Talk:Singular they/Archive 7

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Are the Pictures Necessary?

Sorry, but the photographs in this article are simply unnecessary. Aside from the few that show usage distribution graphics, they should all be deleted. I have looked at each for several minutes attempting to figure out what they meant or referred to... until I realized: nothing. Shall we get them rid?97.112.51.207 (talk) 03:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Is that an artistic point of view?
Where are the usage distribution graphics?
If you can find us a better picture to clarify the concept of distribution, I'd support a replacement of the first image.
Same for any of the others, really. If you can find better illustrations of the abstractions covered in the text, of course I for one would second you. Go get 'em! :)
But I think the current pictures are rather good at clarifying ideas, that previous posters have commented are rather abstract and technical, until visualised. So I think the current pictures are a great aid for the reader. But I can't speak for artistic merit, just for linguistic clarity. The current pictures, and especially the diagrams would be helpful support teaching a course on this stuff.
Harold Philby (talk) 11:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
The pictures all show a bunch of random people that have nothing to do with the captions under them. And the pictures do not clarify anything. They merely force one to read the text over and over again attempting to figure out what on Earth the caption has to do with the picture. Sure, the first one looks like it is about people and their rations. Sure, the second one is about some gal and her kid. And yeah, the final one is about students. But are people, kids, and students something that is really so hard to visualize that we need these pictures? For example, on many of the language-related articles here at Wikipedia, road signs, book snapshots, artifacts, etc. are used to demonstrate the usage of particular languages or linguistic forms. Perhaps some picture showing singular they in use would add to the explanations, but these images do not. What's worse is that the captions, aside from explaining anything, merely ask a list of unrelated rhetorical questions as if written by someone who is angrily attempting to promote the use of singular they. They give the page a biased and unbalanced look.
And if it is visualization of a concept that is difficult to grasp, and that concept is the use of plural pronouns when referencing singular entities, then diagrams showing conjugation of verb overlaps as well as other pronoun usage affects would be of a much greater value to folk who have difficulty understanding the explanations. Everywhere else on Wikipedia when images are used, they are diagrams, images of specific items/events (Rosetta Stone, a war, etc.) that serve to illustrate those specific things. I do not know of any other place on Wikipedia where a picture of a random person is used to help explain linguistic phenomena. I simply do not see the 'random pictures of random unrelated people to explain linguistic phenomena' image usage as standing up to the standards that Wikipedia has set for itself throughout the years. It makes this page look like a magazine article instead of like an encyclopedia entry. 97.112.51.207 (talk) 13:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for articulating your point of view more fully.
Here's a slightly different, slightly overlapping POV from me.
I agree with you that "The pictures all show a bunch of random people".
Absolutely! But isn't that the point: "bunch" of "random"--technically, generic--people, or generalisations, are precisely the topic of the article.
An article on generic they in English is all about people in general. So we're agreeing the pictures fit perfectly, aren't we?
The usage has been around for hundreds of years, because random groups of people have been around just as long. ;)
I also agree with you that "some picture showing singular they in use would add to the explanations".
In fact, the picture of the mother reflects generic they in Thackeray's use: "A person cannot help their birth."
The picture of the students reflects generic they in the Heritage Dictionary example "The typical student ... they".
Sure, where language use refers to concrete nouns, images are easy. If they refer to more abstract things, then they are both more necessary and more difficult.
Here though, I think you've explained very clearly, in your own words, precisely how well the pictures describe the subject of the article: "bunch" of "random" people: generic they.
Your comments regarding the motives of writers, Wikipedia's general standards and the genre of the text go rather over my head though, I'm afraid, I can't judge such things. All I see is a decent fist at describing what is now pretty well established linguistic description of how a near universal linguistic phenomenon is manifested in English.
A bias in favour of generic they you think? Hmmm, maybe, can you quote something more specific? I just can't see it myself. But as for the pictures, they are certainly pictures of classic examples of referents (and non-referents) of generic they, directly related to the examples quoted in the text (right beside them, no less). Harold Philby (talk) 12:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the pictures are excessive per our image guidelines. Their relevance is not well explained and they don't illustrate anything that can't be explained in text. Powers T 16:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Why people get confused

1. Everybody thinks they know that English has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. Indeed, this is precisely what we are taught in primary and secondary schools. It needs tertiary education in language and logic to become aware of the generic mood, which doesn't fit the oversimplified singular-plural distinction. This generic mood is extremely well documented in primary, secondary and tertiary sources at the undergraduate level, so it is easy to write it up at Wiki. More importantly, it is very common in ordinary language usage, so it is easy for readers to see that they already know how to use this feature of language, even if they don't know all the technical names that exist to describe it.

2. Another thing we all think we know is that pronouns refer to something. Again, a huge literature in late 20th century linguistics and related fields established (largely following Quine) that some pronouns do not refer to anything in particular at all, rather they mark what, in logic, are called variables.

Genericity and variables go hand in hand, and some languages (unlike English) are very sensitive to them. Things are even more interesting, because American English is more sensitive to the singular–plural distinction than UK or Australian English.

What can also be confusing is that there are two very well known and large groups, which the Chicago Manual describes, both of which forbid usages that are, in fact, perfectly comprehensible English.

All these matters seem (to me at least) more than adquately explained in the current article. Refinement is always possible, though it needs specifics of points at issue to be posted here. My instinct would be to trim, rather than expand the article, but some readers need rather more information than others. If the article is missing background info you'd like, please drop a note specifying what seems incomplete to you. If you need that info, there are bound to be other readers who will too. Harold Philby (talk) 03:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

More recent usage

"This mythology projects the inherent view in ancient Hinduism, that each human carries within himself both male and female components, which are forces rather than sexes, and it is the harmony between the creative and the annihilative, the strong and the soft, the proactive and the passive, that makes a true person."

Ashok Vohra, 'The Male-Female Hologram', Times of India 8 March, 2005, p. 9.

Indeterminate number

I have moved the following inline comments from the article to the talk page. They concern the claim that they and their in "Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor" is indeterminate in number.

Original inline comment (by me): "Anyone" is grammatically singular, so in this sentence "they"/"their" appears to refer to a single (unknown) person, not an "indeterminate number".

Inline response: "Anyone" is grammatically *generic*--*any number of* non-specific persons in a group of people, zero to all of them. This should go on the talk page. If it seems dubious to one pers, may well seem so to others. Maybe clarification is needed in the text, but maybe talk page clarification is enough.
Further comment by me: I don't really buy this. The "correct" (if slightly cumbersome) version would be "Anyone who thinks he or she has been affected should contact his or her doctor." So, when "they" is substituted for "he or she", it is seen to be actually referring to a single person. It could be anyone in the relevant group, but it's any one. The next example sentence -- which is supposed to be contrasting -- seems to just reinforce this point "Anyone" means "Any one (person)" means (in a population of students) "Any one student" means "Any student". So, the two sentences are really just illustrating the same thing. 81.129.128.20 (talk) 13:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC).
I agree with "me". "Anyone" is singular, and "thinks" is conjugated singularly. The sentence is indeterminate in gender but not in number. "Any who think they" could be considered indeterminate in number, but even that's inexact, largely due to how much gray there is in the whole topic. Please comment; in one week I plan to revise the article in favor of the "Any who think they" construction. Joshua McGee (talk) 04:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure what you want to change but I would probably disagree with a change that implied that the cardinality of "anyone" is exactly 1. Traditional concepts of number may not be appropriate. "Anyone" does not normally refer to an exclusively "singular (unknown) person". "I will shoot the first person who disagrees." refers to a singular unknown person; "I will shoot anyone who disagrees." implies that you probably have more than one bullet. --Boson (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, but do note that you used the singular form of the verb "disagree". Powers T 18:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Of course, but different rules apply to subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement, not to mention bound variable pronouns; and syntax and semantics affect agreement differently. Cf. "More than one person was responsible for the crime but they were not all equally culpable." --Boson (talk) 19:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I guess that makes sense. Powers T 22:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

[Outdent] I don't think that anyone has really addressed the issue that the two example sentences are (as far as I can see) illustrating the same thing (whatever that might be), despite the article's claims to the contrary. Let's look at a succession of sentences:

Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor.
Anyone can contact their doctor.
Any student can contact their doctor.
Any student might fail their exams.

At what point does this allleged shift from indeterminate number to indeterminate gender take place? 86.134.10.122 (talk) 03:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC).

As I read the article, it is asserting exactly what you are asserting: the two example sentences are indeed illustrating the same thing. The point the article makes is that different names are used: popular language calls this thing "singular they", linguists call it "plural anaphoric they". Sure, it's the same thing.
I'm not sure where you get the idea of indeterminate number "shifting" to indeterminate gender. I, for one, agree with you, there is no such "shift" in English (unless it lies a long way back in the history of English pronouns, but that's another, and long, story). The article, however, at least as I read it, also agrees with us. It asserts there are two types of indeterminacy, either or both of which can be marked by use of they. Where does it say one "shifts" into the other?
Regarding your sentences, you have constructed them such that all have indeterminate gender. The first, however, could clearly apply to 0, 1 or >=2 people, so also has indeterminate number (or is plural, per Givón). The key thing is that all your sentences involve universal quantification over the domain (or restriction) of a variable: for all people or students x in X, your sentences assert something that is true for person or student x. Because there is a plurality of x in X, Givón and other liguists, call usage of they, in constructions such as yours, plural. Because each x is a singular person (in the first sentence a hypothetical person), ordinary people, like you and me, call this usage "singular". In fact, though, these constructions are distributive (a singular assertion distributed to each of a plurality of people), which is why grammatical number cannot be well defined. There is no specific reference, so singularity or plurality can't be derived from a referent in the usual way. The constructions have either generic reference, or no reference at all.
Harold Philby (talk) 05:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
popular language calls this thing "singular they", linguists call it "plural anaphoric they"
As worded, this is somewhat misleading. Linguists do not call singular they "plural anaphoric they". Plural anaphoric they refers to a plural they that refers back to an antecedent, including normal plural they referring back to something like "the men" (which is not an example of singular they).--Boson (talk) 07:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
@Harold Philby. The article says:
"Singular" they indicates indeterminacy:
  • either in regard to number — Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor";
  • or, controversially, regarding gender — Any student might fail their exams.
This is saying that there are two possible ways in which "singular they" can indicate indeterminacy. The first way is illustrated by the first sentence, and the second way is illustrated by the second sentence. However, as I mentioned (and you seemed to agree), the two sentences seem to be indeterminate in exactly the same way, so the distinction that the article is making is not valid. 81.152.168.204 (talk) 12:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC).
Perhaps the example should be replaced by an example from, say, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, e.g. The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay.--Boson (talk) 13:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Like the idea of using examples from sources where possible (in fact it always should be). Is there any problem with using Givon's example, though, especially given that he specifically calls the usage "plural" and "anaphoric"? Would you agree to putting the Cambridge example of "singular they" side-by-side with Givon's "plural anaphora"? I think it's the separation of the two that makes the connection hard for the reader. We could shift the evaluative sources to the end of the lead, placing the descriptive ones at the top. That would also be more encyclopedic, imho. I susupect we'd agree Wiki is primarily an encyclopedia documenting technical analysis, not a style manual recommending or forbidding various usages, nor a newspaper reporting on the state of political debate. Harold Philby (talk) 05:39, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
By "the example", do you mean the second example? That seems to make sense because your example seems more clearly indeterminate in gender only. I also have a problem with the word "or" in the passage quoted above. Is this supposed to be an inclusive or exclusive "or"? It seems to me that the first example is indeterminate in both ways. How many possible combinations of indeterminacy are there, and how many examples do we need to illustrate them? 81.152.168.204 (talk) 13:35, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I meant the second example. I would interpret "or" to mean "and/or" (though WP:MOS prefers this to be expressed differently). --Boson (talk) 15:49, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm. Good points. As I understand literature on this topic, indeterminacy, in general and in the case of English usage of they in particular, is a very broad concept, not restricted only to indeterminacy in regard to number and gender. Number and gender are most highly relevant to English use of they in the case of this particular article only. English inflects its personal pronouns for number, and 3rd singular pronouns for gender. That is why number and gender are particularly relevant.
Example: We might be able to find whomsoever might have been responsible, unless they don't want to be found.
"Whomsoever might have been responsible" includes indeterminacy of both number and gender, but also the "woulds" and "coulds" and "shoulds" kind of indeterminacy. In English, the verbs do most of the work of marking that kind of indeterminacy, other languages have all manner of different ways of communicating hypothetical and subjunctive kinds of indeterminacy.
Personally, I think it would complicate things beyond what this article needs to enter into, to attempt anything like thorough treatment of indeterminacy, much better is sticking to the most relevant issues:
(as per Wiki MoS) number or gender or both (i.e. inclusive or).
Yes, I concur with Drs Boson and ISP address's evaluation that the lead would benefit by making the inclusivity of the disjunctive logic explicit.
If neither of you tinker with that first, I certainly shall apply your suggestion to the article text. Harold Philby (talk) 05:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't understand example

I have moved the following inline comments to the talk page. The comments regard the statement:

Talmy Givón (Syntax: an introduction, 2001) even provides "If anybody did that, they'd be insane" as an example of non-referring, plural anaphoric they.

My original inline comment: This suggests there's something surprising or unusual about this example, but it seems more or less identical to one already given as typical. It is unclear what new point this and the following sentence are trying to make.

Inline response: Feel free to discuss this on the talk page. I would think the fact that *singular* "they" is technically called *plural* "they" might be a little surprising. "Even" reassures the reader that she is about to be surprised, but by a reliable source.
Further comment by me: I'm afraid I still have no idea what this example is doing tacked on the end. What is the fundamental difference between "If anybody did that they'd be insane" and "Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor"? If there is fundamentally no difference then whatever point this sentence is trying to make should, IMO, be incorporated into the earlier discussion. 81.129.128.20 (talk) 13:35, 26 December 2009 (UTC).
  • If anybody did that, they'd be insane.
Yes, I agree with you. Givón's example is essentially the same as the earlier one, but has the benefit of being provided by a reliable source (rather than a good-faith editor) and by being described as plural.
What reliable sources like Givón call "plural anaphoric they", ordinary readers (and many sources written for us at a popular level) call "singular pronominal they".
The difficulty this article will always face is taking a reader who has searched for a "pronoun" they know by the name "singular they", which "refers" to singular antecedents, to the reliably sourced fact that this usage of they is actually "anaphoric", "plural" and "non-referring".
I'd class that as potential for reader surprise (or confusion): "Huh! That's new, how can what I know is singular be plural?"
Of course, the simple answer is: "when it's distributive and/or generic".
  • Hurrah! The cavalry is coming! (US English)
  • Hurrah! The cavalry are coming! (UK English)
  • One by one, we gave each her present. (distributive/generic 1 present for 1 person)
  • One by one, we gave each their presents. (many presents for 1 person?)
Dead simple if one's familiar with distribution and genericity, bit of a rude surprise if one's not. Depends which school one went to, or which books one's read since. Pinker provides a reliable popular-level version of Givón. "Tidal" waves are not tidal, "singular" they is not singular: but they both look like their popular descriptions.
Feel like drafting something here? Otherwise, I'll get around to doing some tweaking soon enough. Harold Philby (talk) 04:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't feel very confident about rewriting the intro; I don't think my knowledge of the subject is sufficient. If you can improve it then that would be great. As far as this point is concerned, my main desire is to fix the problem whereby the last paragraph appears to be introducing a new type of "singular they" usage but is in fact (as we seem to agree) merely extending the explanation of the usages that have already been illustrated. As I mentioned in my reply to you above, I also have a problem with the way the opening examples are presented. 81.152.168.204 (talk) 13:28, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
You, Sir (or Madam), are the perfect critic! Indeed, unless we improve the expression of the lead, intelligent readers wanting to grasp the topic are going stumble over some unnecessary bits and pieces of imprecision.
As I read it, the lead is attempting two main things, both of which are the right ones to attempt. Firstly it is attempting to give a clear illustration of usage of the topic of the article; but it is also forced to list alternative names for the topic of the article, all the more so because a good proportion of reliable sources make the point that so-called singular they is not, strictly-speaking, singular.
I'm not sure I feel confident of producing changes that will make it impossible for intelligent readers to get tangled in some kind of difficulty, but at least I can try, and your feedback can help us make progress. Thanks for persevering with offering it. Harold Philby (talk) 05:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

"They" is plural

I don't care what anyone says, "they" is plural. I know it has a long history as a substitute for "it" but that doesn't make it correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.217.95.234 (talk) 13:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

People quote great writers making grammatical mistakes and think that that means the writers didn't make mistakes after all, that we must be wrong for thinking they're mistakes! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Parmadil (talk • contribs) 14:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd prefer if there was a section about its acceptance by society and/or 'official' institutions and the like. This word gets argued about a lot. DoubleFelix (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you thinking of institutions like the Canadian Ministry of Justice (see External links) or the European Union? I presume you do not mean books by linguists or prescripive 'grammarians'. I suppose Gowers' Plain Words, originally written for the British civil service, is somewhere in between. --Boson (talk) 00:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

"'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech."

It sounds like "them" in this case refers to the class of mothers, not to the mother referenced in the line, which is also kind of a singular they, but doesn't seem to fit with the usages suggested. So does the example really fit? Twin Bird (talk) 23:07, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

In this quote clearly "they" refers to an implied "mothers", which is plural, and not to the singular word appearing explicitly in the sentence. So the sentence does not illustrate the concept of singular "they". But I can't find the sentence in the article (it's a long article, and I just skimmed it looking for it). If it's in the article, could you delete it? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

De gustibus...

Seems to me it's just a matter of taste. Some people like the singular they, other people hate it with a passion. Each to their own. Erm, or should that be "Each to his or her own"?--Shirt58 (talk) 12:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

No,

I don't think many would argue that one, but a great deal of effort is necessary, and has been expended, to justify the indiscriminate use of the "singular they". Why should anyone feel called to defend or promote the sort of linguistic laziness that gives us, for example: "...the Butt Monkey seems to walk through life with a permanent "Kick Me" sign attached to their backs, invisible to them..."? This is a quote copied and pasted from the internet. There doesn't seem to be any opposition even to this level of absurdity expressed in the article. Is there any case where the the use of a plural pronoun to describe a singular object might be considered wrong? Is there any NPOV in this article or is it dedicated to eliminating the concept of number from the language?

The use of singular they to refer to an unknown, while not strictly necessary, is understood and has ample historical support, but surely a known, singular object should be described as he, she or it, or what's a language for? Ampwright (talk) 03:14, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The article could probably do a better job of distinguishing different uses of "singular they" and discussing the relative acceptability of the different uses in different registers. However, I don't think we should be implying that "singular they" is in fact used in English solely for unknown persons. I don't think it is a question of "indiscriminate use", though; some people are probably very discriminating, for instance, about not using "he" when there is no antecedent that directly refers to a unique, definite, male person.
You ask Is there any case where the the use of a plural pronoun to describe a singular object might be considered wrong?
Clearly there are many such cases, for instance:
  • * My father likes to sit at that table and drink their coffee?" (unless referring to someone else's coffeee)
  • * My sister likes to make their own clothes."
In these cases, there is a true antecedent that refers to a definite person of known sex. Perhaps the article would appear less one-sided if it also discussed these "obvious", normal cases, rather than just the exceptions to the general rule, but that might be regarded as off-topic.
Other cases are more uncertain, and different people would find they/them/their more or less acceptable, at least in informal English.
We perhaps need to distinguish more clearly between such uses as
  • "bound variable pronouns" or similar constructions, where there is no antecedent referring to a specific person, but rather there is a pairwise relationship with elements of a set, such as "Everyone returned to their seats", "If anyone calls, tell them I'm out" (examples from Pinker, The Language Instinct).
  • use of a singular to represent a class of person, rather than a specific person:
    • "The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay." [example from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language]
    • "If a non-combatant discovers you and is about to raise the alarm, are you permitted to kill them?"
    • "We should not judge a crime victim by what they were wearing."
  • reference to a definite person of unknown sex:
    • "Is that a man or a woman sitting at the table over there." "I don't know; I can only see the back of their head."
  • reference to a person chosen from a group that includes people of different sex:
  • indefinite person of known sex (possibly less acceptable but used, even by educated people in formal English):
    • " Who wears white during their period?" (from a panty-liner commercial on television)
    • "No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify against their child. " (Monica Lewinsky's mother's attorney)
    • "I plan to sit down with each individual and line out their role." (John Cunniff, new coach of New Jersey Devils' (all-men's) hockey team, on being asked about personnel changes)
    • "I challenge you to find a lesbian who doesn't want to see themselves portrayed on television." (actress on Showtime's The L-Word)
  • syntactically indefinite but (pragmatically) specific person of known sex:
    • ". . . the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home." (Obama)
Since we are describing a phenomenon, not giving advice on how people should write English, we should probably include examples of (even) less acceptable usage that actually occurs, even in formal writing, such as the following, which refers to a specific, named person of known sex but the pronoun is probably intended to be equivalent to something like "this person's", rather than "this man's":
  • "Dr Gerald X has applied for a position of Lecturer in the Department of X at the University of Y. I would be grateful if you could provide a reference on their suitability for this post. "
This needs quite a lot of work (and probably some restructuring of the article) to get it right. In particular, any sources need to be cited properly. Some of the above examples are taken from Language Log, some indirectly from other people.
There are a number of problems with the structure of this article, that probably result from being written by different editors with different approaches.
--Boson (talk) 16:29, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I guess my point is that there's a difference between description and descriptivism. The article takes the descriptivist position that since even the most outrageously illogical examples have been found and described, they're "correct". All "working" grammarians seem to be descriptivists (I asked before what the use was of a grammarian who doesn't teach grammar) and they have lots of citations from the books they wrote. Seven archives of discussion haven't swayed them, though, and It doesn't look as if anything will. Ampwright (talk) 15:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Geoffrey K. Pullum, a mainstream linguist and therefore a descriptivist, occasionally publishes examples on Language Log which (he says and I agree) are actually incorrect. The difference between a prescriptivist and a descriptivist is not that one wants/claims/believes/... language to follow rules and the other doesn't, it is in where they get their rules. Prescriptivists get them from earlier authorities on the language in question and sometimes on other languages, and from their own tastes. They are playing a big telephone game in which statements of personal preference (Example: "['Less'] is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I think Fewer would do better. No Fewer than a Hundred appears to me not only more elegant than No Less than a Hundred, but more strictly proper." -- Robert Baker, Reflections on the English Language, London 1770) gradually morph into absolute rules simply by one author copying from another and overstating a bit more, over several generations. Descriptivists get their rules from observations of actual language use.
As a non-native speaker, I learned English grammar from books written by descriptivist grammarians. That's a good thing, because now I can speak and write English the way native speakers do. The language rules dreamed up by prescriptivists are usually so bad that they themselves can't follow them if they want to write in good style. Strunk and White regularly comes up as an example. The very page that recommends against the use of passive is full of passive constructions, for instance.
I am afraid many prescriptivists are just pompous fools and easily ridiculed by unfairly looking at the obvious facts, as in this case. For many links related to the topic, such as this nice one, see this list. Hans Adler 15:42, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
@Ampwright: Your key point is that
The article takes the descriptivist position that since even the most outrageously illogical examples have been found and described, they're "correct".
If the article says that, it is not descriptivist. Descriptivism does not say that anything is "correct" -- it just says that something exists, without taking a right-or-wrong position on it.
Can you show me where the article says that certain usages are "correct"? Then I'll change these passages accordingly. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:28, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, descriptivist grammarians do distinguish between correct and incorrect. It's just that they are more careful about which dialect or sociolect of a language they are talking about, where they get their information, and how strongly they state it. E.g., if 40% of speakers of a dialect/sociolect use a construction as a matter of course, 40% reject it, and 20% sometimes use it but aren't sure if they should, then a descriptivist will simply say it's a borderline case for that dialect/sociolect whereas a prescriptivist will likely make a categorical claim that the construction is grammatical or that it isn't -- usually based on analogies to a more prestigious dialect/sociolect (or even a different language), personal taste disguised as 'logic', or earlier authorities who used similarly suspicious methods.
In the specific case of singular they we generally have such a borderline case. Its degree of acceptance depends not just on the sociolect in question but also on the kind of text or communication in which it occurs and on various subtleties. That is the real reason why the article shouldn't say it's correct, but also not that it's incorrect. Hans Adler 10:31, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

These are two different meanings of "correct". When I said "Descriptivism does not say that anything is "correct", I meant "correct" in the same sense that Ampwright apparently meant it -- "correct" in the sense of "what one should do". When you say descriptivist grammarians do distinguish correct from incorrect, I presume you mean they distinguish correct descriptions from incorrect descriptions. So we don't disagree with each other. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

No, that's not what I mean. I am talking about what is going on when a descriptivist linguist gets a term paper from a student, full of actual grammar mistakes (as opposed to mere transgressions against rules only dreamed up by prescriptivists), and marks them all with red ink. If descriptivists really subscribed to such an extreme ideology according to which every usage is correct so long as it is used, then they wouldn't complain about incompetent mislabelling of individual practices as errors, as in this good example, but would instead complain about the idea that such a thing as an error exists in the first place. I have seen a number of Language Log posts that say explicitly that the poster believes that language has rules which should be followed, and give examples of what is unquestionably wrong. Would a linguist always grade your writing A+? is a fine specimen of the genre. Hans Adler 16:32, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
You refer to such an extreme ideology according to which every usage is correct so long as it is used. But I never alluded to any such ideology -- quite the opposite, I alluded to an "ideology" (your term) of mentioning that a usage exists without calling it correct or incorrect. It is quite possible (and it is Wikipedia policy) to state that a usage exists without telling the reader that they (ahem) should or should not use it. Wikipedia describes what is done, and it describes what others say should be done, but it doesn't say what should be done.
As for the linguistics professor who marks grammar mistakes, they're (ahem) being prescriptivist in the student's writing assignments (just more intelligently prescriptivist than knee-jerk prescriptivists are), and they are certainly also prescriptivist toward themselves when they choose a style for writing their research papers. But the content of their articles in linguistics journals does not say whether the empirical observations they describe are right or wrong usage.
Yes, it seems we don't really disagree about the substance. Note that I was using the context and terminology set up by Ampwright: "I guess my point is that there's a difference between description and descriptivism. The article takes the descriptivist position that since even the most outrageously illogical examples have been found and described, they're 'correct'." The first sentence sets up a difference between description and descriptivism, and one can analogously distinguish prescription and prescriptivism.
I didn't take the second sentence too seriously; surely it doesn't make much sense to downplay the relevance of the consistent practice of writers such as Caxton, Shakespeare, Austen, Twain and Shaw with the words "the most outrageously illogical examples have been found and described". Language is full of inconsistencies and illogical constructions, many of which are actually defended by the prescriptivist crowd. Hans Adler 18:42, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Reason for deleting image

In the above diagram, the circles (plural) ARE called X and Y.
Any (generic) one (singular) of the circles (plural) IS called x.
One specific circle (singular) IS called Y.
English generally prefers to cast generics as singular.

The section "Usage" contains this image. It, along with its caption, is uninterpretable for the following reasons, and so I am deleting it. What does it have to do with generic "they" or generic "he"? Why does it distinguish IS and ARE and then say "English generally prefers to cast generics as singular.", when the article points out that generic "they" has plural form but often singular antecedent? What is the red section supposed to be?--in a Venn diagram, the intersection is supposed to refer to something that is in both categories, whereas here x refers to the red section but is defined as any one of the circles (even though neither of the circles is exclusively in the red section). Why in the world do the words "singular", "generic", "plural", "species", "genus", "specification", and "generalization" appear in random places? And what in the world is the point of the arrows going left and right? Duoduoduo (talk) 16:13, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I think I would be able to answer one or two of your questions, but I agree the image is hopeless. It's also not necessary at all. How long has it been in the article? I am surprised now that I never even noticed it before. Hans Adler 22:57, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
It was put there at 05:00, 9 May 2009. Duoduoduo (talk) 00:13, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Lead section

I never liked the lead section of this article -- thought it was very confusing for non-specialists -- so I recently tried to reword it in an attempt to make it easier to understand. There is one thing that still bugs me though. It seems to me that the "indeterminate number" example is really exactly the same as the "indeterminate gender" case. To avoid "singular they", one could make the changes:

"One student failed their exam" -> "One student failed his/her exam"
"Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor" -> "Anyone who thinks he/she has been affected should contact his/her doctor"

In other words, "they" is substituting for "he/she" in exactly the same way in both cases. So what is the difference? Can anyone think of a way -- perhaps using a better example -- to make this clearer to the ordinary reader? 109.153.234.32 (talk) 14:58, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the second example should be like this?

"Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor" as opposed to "Those who think they have been affected should contact their doctor"

Diego (talk) 15:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
How about if we augment
For example, in "Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor", they and their are within the scope of the universal, distributive quantifier anyone,[1] and can be interpreted as referring to an unspecified individual or to people in general (notwithstanding the fact that "anyone" is strictly grammatically singular).
to say
For example, in "Anyone who thinks they have been affected should contact their doctor", they and their are within the scope of the universal, distributive quantifier anyone,[1] and can be interpreted as referring to an unspecified individual (meaning "Any person who thinks he or she has been affected should contact his or her doctor") or to people in general, notwithstanding the fact that "anyone" is strictly grammatically singular (meaning "All people who think they have been affected should contact their doctors").
Duoduoduo (talk) 15:29, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
(ec) The first is already fine since it's indeterminate gender but the number is clear. For the other, interestingly, the following change does not quite work:
"Anyone who thinks they may be in danger of a miscarriage should contact their doctor immediately."
Sure, you can say it, but it sounds like political correctness gone berzerk. Maybe the grammatical analysis in the lead is not quite correct. Hans Adler 15:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I disagree. To my native-English-language ear, "Anyone who thinks they may be in danger of a miscarriage should contact their doctor immediately." sound totally ordinary, not "politically correct". I think someone speaking off the cuff would be equally likely to say "miscarriage...their doctor" as "miscarriage...her doctor." Duoduoduo (talk) 16:23, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
(OP) I've had another idea too. I think you can analyse the "anyone" sentence in two ways. The first is exactly the same as the gender-indeterminate case. In other words, we know that "anyone" refers to a single person, but we say "Anyone who thinks they may be" in the absence of a natural gender-neutral pronoun. The second way of looking at it is that we use "they" not because we wanted a gender-neutral pronoun but none was available, but because we feel logically we really are talking about a plural subject, despite "anyone" being strictly singular. Actually, this vaguely occurred to me before, but I was not confident because it breaks the "gender-indeterminate" / "number-indeterminate" categorisation that has been in place for a long time. Instead of an "indeterminate number" case, we would have something like "grammatically singular but logically plural" case. But is that what "generic they" means? And is it even an example of "singular they"? 86.177.106.43 (talk) 21:24, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

"Themself" as "Standard English"

The article asserts without support: "For example, A person might find themself in a fix is considered standard English, but not Dr. Brown might find themself in a fix."

I have yet to find a dictionary that claims that "themself" is standard, and in fact, most consider it simply incorrect.

