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I am not sure whether these two examples using singular they to refer to a specific, singular referent are acceptable in educated speech:

  1. I had a friend in Paris, and they had to visit the doctor for a month.

    Here, they refers to a friend in Paris, so clearly a person well-known to the speaker and so of determinate gender.

  2. A teacher asked me to give their book to John.

    Here, their refers to a teacher of the speaker’s acquaintance, presumably also therefore of known gender.

Specifically, I’d like to know whether there’s any difference in acceptability between how speakers of American English view such usage compared with how speakers of British English view this.

Does the Atlantic change how this comes across, or doesn’t it?

(editorial additions for broader linguistic and sociolinguistic focus)

Does one side of the Atlantic Ocean find it pretty normal for educated speakers to use grammar like this, but the other side of the Atlantic Ocean finds it abnormal in educated speech?

Or does — if you would — the “Atlanticity” of locale have less importance on its acceptability than the register being used has, such as the varying registers of casual language versus formal language, or of the spoken language versus the written one, or of spontaneous dialogue versus curated text meant for an educated readership?

Might the acceptability of usage vary more by other factors than locale or register, such as by gender or age or education or class?

Has this usage’s acceptability or unacceptability remained relatively constant over time, or have we seen shifts in that? If so, are these shifts ones of centuries or of generations, or are they quicker than that, perhaps of decades or even of years?

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    If you know their gender, you can use he or she etc. Otherwise, they/them is fine.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Sep 17, 2017 at 8:05
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    It seems odd to me (BrE) to refer to a person you know as 'they' unless you have some reason for not wanting to disclose their gender. I would expect to see it used of an unknown or hypothetical individual.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Sep 17, 2017 at 8:15
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    To me these phrases are not "educated speech"--they're not how an educated AmE speaker would express these ideas. "I had a friend in Paris, who had to visit . ..etc. In the second case "their" suggests a couple of other people whose book is being given to John at the teacher's request.
    – Xanne
    Commented Sep 17, 2017 at 8:47
  • As @Kate says, your phrasing makes it sound like a) you’re deliberately going out of your way not to disclose the person’s gender, or b) you know and respect that they is the person’s preferred pronoun. Both cases are definitely marked, though. This way of phrasing things would never be seen as neutral or unmarked in most contexts. The default and unmarked way of referring to people you know (and whose gender you can therefore also be assumed to know) is by gendered pronouns, since they are used by the vast majority of the population.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Sep 17, 2017 at 9:31
  • In those cases that’s lazy and unnecessary. If you didn’t know your friend’s gender, why not say … who had to visit the doctor…? If you couldn’t tell the teacher’s gender, why not … give the book to John…? I’m might be in a minority and I still hear the only correct use of ungendered they as when both speaker and audience are wholly ignorant, as in a crime mystery where we really have no idea of the number or gender of the crooks, whoever they were… and even then, I wish we wouldn't.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Sep 19, 2017 at 17:53

2 Answers 2

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In a comment, Janus Bahs Jacquet wrote that:

[Y]our phrasing makes it sound like a) you’re deliberately going out of your way not to disclose the person’s gender, or b) you know and respect that they is the person’s preferred pronoun. Both cases are definitely marked, though. This way of phrasing things would never be seen as neutral or unmarked in most contexts.

The default and unmarked way of referring to people you know (and whose gender you can therefore also be assumed to know) is by gendered pronouns, since they are used by the vast majority of the population.

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  • @JanusBahsJacquet What do you mean by marked? Do you mean uncommon or infelicitous or stands out as different or unacceptable or nonstandard or informal or what? To say 'not neutral' or 'not default' doesn't help determine whether to use 'he' or 'she' vs 'they.
    – Mitch
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 16:23
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    @Mitch Potentially all of them, but not necessarily any one of them in particular. It means that, all things being equal, if a native speaker were to express the idea in question in a normal, neutral way, as they would say it without particularly emphasising or de-emphasising any part of it, and without any ‘special’ context to force any ‘special’ interpretation, this is not likely to be the way they’d say it, and there’s a good chance that listeners would notice it as sounding unusual. Informal does not generally mean marked per se, but archaisms, poetic language, infelicities, etc., do.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 18:13
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    Informal structures can be marked in special contexts (“Yo, wassup” would be highly marked in a speech by the Queen), and more generally marked factors like poetic language can be unmarked (for example in, well, poetry). But the most frequently occurring context is normal face-to-face conversation between people who know each other and have no reason to be either overly familiar or overly formal. If something would sound unnatural to a majority of speakers in such a situation, it’s generally marked. Otherwise, it’s unmarked.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 18:16
  • @JanusBahsJacquet OK. Markedness is not what I would call that situation (but I 'm not sure what it is you're trying to say about it, or what I myself would say about it), but I respect that that is what you intend.
    – Mitch
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 20:25
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If I am telling a story about a friend that the other person doesn't know, and their gender is irrelevant to the story, I will use "they"/"them" to refer to them. If it becomes awkward (as it often does if the story is long), I will switch to using their name and the appropriate gendered pronoun for them.

I speak Australian English, and I've spoken to many British and American people without anyone seeming confused or commenting on my use of "they"/"them" for my friend, or later switching to a gendered pronoun.

Gender irrelevant story:

I have a friend who moved to Brisbane. They sent me a picture of the cat where they are house-sitting.

Gender relevant story:

I have a friend who was accused of sexual harassment. He wanted to cheer up a female colleague who was looking a bit down so he tried giving her a gentle bump with his shoulder. Unfortunately, they were in a lift at the time and it lurched, throwing him into her.

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