“Pro-they identify with”. LOL. Love the sentiment but I think they forgot the word “pronouns”.
Doobledorf on
ESL teacher of 10 years, glad to see this is becoming standard.
Before anybody chokes themselves trying to hastily yell out how “woke” this is, we have a singular they in English anyway and people have to learn it. Some languages don’t even have “he” and “she”, and thus “they” makes tons of sense.
EcstaticSea59 on
Academic texts are increasingly moving toward singular they! I was in college recently and saw it.
KN_Knoxxius on
I don’t agree with this. It’s ridiculous to me. However, I see how it’s relevant to include in this day and age, to not cause confusion among the more “inclusive” students.
rowrowfightthepandas on
Singular they has been around forever. Even when I was a kid it was in my English textbook.
If for example you had never met or seen the coach before, have no idea what gender they are, and are simply relaying what you heard, “They spoke to their players before the game” is perfectly reasonable.
I don’t know why they’re treating it like a new thing.
Aeon_Return on
Neat!
nihilism_squared on
a few people even like being called “it”!
TristanTheRobloxian3 on
good that theyre teaching people that in school now. thats awesome
salamat_engot on
I’ve worked in education for awhile and always made a point to refer to unnamed students at they/them/their to preserve privacy. Like if I’m discussing a situation with another teacher, I want to eliminate any identifying info, including gender.
whitedolphinn on
I’m pretttttty sure both are grammatically correct
DeepDot7458 on
This isn’t interesting so much as it’s just sad.
ledow on
I always use ‘they’ when drafting any document, because it’s just easier than constant he/she stuff and means precisely the same without invoking the (quite right) modern view that some people want to identify as both or neither.
I’ve done it for decades, long before this was a mainstream news issue.
“If the customer wants to do X, they should fill in this form…” etc.
Mainly, though, because you feel a twit reading out a document with he/she all over place, whereas if you just put ‘they’ it just reads as a plain, natural English sentence.
CockyMechanic on
I know they is the most common singular neutral term, but I’ve always preferred “One”.
“One left ones wallet at the bar.” Instead of “They left their wallet at the bar.”.
In some contexts it removed ambiguity of plural or singular.
“They are after me” vs “One is after me”
OneBudTwoBud on
HOWEVER!
la_luna653 on
Flashback to writing HS essays referring to everyone as “one”. “One must ask oneself” lolol
alegonz on
>However
You just had to keep going
arkiparada on
The coach spoke to their team is grammatically correct when you don’t know their gender. I’d be annoyed if her is the correct answer.
19 Comments
How is this interesting
I hear it’s woke to make sense now.
“Pro-they identify with”. LOL. Love the sentiment but I think they forgot the word “pronouns”.
ESL teacher of 10 years, glad to see this is becoming standard.
Before anybody chokes themselves trying to hastily yell out how “woke” this is, we have a singular they in English anyway and people have to learn it. Some languages don’t even have “he” and “she”, and thus “they” makes tons of sense.
Academic texts are increasingly moving toward singular they! I was in college recently and saw it.
I don’t agree with this. It’s ridiculous to me. However, I see how it’s relevant to include in this day and age, to not cause confusion among the more “inclusive” students.
Singular they has been around forever. Even when I was a kid it was in my English textbook.
If for example you had never met or seen the coach before, have no idea what gender they are, and are simply relaying what you heard, “They spoke to their players before the game” is perfectly reasonable.
I don’t know why they’re treating it like a new thing.
Neat!
a few people even like being called “it”!
good that theyre teaching people that in school now. thats awesome
I’ve worked in education for awhile and always made a point to refer to unnamed students at they/them/their to preserve privacy. Like if I’m discussing a situation with another teacher, I want to eliminate any identifying info, including gender.
I’m pretttttty sure both are grammatically correct
This isn’t interesting so much as it’s just sad.
I always use ‘they’ when drafting any document, because it’s just easier than constant he/she stuff and means precisely the same without invoking the (quite right) modern view that some people want to identify as both or neither.
I’ve done it for decades, long before this was a mainstream news issue.
“If the customer wants to do X, they should fill in this form…” etc.
Mainly, though, because you feel a twit reading out a document with he/she all over place, whereas if you just put ‘they’ it just reads as a plain, natural English sentence.
I know they is the most common singular neutral term, but I’ve always preferred “One”.
“One left ones wallet at the bar.” Instead of “They left their wallet at the bar.”.
In some contexts it removed ambiguity of plural or singular.
“They are after me” vs “One is after me”
HOWEVER!
Flashback to writing HS essays referring to everyone as “one”. “One must ask oneself” lolol
>However
You just had to keep going
The coach spoke to their team is grammatically correct when you don’t know their gender. I’d be annoyed if her is the correct answer.