Macmillan: Most people consider this use incorrect.

Oxford: In recent years, people have started to use themself to correspond to this singular use of they and them: it’s seen as the logical singular form of themselves. For example:

This is the first step in helping someone to help themself. This form is not yet widely accepted, however, so you should avoid using it in formal written contexts. If you were writing the sentence above, you should say: This is the first step in helping someone to help themselves.

Collins: Some people consider this use to be incorrect.

World English Dictonary: not standard.

Now one can simply describe this usage without commenting on its "correctness", but to claim that it is "standard" is simply not true. --Janko (talk) 16:26, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

It is never correct to use they/them to refer to the singular case. They/them should always refer to the plural. For example, "helping someone help themselves" is never correct, because it is a mismatch between the singular and plural. That many write this way does not make this proper English grammar. This should be corrected to "helping someone help himself," with the himself understood to mean anyone - a male or female. "A student takes his exam" is correct; "a student takes their exam" is always wrong. "A student takes her exam" is permissible, but in such cases it may be inferred that all students in question are female (such as at a female boarding school). Alternatively, "students take their exams" is also correct.

There is absolutely nothing discriminatory or sexist about using "man" or "him" to refer to both sexes; this has been done for millennia. For example, mankind means all people; it does not mean and has never meant just males. Humankind means all people but the emphasis on "human" conjures up comparisons with the non-human, so humankind is awkward at best and should be avoided (except perhaps if one is writing science fiction). Most attempts at gender neutralization produce awkward and tendentious language at best. The lone exception is when a sentence can be pluralized to remove gender references but even then for the reasons pointed out above there may be problems doing so.

"...to help themself." -- This is atrocious grammar and should always be avoided! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tpkatsa (talk • contribs) 03:57, 8 November 2013

Thanks, but our opinions on what is good English are not important. If you know of a reliable source that has information on the topic, it would be helpful to mention it, however there are few such sources that apply to English other than at a specific time—what was correct fifty years ago may not be correct now. Johnuniq (talk) 05:04, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

It occurs in three main situations

In the lede, it is written that "It occurs in three main situation:", after which there are two bullets. I was about to go ahead with putting a bullet before the third case (the text beginning "In some cases"), but I hesitate because surely, I thought, this has been discussed before. Have I overlooked something? I will wait a decent interval before making this change. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe the third case referred to the following text, which was removed:

"The third situation in which singular they is used is when someone who identifies as transgender or gender non-conforming chooses to use singular they as their pronoun.[citation needed][clarification needed]"

. I would suggest changing the preceding text to "It typically occurs in the following situations:"
--Boson (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Surely we should be able to find a citation for that third one. It's pretty well-established. AJD (talk) 04:21, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I couldn't find a reliable source for this wording but, if someone else does find a suitable source, I think we need to take into account that it is probably someone else who makes the final choice of which pronoun to use. The person concerned will presumably use the pronoun "I" and merely request others to use a particular third-person pronoun. There is some discussion on transgender pronouns in reliable sources but it seems to be mainly about respecting the person's choice (he or she often being implied). It is also possible that uninvolved persons will choose to use they when the person's preference is unknown (or even regardless of such a preference). So we probably want sources that confirm that
  1. they is sometimes used for transgender (etc.) people and possibly
  2. that some transgender people (etc.) ask to be referred to as they and
  3. that some style guides recommend complying with such requests.
All this should probably not be in the introduction, of course. --Boson (talk) 11:51, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Technical terms section

This section seems to be misnamed and is pretty opaque for the average reader. If it is meant to explain to the average reader the terms that they will need to understand the article, I don't think it works. I plan to move it to "Grammatical analysis" and rework it, removing the material that argues a position and other original research as well as material that is too theoretical. I shall also attempt to make the style more encyclopedic and less essay-like. I think it is probably simpler if I am bold and just do it. --Boson (talk) 16:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Notes and references

I think the notes and references could be improved:

  • There appears to be repetition of references: inline, in footnotes and in further reading and external links.
  • Formatting seems to vary.
  • I think all references should use footnotes. Direct quotes should normally be attributed inline, but I think this should be additional (with details in footnotes). Repetition of references in the sections "Further reading" or "External links" should be reserved for exceptional circumstances.
  • I propose standardizing references, using list-defined references. It might (later) be a good idea to use {{Sfn}} for books.
  • I also think it might be a good idea to separate the footnotes into two or three groups (notes, references, possibly separate list for cited usage)

--Boson (talk) 20:50, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I have now separated this into three sections:
  1. Notes
  2. Sources of original English supporting usage
  3. Normal sources supporting statements

I have also provided more inline attribution of quotes and provided more information where original quotaions of English usage were obtained from intermediate sources such as usage guides and grammars. --Boson (talk) 16:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Repetition and structure

The article still seems to be relatively unstructured and repetitive.

  • There are a lot of repetitive examples all over the place. Repetition may be necessary sometimes when the same thing is discussed from different points of view (e.g. grammar, actual usage, and prescriptive recommendations or proscriptions), and it may be necessary to have examples in different places, e.g. for showing different types of usage, changing usage, grammatical analysis of usage etc., but I think the discussion shoud be more structured and less redundant.
    • The introduction briefly summarizes the article (as it should). However it also contains details that do not really belong there.
    • The section named "Summary" contains another summary but also includes a lot of other stuff, including grammatical analysis.
    • There is a lot of repetitive analysis of the logic, syntax and semantics. Some of it is redundant and some is only tangentially relevant. It should be condensed and largely discussed in one section.
  • Although examples from different periods are used, there is no structure to the historical development. I believe there are few examples of cited contemporary use (e.g. post 1980).

--Boson (talk) 20:47, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I have attempted to address these issues. --Boson (talk) 16:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Singular they vs semantic plural

In the example, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another", isn't that just a semantic plural? The copula would be "are", just as it could be for "a crowd". — kwami (talk) 00:07, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

That would suggest "one people are" and "when . . . one people dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . .", but I agree that it might be better to remove the example. --Boson (talk) 06:22, 16 April 2014 (UTC) PS: Since it is only an example, I have now gone ahead and removed it. --Boson (talk) 06:31, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, you can say "the crowd are", but not "a crowd are". But with enough separation between the "one" and "are", it's not such a clash. — kwami (talk) 08:28, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

New section on generic e belongs elsewhere

I do not believe the recently added section on the generic e belongs in this article. It may belong elsewhere, e.g. Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns#Invented pronouns and/or Spivak pronoun. This article is about one solution to the problem (including its historical development), not about alternative solutions. --Boson (talk) 14:53, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of whether generic e belongs in this article (it does parallel generic they and generic he), the question of how this article dovetails with this linguistic anomaly is broadened by this idea. Clearly, English has a significant lacuna in this regard: it has no formal/standard/proper way of handling this idea. Singular they is an inherent contradiction in number. It is the nature of English to change in response to need and incorporate words when no suitable one exists. To neglect alternative suggestions or proposals would seem to neglect the underlying issue to which this article is alluding. Perhaps a link to Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns#Invented pronouns should be included, but a brief discussion of alternatives is entirely in line with addressing this failing in English. Not including potential remedies could be seen to imply subtly that using they as singular should be considered proper. Without giving a nod alternatives, this article is functionally incomplete or non sequitur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.10 (talk) 18:42, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
But adding only one invented alternative gives it undue weight. And adding all of them basically turns this article into a different article that already exists elsewhere. Generic he has a special position, because it has historically competed with singular they, both being regularly used by major authors. The information about the underlying issue does not need to be in this article -- where it is off-topic. You can regard this article as a sub-article of an article about the general issue of gender-neutral pronouns. We could discuss how the various articles on related topics could be coordinated. --Boson (talk) 22:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree that generic e is not suitable for this article which concerns the topic of an established form of English. This is not the place to add other ideas that people have proposed. Johnuniq (talk) 23:57, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for the welcome, Boson. In reviewing the page you site on gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns, it seems that Singular they is most appropriately subsumed under that page. The linguistic notion of using they as singular (though employed as plural in construction) is only one of several attempts at patching a hole in English and, in the same way that a "generic e" category here gives it undue weight, allowing an entire page on singular they that references only singular he within it as an alternative equally gives "singular they" (along with singular he) undue weight. I imagine that one of two things should occur: 1) redirecting readers attempting to view Singular they to Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns and then moving the material from singular they to its new home (this may balloon that article, making it difficult to navigate) or 2) including in the introduction of Singular they a contextualization of this article as simply one attempt at patching a hole in the language and directing people to the "parent" article on gender neutral pronouns for a more thorough discussion of this topic with its attendant listing of historical attempts at addressing this concern. I imagine that option (2) is more direct and simpler. Nevertheless, it remains a point of great consternation that English, a language of such adaptability, has failed to incorporate so simple a change as the adoption of a word it needs so fundamentally.71.233.155.248 (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
It could be said that this article is already subsumed under the parent article, in that that article uses the {{Main}} template to link here, which makes this article a sub-article of that one, rather than just a linked article. The appropriate section in that article should present a brief summary of this article. As regards due weight, I think it is appropriate that various ideas that have not gained a lot of traction should be given much less prominence than the much discussed controversy over generic he vs. singular they. These two, in my opinion, need to be discussed together. I agree that it would be appropriate to provide a better introduction to the problems that these solutions attempt to solve. It might be sensible to have a separate section that makes that clear, but we should be careful not to present the singular they purely as a solution to the lack of a singular epicene pronoun in English. In different "varieties" of English, "they" is used with a singular "antecedent" for various purposes. With words like "everyone", for instance, it can be argued that it is used because of notional plurality, and there are a number of uses of they to express different types of indeterminacy that probably need expanding. This article's section about gender neutrality should perhaps link to the other article using a {{Further}} template. --Boson (talk) 01:47, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
I've replaced the "e" section with a brief section mentioning and linking to the full list of alternative gender-neutral pronouns page. I don't see any argument as to why "e" would deserve more special-treatment here than any of the other proposed gender-neutral pronouns, and this is a "they"-focused page; any discussions of alternatives belongs in Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns#Alternatives_to_generic_he ToastyKen (talk) 02:57, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
"E" is also problematic in that it's often indistinguishable from "he" in speech, and so is only suitable for writing. — kwami (talk) 04:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Comparison with other languages off-topic

