43
votes
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
People have created new gender-neutral pronouns. They are known as neopronouns. (A good list of currently used ones can be found on Wikipedia.) Furthermore, the move to create gender-neutral pronouns ...
- 67.3k
19
votes
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
Mostly, because they already have singular they. It's been in the language since the 14th century. Prior to that, there was generic he, which continued to also be used until the 20th century and is ...
- 53.7k
12
votes
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
Because creating a new closed-class word is a hugely invasive change to people's way of speaking.
It's much more drastic than creating a new noun (euphemism) for an old (derogatory) noun. The ...
- 287
11
votes
Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?
October 2017
5.48: Singular they (footnote from the Chicago Manual of Style Online October 2017)
The generic singular they was endorsed in 2015 by the editors of the Washington Post, though with a ...
- 1,032
10
votes
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
There's no authority for English, even for a single major English-speaking country, so there's no-one to mandate the existence of a new word, never mind its use. Such authorities tend to move slowly, ...
- 21.9k
9
votes
Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?
Before I answer I wish to state that I am a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and don't particularly care what pronoun anyone prefers or chooses for themself, as long as it makes them feel ...
- 22.6k
7
votes
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
A language is not made by “thinking of a translation” for a word. For
example, it’s not like you have the Japanese word konnichiwak and
then ask yourself “How do we say this in English?”, ...
- 181
6
votes
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
As other answers note, the history of trying to invent a gender-neutral singular pronoun in English is littered with failures, nonce usages, and usages that become popular in insular communities but ...
- 41.7k
4
votes
On The Formality Of The Usage Of The Word "Their"
Gradually, singular they is becoming more and more accepted in formal English.
According to Welcome, singular “they” on the APA blog:
APA endorses the use of “they” as a singular third-person pronoun ...
- 67.3k
4
votes
Is there a correct gender-neutral singular pronoun ("his" vs. "her" vs. "their")?
Yes. Simply change to 3rd person plural, so you are referring to everyone: they/them/their.
Each student should save their questions until the end.
or
Every student should save their questions ...
- 162
4
votes
Can the epicene personal pronoun “they’ be used regardless of semantic gender of the word?
I think that if somebody wants to be called they, you should call him or her they. Similarly, if they want to be called he (or she) you should call them he (or she). It's common courtesy, like calling ...
- 90.3k
4
votes
Can the epicene personal pronoun “they’ be used regardless of semantic gender of the word?
I'm not sure what you mean by "grammatical": the meaning of this word varies between lay people, experts, and other experts. (That is, even experts argue about the precise meaning of calling ...
- 84.5k
4
votes
Accepted
how to ignore gender nicely in english? can i make the sentence plural?
This called a singular they and its use is common
It remains syntactically plural though semantically singular, so you would need to end with "They then see ..." - see the discussion in Why isn’t ...
- 20.4k
4
votes
Should an antecedent of "everyone" take "their" or "his" or "our" as its corresponding possessive pronoun?
Your test is unfair, because there is no single answer that everyone would agree upon.
Everybody, along with everyone, traditionally uses a singular pronoun of reference: everybody must sign his ...
- 13k
4
votes
Accepted
How should I refer to a person without identifying them? Can I use 'one'?
Somebody is in the drawing room or There is somebody in the drawing room expresses your meaning better than "one is in the drawing room".
Merriam-Webster explains the meaning of somebody: &...
- 10.9k
3
votes
Using singular "they" for an animal
I don't see why you couldn't use "they" for an animal of unknown gender. However, it's less necessary than when referring to humans, because there's not as much compunction against using &...
- 22.5k
3
votes
Are there any studies to see if singular "they" is too confusing to use?
In a comment, John Lawler wrote:
There aren't any studies. Nobody would fund something this silly. Singular they has been a part of the language for centuries, and there's no evidence anybody has ...
3
votes
"Everybody's using a cell phone nowadays" vs. "Everybody's using cell phones nowadays"
There is useful discussion about when to use and when not to use the distributive singular in the article below:
Do we use the singular or plural? Sometimes, it depends.
By Jennifer Rappaport , MLA ...
- 87.2k
2
votes
If you can't use “he”, “she” or “they” in a sentence, what do you use?
If you are relating what happened and want to use a pronoun instead of repeating passenger:
"A sick passenger was disembarked. ?? / the passenger had complained
of severe stomach pains ... ."
...
- 33.5k
2
votes
Singular they = general they
Note that ‘score’ is originally from incising a mark - literally scoring a mark in the side of a tree, in order to count. One score is one mark. Multiple scores are multiple marks.
A ‘score’ is thus ...
- 5,697
2
votes
Singular "they" in 1954
It's hard to test systematically for early instances of "they" as third-person singular pronoun because such instances often follows on a contingent phrase that is highly specific and ...
- 169k
2
votes
Singular "they" in 1954
In the context of this program, the voices used in the answers already given had already made the panel suspect there was more than one person. The word 'they", used in this way in 1954, would ...
- 29
2
votes
Can the use of singular 'they' for a dog that was just called 'she' be considered correct in English?
The singular they could certainly be used to refer to a dog of unknown sex, though it would certainly be much more common. Presumably the commenter did not pay attention to the fact that the video ...
- 19.6k
2
votes
Talking about a third person, formally
The "gender-neutral" use of [singular] they doesn't really work if the gender of the referent is explicitly known to both speaker and audience (or writer and readership).
So whereas it's ...
- 142k
1
vote
Do we use verb + s/es after singular they?
Correct: They think
'They think' is in the simple present tense. We do not add 's' or 'es' to the verb if the subject is 'singular they'.
'They' always takes a plural verb.
Someone is standing at the ...
1
vote
Does grammar become tricky when ‘she is’ becomes ‘they is/are’?
Singular they takes the same verb forms as plural they: you'd say they are a graduate.
Compare with the royal or editorial we: you'd say we are not amused rather than we am not amused.
- 806
1
vote
Should an antecedent of "everyone" take "their" or "his" or "our" as its corresponding possessive pronoun?
The words everyone and everybody aren't about a specific person, so the (also gender-specific) his part is off. But the phrase is general, so our part is also not right.
I would say
Everyone wants ...
- 22.1k
1
vote
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
Unlike in a language like Japanese, pronouns are a closed class. That means it's really hard to create a new personal pronoun (unlike Japanese where they fall in and out of favor over the span of ...
- 70
1
vote
Can it ever be acceptable to use singular “they” with a specific referent of known but undisclosed gender?
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 ...
- 5,190
1
vote
Can it ever be acceptable to use singular “they” with a specific referent of known but undisclosed gender?
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 ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible