The Box of Chocolates Thread (You never know what you're going to get!)
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You get away with only that because as stated, the thieves are unknown in number. "That ****er Steve took my bike, and they are going to be sorry", is quite different, as I'm sure you'll agree,
Number doesn't matter-- it can be a single individual as long as the identity is unknown.
"Someone left their umbrella....hopefully they come back for it"
I'm not sure what has been going on here while I was taking my old man nap, but can I just register my objection to calling a singular person "they" on grammatical grounds?
you’ve probably been fine with it your entire life. My friend went to the doctor the other day and they told her she has cancer! Singular they is used all the time nothing to do with non-binary people it is just often gender isn’t specified or known. I know my friend is a woman but don’t know the gender of my friends doctor in this case.
Number doesn't matter-- it can be a single individual as long as the identity is unknown.
"Someone left their umbrella....hopefully they come back for it"
No. It can't, What you just said is grammatically incorrect. For decades it has been "I hope he or she comes back for it", with recent developments putting "she" before "he" or even omitting "he" altogether. Nonetheless, it's a singular, not plural pronoun. Using a plural pronoun to signal that the speaker has a lack of information about the number or gender of the referents is grammatically incorrect.
No. It can't, What you just said is grammatically incorrect. For decades it has been "I hope he or she comes back for it", with recent developments putting "she" before "he" or even omitting "he" altogether. Nonetheless, it's a singular, not plural pronoun. Using a plural pronoun to signal that the speaker has a lack of information about the number or gender of the referents is grammatically incorrect.
Language evolves.
No. It can't, What you just said is grammatically incorrect. For decades it has been "I hope he or she comes back for it", with recent developments putting "she" before "he" or even omitting "he" altogether. Nonetheless, it's a singular, not plural pronoun. Using a plural pronoun to signal that the speaker has a lack of information about the number or gender of the referents is grammatically incorrect.
Maybe in your country but imagine having to say "he or she" every time the identity of a person isn't known. Americans are lazy. We just use 'they'' there.
Or we could just come up with a new pronoun - "xe" or something.
That might catch on. Probably won't, since we've already found "they" to be workable. You can almost always tell whether it is meant as plural or indefinite gender by context.
S/he was popular for a bit with the academic writers in the early 1990s.
You mean "you'd" worry.
No. It can't, What you just said is grammatically incorrect. For decades it has been "I hope he or she comes back for it", with recent developments putting "she" before "he" or even omitting "he" altogether. Nonetheless, it's a singular, not plural pronoun. Using a plural pronoun to signal that the speaker has a lack of information about the number or gender of the referents is grammatically incorrect.
"They" has been used in English to refer to a singular person for longer than "you" has.
No. It can't, What you just said is grammatically incorrect. For decades it has been "I hope he or she comes back for it", with recent developments putting "she" before "he" or even omitting "he" altogether. Nonetheless, it's a singular, not plural pronoun. Using a plural pronoun to signal that the speaker has a lack of information about the number or gender of the referents is grammatically incorrect.
I recently traversed some language stuff inquiring about chat gtp etc everything I came across said grammar rules aren't really a thing. (am i saying this wrong? they said 'your teacher was wrong about grammer')
"They" has been used in English to refer to a singular person for longer than "you" has.
Incorrectly. At least grammatically.
Look, people can do what they want. They can imagine vaginas or penises from thin air. They can post in politics forums airing their concerns about these things.
What you uncultured mother****eckers can't do is butcher the dictionary. You can subscribe to some "descriptive" model of language, whereby "i luv u" means "I love you", but I do not now, nor will I ever, subscribe to this model.
I recently traversed some language stuff inquiring about chat gtp etc everything I came across said grammar rules aren't really a thing. (am i saying this wrong? they said 'your teacher was wrong about grammer')
That's prescriptive grammar rules you're talking about. Descriptive grammar rules are very real.
I wanted to advance my understanding of language theory to have a better go with my chatgtp hobby coding (interestingly they are tangential directions). I was looking up stuff related to chomsky's work etc. and somewhere came across a video I don't have that talk about a phrase like "they said they died", how that wouldn't make sense in some contexts of 'they'.
Made me think of the context of they that implies the dead person saying they themselves are dead, and how that incorrect interpretation implies a ghost.
That had me thinking about how a language could evolve to accidentally give rise to paradigms that less complex versions didn't have available.
And in the spirit of brutal evolution how we treat civilizations that have concepts that threaten the validity of our own. We would have a violent natural aversion to languages that imply concepts that invalidate ours.
It makes me think of some things but I guess as a far extension, at some point a lesser language to us would imply lesser beings to us.
Interesting
Spoiler
This is so irrelevant to the real discussion, but:
https://www.oed.com/discover/a-brief-his...
The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/you
Widespread use of French in England after 12c. gave English you the same association as French vous, and it began to drive out singular nominative thou, originally as a sign of respect (similar to the "royal we") when addressing superiors, then equals and strangers, and ultimately (by c. 1575) becoming the general form of address.
So I was half right/half wrong. Singular you for respect came first, but singular you for general usage came after singular they. The point is that this usage is centuries old, and to call it incorrect is rather prescriptivist about an old trend.
I can also call lia a narcissist and say that I think he has a mental illness.
And my transgender lady friend that likes go by 'they' but to me its only because she thinks its trends, its ok if i refer to her as a she, on this forum (she's not here or relevant etc).
"Lady friend" has a very specific meaning in English.
It means that you are ****ing, but aren't in a socially acceptable relationship.
I'm happy for you!
I used it as in she's a lady 'by any normal conventional use of the word' and she's my friend by the same...
thus my lady friend.
I used the words like norm macdonald calls an axe a giant knife.
Its valid.
There is no authority, we can say 'conventionally we do this...' or socially its acceptable to do that etc. but there is no authority