Since this article is about an English pronoun, I propose removing the section on Basque, Sumerian, etc.. Even neglecting the different language, I'm not sure it's really about the same topic, and it looks a bit like orginal research as far as the connection with singular they is concerned. --Boson (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Forgive the fact that I don't know how to reply to Talk posts properly. I came to this page specifically wanting to see comparisons to other languages, because I wanted to see how this debate has evolved elsewhere. While the specific content of this section is not particularly helpful in answering this question for me, the sentiment remains. 96.40.101.116 (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Since you mention a debate, I am wondering if you were you actually looking for "singular they" in other languages -- or were you interested, for instance, in gender-neutral language? --Boson (talk) 08:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC) PS: . . . or gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns? --Boson (talk) 08:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure if the last comment has been adequately dealt with. Any objections to removing this section from the article? The connection seems somewhat tenuous.--Boson (talk) 09:11, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, they have nothing to do with each other. If there's another language that uses the plural PN in the singular to avoid specifying gender, then that would be good to have. — kwami (talk) 04:35, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Mislabeling of contemporary usage of gender neutral he

"The patient should be informed of his therapeutic options."— in a text about prostate cancer (2004) As prostate cancer is only possible in men, we can assume that the patient referenced is male. Therefore the use of he in the sentence above is very likely gender specific and should be removed from the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.61.107.160 (talk) 15:34, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I, too, do not like the "Singular they" (which title strikes me as an impossibility). Prostate cancer aside, the they/she/he or their/her/his can often be left out, or replaced with 'the' or 'some', in similar sentences, thus:
  • "The patient should be informed of (the) therapeutic options."
--Hordaland (talk) 08:09, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
This section was intended to be about actual usage of "he" with a generic antecedent. There is a separate section on acceptability and prescriptive guidance. --Boson (talk) 10:47, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
I (earlier) reworded the text to clarify the examples' progression from cases where the indefinite antecedent can be assumed (from the extralinguistic context) to be male, through cases where such an assumption is questionable, to cases where the antecedent obviously refers to person of either sex. Since this might still be read as classifying all these uses as "purportedly gender-neutral", I have now changed the sub-heading. --Boson (talk) 10:47, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Author's name corrected or misquoted in secondary source

This is a minor point, but I'm not quite sure how to best handle this quotation, without going overboard with explanations. I have quoted Miller & Swift, who quote a reader's letter to the New York Times. Since the book is by "authorities" on the subject, I think the fact that they quoted it is important, and I want to give both the original source and the secondary source. According to the NYT archives , the letter was clearly signed "C. Adendyk". However Miller & Swift give the author's name as "C. Badendyck". Based solely on the name "Badendyck" seeming more likely, I suspect that the Miller & Swift version was justified, but the printed version of the reader's letter is quite clearly different, so I don't think a "silent" correction is really appropriate.

So I have given the author's name as "Adendyck" but given the name "Badendyck [sic]" for the quotation and written "as quoted by . . ." since I am primarily citing the book version. I suppose this might be read as implying that Miller & Swift were wrong.

I am not very happy with this solution, but this also serves to document what is going on, in case anyone wonders about the discrepancy and the "sic". --Boson (talk) 13:59, 14 July 2014 (UTC)


Good job with your edits. The study that you added is interesting and your links helpful.Overall, I think the article is complete.

Antzela (talk) 23:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Contradiction they vs it

Hello all. First off, I know that issues like this can be sensitive, so please understand I'm not here to attack anyone's view, gender identity, validity, etc. I have noticed a rather blatant contradiction. The second paragraph begins with the statement:

"A reason for its use is that English has no dedicated singular personal pronoun of indeterminate gender."

However, if you check the article on it, the lede literally states:

""It" /ɪt/ is a third-person, singular neuter pronoun (nominative (subjective) case and oblique (objective) case) in Modern English."

Followed by a table of conjugation entitled "Personal pronouns in standard Modern English." Very clearly these statements directly contradict each other. I was wondering what a possible remedy for this would be? I have previously gone through the archives, the closest I can find to this issue is this, but still doesn't address this particular issue. AnyyVen (talk) 12:52, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a contradiction, since it is not a personal pronoun of indeterminate gender, though there are a number of problems associated with the ambiguity of terms like personal and gender and the acceptability and meaning of terms like gender and sex in specific contexts.
I suppose one could think about changing
  • "English has no dedicated singular personal pronoun of indeterminate gender."
to something like
  • "English has no dedicated singular deictic (or anaphoric) pronoun for referring to persons without specifying their sex or social gender."
but I'm not too happy with that, and I'm not really sure what your issue is.
--Boson (talk) 15:22, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Not so much an issue per se; this could be my own lack of knowledge on the subject. For one, I suppose that "indeterminate gender" is nonspecific in whether it's referring to grammatical gender, in which case wouldn't "it," being neuter, be a personal pronoun of "indeterminate" gender? In that case I guess it's ambiguity on what's meant by "gender," re: social gender vs grammatical gender. Maybe I'm nitpicking, I don't mean to be. For instance, I understand that "it" is usually used in gender-neutral cases when referring to something that isn't regarded as a person, which may be regarded as offensive. Is it grammatically correct though (re: "A child learns to speak the language of its environment.")? Or socially incorrect? Maybe I'm missing it, but is any of this addressed anywhere? I actually came here trying to find out what the correct gender-neutral term to refer to a person is, and I'm honestly just as confused as I was before. AnyyVen (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
How about changing the sentence in this article to "A reason for its use is that English has no dedicated gender-neutral third-person singular animate pronoun."? (key word: "animate") It's still a mouthful, but I think it would be clearer.
In answer to your question, AnyyVen, the most common gender-neutral pronoun used for a person in English is "they", although some people prefer to use "he or she" in formal contexts. Some people use "it" for a baby whose gender is unknown, but I usually don't. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:36, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
All the alternatives probably have problems. I'm not too keen on "animate", because "it" is routinely used for animals (except when treated as having a personality). It is conventionally referred to as a personal pronoun, but that does not mean "personal" in the sense of referring to a "personal" referent (a real-world entity treated as a person). --Boson (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Of course, "it" is often used to refer to animals, but reliable sources still describe "it" as an inanimate pronoun and "he" and "she" as animate pronouns.[1] [2] So I think it would be reasonable to include the word "animate" here. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:05, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
I think the problem is perhaps that people started calling it a "personal pronoun". I see Quirk et al. (Comprehensive GEL) call it "nonpersonal" (who being "personal").
I would accept "animate" (because it is used), but I don't think it's ideal, because it is used for most living things except humans.
I have also seen "common-sex", "common-gender", and "gender-neutral", not to mention "epicene".
Of course, singular they cannot (I believe) be used of an inanimate object. I don't recall seeing this stated quite so explictly, though I suppose it is more obviously implicit in terms like "common-sex", but there would probably be the usual objections to "sex, and "common-social-gender" doesn't really work.
I see Huddleston et al. (Cambridge GEL) talk of dual-gender nouns (like tutor), as opposed to triple-gender nouns (like infant), in the sense that they can be the antecedent of "he" and "she" and possibly "it".
Just thinking out loud (so to speak).
--Boson (talk) 00:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

WSJ article

Article about singular they was posted in WSJ recently: http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-they-be-accepted-as-a-singular-pronoun-1428686651

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I on this topic can use it in the article? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:41, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Intro definition is too broad

The intro gives examples of "typical" ways to use "they" in the singular, but it doesn't say clearly that "they" can't be used in all cases. For example, this phrase is incorrect:

  • Mary was a lovely kid. They lived up the road from us.

Using "they" to refer to Mary is flat incorrect. I'm having difficulty deducing what the rule is, but it seems to be along the lines of: "they" can be used in the singular if it can be replaced by "that person".

I can think of examples where substituting in "that person" would make for an awkward sentence, but this is still the best explanation I have. Can anyone do better? Gronky (talk) 20:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Is your comment intended to refer just to the intro?
Whatever "rule" we come up with we would want a reliable linguistic source, and it would need to describe actual usage.
One problem is that they is sometimes used even when the sex of the person is actually known or implied, so, while it is typically used with an antecedent of indeterminate gender, I don't think we can go so far as to say that the antecedent must be of indeterminate gender or that the referent must be of unknown sex.
I would surmise that the acceptability of "singular they is more widespread when the antecedent is indeterminate but I don't know if we have a source that is that explicit.
Though not typical, even with your example, I suspect that some people might use they in unusual circumstances:
"Mary was a lovely kid. They lived up the road from us.Of course, they were called Bradley then."
I suppose the common theme is that there is something that makes the specification of a single gender inapproppriate or undesired. --Boson (talk) 23:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
My comment is just about the intro. (For now.)
Are there references that some people would write a sentence like the example you give? I don't know how to "prove" that it isn't correct English, but it's so unusual that I think it fits the "patently obvious" criteria unless proven otherwise (e.g. references to a few people writing this way without including an explanation of why they've written this way).
I came to this article because we're discussing this on Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:they#Incorrectly_broad_regarding_singular_senses
(The initial discussion is a bit confused because we were discussing three issues at the same time, so I've now made three sub-headings near the end.) Gronky (talk) 03:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure someone's written about it somewhere if you dig around enough. Like Boson said, though, singular they is quite frequently used even when the gender of the referrent is known: think of a sentence like: "If one of the girls shows up, tell them to wait here." (Proscriptivists would insist on a "her" here, but you'll find few native speakers who would actually say "her" in such a case, and most of us would find it stilted and unnatural). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:38, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
I'm sceptical that "few" speakers would say 'her' in "if one of the girls..." or that "most" would find it unnatural; that seems like an overstatement. But a sizeable number would say 'them', it's true, and such usage would be grammatical (or — as grammatical as any other use of singular 'they'). -sche (talk) 06:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, and we have quite a few examples on the Wiktionary citations page. The existence or validity of the singular-they isn't in question. The question is how to describe where it's not possible. E.g.:
  • "Mary was a hermit. They lived in isolation."
I'm sure we'll all agree that this is not a valid use of the centuries-old singular-they.
(A separate question then arrises as to whether a new use has been established in recent times by people who would use "they" in all situations, including the above "hermit" example, as a non-gendered replacement for "he" and "she".) Gronky (talk) 08:08, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Here's a sample from the article:

According to The Little, Brown Handbook, most experts—and some teachers and employers—find use of singular they unacceptable:
"Although some experts accept they, them, and their with singular indefinite words, most do not, and many teachers and employers regard the plural as incorrect. To be safe, work for agreement between singular indefinite words and the pronouns that refer to them [. . . ]"

There's no indication here of what criteria were used to decide who were and were not "experts". I venture to guess that these "experts" were mere linguistic busybodies (aka "language mavens"); they certainly weren't thinking linguists.

