose stand-in for “he” and “she” is indeed unprecedented, and even if it weren’t it’d be a notable change.
But it’s not a stand in for he or she. It’s a term to address people when gender is ambiguous.
This is hundreds of years old and not just something that’s come into vogue recently.
Of course it is not that it’s somehow a “stand in for he or she” inherently in current usage. It’s just that it has recently replaced those other pronouns in places where for some time they had held near-universal prevalence among most users of this language.
Just as some people who’ve never known the old ways think those people who still aren’t accustomed to it are putting on an act when they say it’s weird and confusing, I suppose it would be easy for those who’ve lived through the change to mistakenly assume that young people are being disingenuous when they act as if there’s been no change for hundreds of years and there’s nothing to remark on here. If you’re old enough to have seen it happen, the change in usage seems very obvious. If not, perhaps it isn’t.
I think the issue is that the “new” usage of “they” is seen as different, or incorrect, when that’s simply not the case. The strict usage of “they” as only a plural pronoun is not “correct.” It’s revisionist. Historically, “they” has been used as both a singular and plural pronoun, and it can be found in conversation and literature going back hundreds of years. At some point, we revised that they should be only plural, and that’s why it feels like things are changing in our current lifetimes. We aren’t changing how the word is used, we’re going back to how it’s been used for centuries.
Language is not a set of rules and strictures. It’s fluid, and the way people use words becomes grammatically correct. If these things could not change, then language couldn’t exist. You can feel uncomfortable that language has changed from what you’ve known, but don’t hold it back, or complain about the next generation. Language will change in their lifetimes too. Overall, it’s a good thing and pushes us to understand each other in the manner appropriate for the times. Right now, an easily recognizable and commonly accepted gender neutral, singular pronoun is more valuable to language than a strict usage or a new word for the use case.
“They left their bag.” “They went that way.” “I’ll find them later.”
All these examples could refer to either singular or plural cases, and maybe that confuses some people, but I think it’s very simple to determine with even the barest bit of context. It’s better than defaulting to “he” for any unspecified gender, as was “correct” for the last few decades, and allows for non-binary people to be referred to without needing oft-criticized neo-pronouns.
TLDR: Times change. We need to get with it.
Using “he” as the default singular 3rd-person pronoun goes back centuries, not decades. It was sexist to varying degrees, but never all that close to truly gender-neutral since modern English itself goes back only so far as times that have been pretty close to maximally sexist. But you can see it plainly in the King James Version of the Bible for example. You won’t find any singular “they” there in the sort of places where its use today is novel. There are of course plenty of places where its use is not novel at all.
The late 20th-century innovation was to write out “he or she” in the many places where it seemed necessary, because we didn’t have any single word that would fit. Using “they” to refer to “someone”, “anyone”, or other referents like that was perfectly normal as it has always been. The examples you provide are most naturally thought of in that way and would not spook the old people today. Using “they” to refer to “a student” or some other specified but unnamed individual would on the other hand often seem wrong to people just 30 years ago, but one might sometimes get away with it depending on the audience and the grammatical circumstances. Using “they” to refer to “Jason” or other such specifically known and named people in general was not done, never had been done except perhaps by the occasional poet from centuries past, and everyone would just wonder who you were talking about even if they’d been named earlier in the same sentence. Calling Jason a “she” would also seem odd, but not nearly as odd as calling them a “they”; and if what I’ve read is at all representative then roughly similar logic would’ve usually applied in centuries going back to fairly near the start of modern English.
As may still come in handy on occasion, that short-lived move towards using the hideously awkward phrase “he or she” gave many of us plenty of practice in simply avoiding all phrases that call for a gender-neutral 3rd-person pronoun. Whatever else might be said about it, being able to use “they” is certainly an improvement over that situation.