Luckily, the article isn't monopolized by arbitrary arbiters and similar "expertise". It also cites The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. This part is worth reading: it explains (A) how singular "they" is fine, even when used for a person of known sex; and (B) how "Mary was a lovely kid. They lived up the road from us" will strike many people (myself included) as bizarre. Here's the WP article:

Use of singular they is stated to be "particularly common", even "stylistically neutral" with antecedents such as everyone, someone, and no one, but more restricted when referring to common nouns as antecedents

Right (though not particularly clear). "A journalist shouldn't be forced to reveal her sources" is normal because "a journalist" here has no specific referent (and could be male or female). Use of "they" for Mary is a very different matter (which is not to say that conditions that make it OK can't be dreamt up).

Compare the following. First, though: background knowledge: the speaker knows that the listener knows that Jim is straight. "Jim told me last night that he's engaged to a journalist -- he introduced me to her/??them too." Here, "a journalist" does have a specific referent, so "them" is odd. (Although yes, you can dream up conditions in which it's possible.)

Incidentally, I'm a native speaker of English, Curly Turkey, and I find both "If one of the girls shows up, tell them/her to wait here" perfectly fine. (Did you perhaps intend to write not "one" but "any"? That would be a different non-issue, bringing up the Burning Question (not!) of whether "any" has to be singular. [Hint: No it doesn't.])

More on this in this and various other "Language Log" posts.

Gronky, it would be good if more Wiktionary editors bought copies of one or other of the two grammar books by Huddleston and Pullum: All too often, Wiktionary assigns categories just as unthinking lexicographers are wont to do (by copying other dictionaries), rather than by attending to mainstream linguistics. (In "Jurgis waited outside and walked home with Marija", outside is not an adverb, it's a preposition.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Hoary, thanks for this. The quote from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language does give a little help (we had already established it could replace "someone", but I'll add "everyone" and "no one"), but I'm still at a loss as to how to explain where singular-they is not possible (e.g. "Mary was a hermit. They lived in isolation."). Gronky (talk) 08:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
The pronoun is anaphoric, referring to "Mary", but "Mary" has a specific referent. (However, see below.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Hoary: on a gut level, if I heard "she" in my example in conversation, it would be unusual enough that it wouldn't escape my notice. On a gut level again, I feel like it's a concrete-abstract thing, which is why "Mary" can't be referred to as "they", but then there's this:
— "Dad, there's a guy at the door."
— "Tell them I'll be there in a sec."
There's a concrete male person at the door, but it would not be in the least unusual to call them a "them". This would not work, though, if the person were identified ("Dad, Ned Flanders is at the door." "Tell *them I'll be there in a sec.") Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, maybe it's a generational thing. (My username hints at my age and decrepitude.) Or of course it could be areal, or something else entirely. ¶ "Dad, there's a guy at the door." / "Tell them I'll be there in a sec." Neat example: yes, it's entirely idiomatic for me, too. "A guy" is new in the conversation, but yes there's a specific referent. CGEL doesn't elaborate, and I'm reluctant to launch myself into a lengthy browsing of "Language Log" right now. In the meantime, I do note that "Dad, there's some guy at the door" would be fine (for me); whereas if I alter my earlier example, "Jim told me last night that he's engaged to some journalist -- he introduced me to her/??them too", it would sound (to me) somewhat contemptuous. I wonder if there might be a shade of (sex/number-irrelevant) difference between "them" and "him/her": that singular they might be more or less incompatible with expressed interest in the referent; that (for definites) if it's just some guy, or just some girl, then "them" is fine; whereas if it's a guy or girl of conversational interest, then "them" is odd. But I'm just thinking out loud here. -- Hoary (talk) 10:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
I wonder how you're reading the "he introduced me to them too" example to yourself—if you stressed the "them" then it would indeed sound comtemptuous or whatever. But pronouns are not normally stressed. Pronounce it /ðəm/ with no hint of stress, the way you would "'im" (for "him"), and I think you'll find it sounds quite natural. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 10:31, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
Pronounce it /ðəm/ with no hint of stress: Yes. I'd assumed that, and oddly enough had been on the point of adding that "some" should be /səm/ (not the /sʌm/ of "Some dickhead's keyed my car"). But it still sounds odd to me. Perhaps your idiolect and mine differ somewhat. -- Hoary (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Gronky, I agree that the example sentence with "they" referring to Mary is very unlikely.The point I wanted to make is that the likelihood of its potential use (by some people) is linked to the potential desire to refer to a person called Mary (at a point in time) using a sex-neutral pronoun. This probably depends not on the grammatical gender of the proper noun Mary but on the sex/social gender of the person referred to. This is not normally an issue, since a person called Mary is normally presumed to be female, but it relies to some extent on unchanging gender identity, hence my reference to Mary formerly being called by a male name. Though I don't have a reference for the potential acceptability of they referring to a person called "Mary", we may be able to find a suitable reference for the possible use of "they" to refer to transgender persons. One reason would be to avoid changing pronouns in mid-stream. There may be a similar issue in the article on "he", which doesn't deal with the potential unacceptability of

  • "Did I know Chelsea? Yes she was a lovely boy. He was called Bradley." or
  • "Do I know Bradley? Yes he's a beautiful lady called Chelsea."

The issue is really the same:

  • He may refer directly or indirectly to a person thought of (by the speaker) as male.
  • They may refer directly or indirectly to a person thought of (by the speaker) as not being uniquely assignable to either male or female sex/gender.

If we could put it like that, we could perhaps treat the issue of how the speaker assigns sex/social gender to a person as extralingusitic. Unfortunately, the discussion in the sources seems to be framed largely in terms of the issues relevant at the time of writing.--Boson (talk) 13:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

    • The Bradley/Chelsea example is one that's way up in the air—proposals I've seen have not centred on using the ssingular they, but either on having people use the person's gendered pronoun of choice (and people's resistance to that idea), or on having singular gender-neutral pronouns. The article should stick to actual usage—just how common/generally acceptable is "Do I know Bradley? Yes they are a beautiful lady called Chelsea."? From what I call tell: not at all. Perhaps this will change in the future, but Wikipedia's not a crystal ball. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Clarification for "themself"

Re edit summary: "not really what Fowler says; who is this "minority"? A minority of grammarians? Because it's common in speech"

I have attempted to clarify this, to the extent confirmed by reliable sources. Fowler's (2015) says of themself:

  • "It is a minority form, but one that turns up from time to time in Britain, North America, and doubtless elsewhere."

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002) says:

  • "Examples of the morphologically singular themself are attested in the standard dialect from the 1970s onward, but they are very rare and acceptable only to a minority of speakers ..."

--Boson (talk) 03:06, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

    • [3] We now have the same problem with the quotations: they need to be attributed, and they need to be clarified whether they reflect the scholarly consensus or are merely the conclusions of the authors.

"Everyone" as plural

User:Ngon2718 writes:

Sentence removed: "Everyone returned to their seats."; contains "their", and is in list of sentences using singular they. In sentence, antecedent of "their" is "everyone". "Everyone" is a plural noun, wherefore the "they" is not singular.

Oh? "Everyone" is not plural by default. In my idiolect, and I think in the standard Englishes of north America, Britain and Australasia, "Everyone thinks/*think Trump is a charlatan statesman." (BTW I do not dispute that "Everyone returned to their seats" is both idiomatic and grammatical.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2015 (UTC) Slightly rewritten as explained below. Hoary (talk) 10:01, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

  • You're right, of course. Plural "everyone" is extremely unusual. In the sentence "Everyone returned to their seats.", "everyone" appears to be parsed as plural, though, otherwise "seats" would also be singular, but you wouldn't expect "Everyone returned to their seat." This may be one for Language Log (and probably should be removed as an example). Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:28, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree that the plurality of seats is puzzling, but linguist Steven Pinker seems to give this sentence as an example of singular they [4], and his books are reliable sources. I also note that, at least for me, "Everyone is returning to their seats" is grammatical, whereas "*Everyone are returning to their seats" is not, suggesting that even in this situation, everyone is singular. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:53, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Obviously Pinker didn't notice, or he likely would have commented on it. As it requires comment, and we don't have a source for that commentary, it should be removed. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
The proper form is "everyone returned to his seat" as in "every one returned to his seat." But that's boring, I much prefer making this a reason to attack an American presidential candidate. μηδείς (talk) 01:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
The proper form is "everyone returned to his seat" as in "every one returned to his seat." This flatly contradicts what's written in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language; can you specify a similarly respected reference grammar that backs what you say? Your comment on American presidential candidates is a bit obscure but I suspect that it's a sarcastic reference to something I wrote; I have therefore rewritten it to avoid the risk of causing offense. -- Hoary (talk) 10:01, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
On the contrary: we have a reliable source that mentions the sentence without commenting on "seats", so we can too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:23, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
No, that's not how sourcing works. We've identified a problem—it must be dealt with. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:27, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
What's the problem? —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:37, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
You've already acknowledged the problem. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:18, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
I guess you're saying the problem is that the word "seats" is plural? I agree that it's odd, but I wouldn't call it a problem, nor do I think it requires commentary. Anyway, I'm not married to the sentence; remove it if you want. It's discussed twice in the body of the article, though, so if it is removed from the lead I think it should be removed from the body too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:28, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Re: Curly Turkey's "everyone" appears to be parsed as plural, though, otherwise "seats" would also be singular I would dispute that on grammatical grounds. It's theoretically possible that an unambiguous singular ("I", for example) could have more than one seat (I'm reminded of a news story a few years back where an exceptionally overweight individual was charged double airfare because he couldn't fit in one seat). It would make more sense to say that because we don't know the gender of "everyone" we don't use "his seats" or "her seats" but "their seats", although I somehow doubt this is the case. We can come up with a similar example where the noun in question is singular but still "belongs" to more than one person: "After lunch, everyone returned to their office". It's a little clunkier than the above example, but "After lunch, everyone returned to his office" (even if they are all men) still somehow feels worse.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm nitpicking but I basically agree with both Hoary and Curly Turkey, and the Usage Panel about which Pinker was writing (I'm not seeing Pinker himself endorse one view or another), and disagree with Ngon2718, although I can totally see where the confusion arises.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:36, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
It's theoretically possible that an unambiguous singular ... could have more than one seat: Well, yes, but not by default. In "When the teacher asked a question, half the students raised their hands to answer"—"hands" could logically be parsed as each student raising both hands, but normally we read it as each student raising one hand—and without further context that's how "returned to their seats" will be parsed by default. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:03, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Well, yeah, but "half the students" is as far as I can tell always plural (Half the students are Japanese, and the rest are foreign), whereas "everyone" is usually singular. :-P I'd rather just say that if there are four or more students, then half would be at least two, and that means that at the very least there are two hands under discussion, hence plural; the number of hands each student raises is irrelevant. Similarly, unless "everyone" referred to only two people -- a parent with an infant sitting on their lap -- then there are definitely at least two seats under discussion. And while writing this comment I completely accidentally used a similar structure in the previous sentence! To paraphrase the Angry Video Game Nerd (who was probably quoting someone else): This stuff is confusing as hell; and, as we all know, hell is pretty confusing... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:43, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Although I guess in speech some people probably accidentally say Half the students are Japanese, and the other half is foreign and get away with it, but that almost certainly would count as an error in formal writing. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:45, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
I was presenting that as a plural that's understood to be singular for each individual (I'm sure there's a word for that), as opposed to the case in French, say, where such a plural would mean more than one seat or hand for each individual. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Back to Curly Turkey's comment that In the sentence "Everyone returned to their seats.", "everyone" appears to be parsed as plural, though, otherwise "seats" would also be singular, but you wouldn't expect "Everyone returned to their seat." FWIW, both of "Everyone returned to their seat/seats" are entirely acceptable in my particular idiolect. -- Hoary (talk) 10:01, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I also find both acceptable, but I wonder if it is more likely that one or the other will be interpreted in one of two different ways. Unlike, say, in German, even with inalienable possession, the plural is usually used when pairwise asssignment is understood (in the sense of a bound variable pronoun), but sometimes the singular is used. Sometimes only one form is idiomatic, but you will probably see both

  • "... write with their right hands" and
  • "... write with their right hand"

With the plural "they all returned to theirs seats" or "the audience returned to their seats" "everybody returned to theirs seats" there is an alternative to the pairwise assignment: semantically it is possible that people swapped seats (though pragmatically it may often be assumed that not many people did). I don't recall reading a sufficiently detailled discussion of this anywhere. --Boson (talk) 03:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Difference between "gender-neutral" and "neutral between masculine and feminine"

Re edit summary: "why on earth are we quoting here?" and change from Quirk et al's "neutral between masculine and feminine" to "gender neutral. In view of the increased acceptance of the singular they (especially after the lede and its sources were written) in trans-/bi-a-gender contexts, we may have a problem, though I would prefer to add a separate sentence to deal with that different usage in the lede. The rationale for the quoted wording was that various linguists talk of three notional or semantic genders, with some nouns being triple-gender (roughly equivalent to he, she, it). I presume that was the reason why Quirk et al. used the term "neutral between masculine and feminine", since they is not used for non-personal nouns/entities (where it would be appropriate). You can say

  • "The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay.",

but you can't say

  • * "The weapon should be checked at the outset to see how accurately they can be aimed."

However, I haven't noticed a source that states this in an explicit way (other than the wording used by Quirk et al.). So if we want to avoid implying (without a source) that they can apply to non-personal entities/nouns the wording chosen by Quirk et al. seemed appropriate. Having chosen that wording it seemed appropriate to credit it to the authors. Perhaps we can come up with a formulation that better addresses both issues. --Boson (talk) 02:04, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

    • Is the term "gender-neutral" ever used in English in such a way as to include "it"? We're not talking grammatical gender, which English has not had in nearly a millennium. The quotation was problematic as it was (a) not attributed (b) not clear whether it reflected scholarly consensus rather than the conclusions of Quark et al. If it reflected consensus, then there's no need to quote rather than paraphrase. If it doesn't reflect consensus, then it has no place in the lead. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Just to address a few points before leaving this for a while for others to chime in:
  • Modern English does not have inflectionally marked gender distinctions, but major grammars/grammarians do use gender to refer for instance, to "less grammaticalized", notional or semantic gender (as opposed to extralinguistic "biological" or "social" gender). --Boson (talk) 11:08, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
    • The question was: Is the term "gender-neutral" ever used in English in such a way as to include "it"? No, it never is, and thus there is no problem nor any reason to ugly up the prose. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:32, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Since this article is about language, I think we have to use fairly explicit language when we are referring to extralinguistic (social or biological) gender as opposed to linguistic (grammatical, semantic, or notional) gender (whether we, personally choose to categorize in that way or not). I am not objecting to the use of the term gender-neutral, as long as the sentence makes it clear that we mean neutral between masculine and feminine (or between male and female, possibly depending on whether we are talking about the concept or the referent). In an article of a primarily sociological nature that merely touched briefly on language aspects , we might need to be more explicit when talking about linguistic gender.--Boson (talk) 11:08, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Now that its use for individuals who cannot or do not wish to be identified as (solely) male or female has become more established, I think it might now be appropriate for the lead to make separate statements about the long-established use for, shall we say, indeterminate, unknown, or unstated gender, on the one hand, and about the fairly recently established use to address gender-identity on the other. --Boson (talk) 11:08, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
    • I think we'd need a cite for such usage being "more established" (than what?). From what I can tell, the traditional usage with "indeterminate, unknown, or unstated gender" makes up almost the entirety of current usage. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:35, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I meant "become more established [than it was]". I am not suggesting that we make a statement about how frequent such usage has become, but it can be seen as evidence that the usage has become "established" when the Washington Post decides that "allowing they for a gender-nonconforming person is a no-brainer". It is really a matter of how much note has been taken of the new development and the resulting weight that it should be given. The development appears to be eminently noteworthy, and it was they in this usage that was made Word of the Year. --Boson (talk) 12:17, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Very bad example of Contemporary use of he to refer to a generic or indefinite antecedent

This is actually kind of funny, for those with a dark sense of humor:

'"The patient should be informed of his therapeutic options."— in a text about prostate cancer (2004)'

Rather than being an instance of contemporary use of generic "he", I believe it is likely that the author of this quote assumed that virtually all sufferers of prostate cancer are men. If anyone happens to find a better example by all means change it. Otherwise I plan to eventually replace that section with a line saying something like "Use of he to refer to a generic antecedent has apparently become extinct."

Caissanist (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Please read the article more carefully. The sentence immediately before that quote says, "In some cases it is clear from the situation that the persons potentially referred to are likely to be male". The point of including the quote is to illustrate one of those cases. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Well, isn't that perfectly silly: The "Contemporary use of he to refer to a generic or indefinite antecedent" section opens with an example of Generic he" not really being "generic he"? Not that that's the greatest problem with the article—it's chock full of nearly unreadable OR. The article should really be rewritten from scratch. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:59, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Pruning "Older usage by respected authors"

A lot of these are in my opinion bad examples, in that they aren't using a singular they in place of a singular he, but just using they for one reason or another.

  • Shaw: It looks like Cleopatra is just using a plural. We don't have a masculine plural.
  • Austen: Unlike, say, the Huxley example, Austen is clearly referring to something to be done by men and women, so using a generic masculine pronoun doesn't make sense.
  • Chaucer: All the texts for the prologue I could find have that line as "He" not "They" ([6], which is supposed to come from the same source that the "They" was found in, or [7]), and in any case Chaucer is so antiquated that it's not clear how much relevance this has to more recent usage. Dingsuntil (talk) 03:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
  • "Older usage by respected authors" itself is an awfully POV subtitle. Regardless, we don't need arbitrary lists of usage—just some key examples. We're not here to "prove a point" or "make a case", just to give the facts about the subject. And, really, the whole article suffers from this crap. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Middle English?

There are two citations bolstering the claim that singular They dates to the 14th century, but both are secondary sources and neither is available to me. If the claim is true, an actual example in Middle English should be given. -- Evertype·✆ 12:06, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

The OED has this citation: Walter William Skeat "The romance of William of Palerne (otherwise known as the romance of "William and the Werwolf"), translated from the French at the command of Sir Humphrey de bohun, about A.D. 1350; to which is added…" Early English Text Society Extra Series v. 1, 1867.London: Trübner p. 2179: "Hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt..til þei neyȝþed so neiȝh..þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere" TomS TDotO (talk) 12:58, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
The earliest singular examples I am aware of are these:
  • 1325, Cursor Mundi:
    Bath ware made sun and mon, / Aiþer wit þer ouen light / For to tuin dai fra night,
and
  • 1478 (earliest extant version), Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale:
    And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, / They wol come up and offre a Goddés name, / And I assoille hem by the auctoriee / Which that by bulle y-graunted was to me.
The Chaucer use is noted in e.g. Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar (2005, ISBN 0521848377), page 105.
-sche (talk) 15:51, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

2016 American Society of Copy Editors conference

The 2016 conference is on right now, in Portland.[8]. The new revision of the AP Style Guide will be out next month. We'll see if singular "they" is officially adopted soon. John Nagle (talk) 06:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The 2016 AP Style Guide will appear June 1, 2016.[9]. There's going to be a decision on singular "they", which was extensively discussed at the conference. John Nagle (talk) 06:13, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Well, the 2016 AP Style Guide is out, and they decided not to decide this yet. From the AP Style Guide's Twitter: "Grammatically, we still see they as a plural pronoun. However, we continue to discuss this. #APStyleChat". John Nagle (talk) 18:18, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Clarification of contemporary usage paragraph

I thought I'd make a small change to a sentence under the "Contemporary usage" heading and change this sentence: "One solution in formal writing has often been to write he or she, or something similar, but this is considered awkward when used excessively, overly politically correct, or both" to this: "One solution in formal writing has often been to write "he or she," or something similar, but this is often considered awkward, overly politically correct, or both when used excessively." Any objections? --CRMStudent1 (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

If I were you, I would go ahead and make the edit because it is noncontroversial enough. If someone wants to tweak it a little, they will. One tweak is that Wikipedia has its own convention for quotation marks and the comma should go outside the quotation mark despite typical American usage. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 18:13, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

"antecedent that is grammatically singular"

Thank you Mx. Granger for your edit, even though it reverts mine! However, I think I disagree. First, see the section of the article Singular they#Notional plurality or pairwise relationships, which seems to support the use of plural "they" for the grammatically singular "everyone". Second, what of the objection that many grammatically singular antecedents instead take "it"? I think the combination of these two makes it inappropriate to have the article say "Singular 'they' is the use in English of the pronoun 'they' ... as a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to ... an antecedent that is grammatically singular." I look forward to your thoughts. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 19:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The use of it seems pretty irrelevant to me—the lead doesn't say that they is used with all singular antecedents in English. It just says that in those cases when they is used with a singular antecedent, it is a singular they.
As for everyone, the section that you indicate specifically lists three sentences involving everyone as examples of "sentences that involve ... singular they". So it is clear from the body of the article (and from sources) that some uses of they with an antecedent like everyone are uses of singular they. That being said, maybe you're right that the current phrasing of the lead is not completely precise—it does seem to include sentences like "At first everyone in the room was singing; then they began to laugh.", which the article says are uses of plural they. But the other phrasing is at least as much of a problem, as it excludes sentences like "Everyone loves their mother" that sources clearly state are uses of singular they. Maybe it would be better to simply say
Singular they is the use in English of the pronoun they or its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (or themself), as a gender-neutral singular pronoun.
Or we could make a smaller adjustment and say
Singular they is the use in English of the pronoun they or its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (or themself), as a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to one person or in some cases to an antecedent that is grammatically singular.
What do you think? —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:45, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
This is difficult. I don't think we should leave "one person or ... an antecedent that is grammatically singular". "Or" usually means "exclusive OR", but generic terms like "a Guidette", "the patient", and "Dr Gerald Black" (used as antecedents of singular they) are all grammatically singular. Also, the definition should not inadvertently exclude sentences like "Your cat doesn't care if their food is green". "One person" might be understood to exclude cats and/or mean a known (rather than a generic) individual. --Boson (talk) 02:22, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Contrast it vs. they to thou vs. you

Mx. Granger reverted my edit in good faith, but I think it is worth further discussion. As far as I can tell, there is consensus that

we use the formerly plural-only they as a singular third-person pronoun even though it is already a singular third-person pronoun.

The distinction is whether the antecedent is a person (or animal or at least life form), in which case they is used, otherwise it is used.

IMHO, in a section where we are comparing the use of formerly plural-only pronouns to singular pronouns, it is noteworthy that

we use the formerly plural-only you as a singular second-person pronoun even though thou is already a singular third-person pronoun;

but unlike the it vs. they dichotomy, you has completely replaced thou in common usage. What do you think? 𝕃eegrc (talk) 19:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The section already discusses thou, which I think is appropriate, but I think that the specific fact you added (that thou is not used for inanimate objects) is somewhat confusing and not very informative—the fact is, thou is hardly ever used nowadays, for animate or inanimate referents. If there is a reliable source that makes the specific comparison that I reverted, then I could possibly be persuaded to think it is worth including, but otherwise I don't think it is. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:59, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

AP Stylebook to "open the door" on singular "they".

See [10]. John Nagle (talk) 07:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

From the article: "I write it naturally sometimes, too, and then have to go back and change it"—should say everything to the prescriptivists, especially those who claim it's a neologism. The cognitive dissonance—it hurts! Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
The Chicago Manual of Style is also set to accept much the same kind of usage as the AP: [11]. -sche (talk) 10:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

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Formatting error I can't figure out how to fix

In the "Trend to gender-neutral language" section there's a William Safire quote followed by a cite. For some reason, the " at the end of the quote is not displaying correctly. You can see it in edit mode, but it's not displaying on the page. I tried previewing a few adjustments to fix it but nothing works. Help? JamesG5 (talk) 07:38, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I fixed it. The old text had a double apostrophe ('') instead of a quote ("). They may look similar but the first is two apostrophes. Johnuniq (talk) 08:22, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Singular they#Referential and non-referential anaphors section

This sub-section does not really illuminate the usage of singular they, and some of it overlaps considerably with the immediately preceding section on Singular they#Notional agreement. Is there any objection to replacing the entire sub-section with a See also link to anaphoric reference? Clean Copytalk 02:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if a see-also link to anaphoric reference would be particularly helpful. I do think the whole section Grammatical and logical analysis could ultimately do with a rewrite. As regards the sub-section Referential and non-referential anaphors, I think it could be severely pruned (e.g. remove the second half) and given a different header, but I don't think it can all go. In particular, we need to discuss the bound-variable analysis. It would be nice, sometime, to have a much better (but understandable) linguistic analysis of different uses of they with a singular antecedent or referent that goes beyond the very broad ideas of notional agreement and distribution. --Boson (talk) 11:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Can you undertake this? Clean Copytalk 21:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I could do some pruning in a few weeks (which would also give others time to comment). A more thorough rewrite is more difficult. --Boson (talk) 14:12, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

@Prescription of generic he

It has been argued that the real motivation for promoting the "generic" he was an androcentric world view (...). Not that the worldview was gynaecocentric, but isn't Latin a simpler explanation? (Not just here). 37.47.202.22 (talk) 13:28, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

We would want a reliable source to support that. The generic he was popularized by the grammarian Ann Fisher, who appears to have been against adopting Latin rules, so there might be a contradiction. --Boson (talk) 18:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Use increased or revived?

Curly Turkey, regarding the statement that "increased" "implies it was never common in formal English": where might I find this implication documented? I haven't spotted it in dictionaries or in how the word is used, e.g. Merriam-Webster defines it as simply "to become progressively greater (as in size, amount, number, or intensity)" and Dictionary.com defines it as "to become greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality", and I often see the word used when already-common-or-numerous things become even more common or numerous, e.g., the human population and the number of articles in Wikipedia are both increasing every year. Whereas, changing it to revive would mean it at some point died out or ceased to be in common/vigorous/strong use, see e.g. Merriam-Webster's definition of revive, "to return to consciousness or life: become active or flourishing again" (which implies if not outright requires that there have been a period when it was dead/inactive/unused), or Dictionary.com's, "to return to life, consciousness, vigor, strength, or a flourishing condition".
I think the old wording of "increased" is fine, but as alternatives, what about "its use in formal English has grown", "risen", "picked up" (too informal?), or "expanded", or even just "its use in formal English has become more common"? I've boldly tried the last of those. (I should've just done that—changing to a third wording—and posted this instead of just undoing your edit, I apologize.) -sche (talk) 03:21, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't see how "become more common" is any better than "increased". The point is that it was not only once common, but a default, until the prescriptive generic he came to largely supplant it, and now its use has revived. There should be no implication that acceptance of singular they is a new thing.
There aer more problems with the sentence: "become more common with the trend toward gender-inclusive language" is a misleading half-truth; we should not imply that its revival is driven by politics when we know that singular they has always been the default in the spoken language.
Perhaps something like this:
"Objections to its use in formal English have become less common."
Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Generic she

Would it be appropriate to add a small section or a note on the use of the generic she? It's certainly not very common, but one example I can think of is in Dnd/Pathfinder manuals, the 3rd person singular pronoun used is either she, or switches between he/she. 209.65.56.40 (talk) 05:34, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

There is a small section on Third-person pronoun. Gap9551 (talk) 06:54, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Does one say "they is" or "they are"? (specific, known people)

When referring to a single person, for me it makes sense to use "they is", like "They is sitting on the bench". This also agrees with https://www.grammarly.com/blog/is-vs-are/. But does anyone have sources that demonstrate the general trend or semi-official grammar rules Akvadrako (talk) 11:07, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

That would be non-standard—certainly totally unacceptable in even the loosest of formal writing. But why would it "make sense" to use is? We use are in the both of the singulars "you are" and "aren't I?"—it's not a matter of logic, but actual usage. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:49, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
You are is a good example, though second person is a different class. If I hear somebody say They are sitting on the bench, actual usage would imply there are multiple things/people. They is would avoid that incorrect implication. ~~ Akvadrako (talk) 09:29, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
No, in actual usage only are is ever used with they, though it's unlikely you would hear "They are sitting on the bench". The traditional singular they refers to unspecified persons, but in "they are sitting on the bench", it sounds like you know who you're talking about. For example, you might say "There's someone knocking on the door, but I can't see who they are." (never "they is"). The context of the sentence makes it clear that they are is singular. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:47, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
I realize that's your opinion, but I'm wondering about specific references. Also, in regards to your second point, I think you missed this part of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Use_for_specific,_known_people ~~ Akvadrako (talk) 10:47, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
I've never heard of any variety of English that uses "they is" for singular they but "they are" for plural they. If such a variety of English exists, I think it would be worth discussing in the article, but we would need reliable sources, of course. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:01, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
Akvadrako: I don't know where you get the idea that anything I've said is "my opinion"—everything I've stated is a documented fact. Not only is "they is" entirely undcoucmented, you've in fact presented it as "your opinion". Wikipedia is not a place for people to air their opinions, but to summarize documented facts.
As for "Use for specific, known people": this is a recentism that has yet to gain general acceptance—it has yet to become an integral, natural part of any documented English dialect. Regardless, even those who use it for "specific, known people" use the they are form exclusively—and, yes, that is also a documented fact. If you'd like people to use they is instead, Wikipedia is not the forum to promote it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:03, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
I have, but only that variety spoken in comedy sketches about "English how she is spoke".Slatersteven (talk) 10:22, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
You have not presented any of your "facts", nor are they in the article. Without some evidence either way it's just your opinion. ~~ Akvadrako (talk) 16:03, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Neither have you.Slatersteven (talk) 11:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not claiming to have any; I'm asking if there are references supporting "is" or "are". It seems like something you need to know to use this new specific-person they. ~~ Akvadrako (talk) 23:21, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the one you provided, the only question becomes is a blog (I doubt it, but then I did not introduce it) an RS for this.Slatersteven (talk) 16:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
"You" originated as the second person plural pronoun. Since around the 17th century, it has come to be used for both singular and plural. At no point did anyone use singular verbs with "you": it was always "you are" and never "you art." Similarly, using "they" in a singular context would continue to use the third person plural verb forms, so "they are" or "they have" rather than "they is" or "they has" even when used as a singular. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 06:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Lead example

User:Mx. Granger Please don't just revert - instead improve my effort! Feel free to replace with a better example - this was what I could find at a reasonably valid source. Feel free to explain what additional information you would like to see. Do note I am not saying the usage is uncontroversial - that is precisely because the text says it's not standard in style guides. I do feel the article should not bury this usage in a subsection of a subsection: it is very topical, and used in several high-profile tv shows, so our article should tell our readers they've come to the right spot. CapnZapp (talk) 15:08, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the message, and I see your point. I've added a sentence discussing this use to the lead. It could probably be improved. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:47, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. If possible, I would like to see us present an actual example. An example would show the use case very intuitively to the reader; explaining the dilemma (=some like it, some don't) much faster than any descriptive text. The example previously used was: "This is my friend, Jay. I met them at work." I remain fully open to improving/replacing this - I didn't want to invent my own example, and it wasn't easy to find articles discussing the usage that actually exemplified. I can understand a reluctance to exemplify, but feel our article quality is increased appreciably by having an example right there in the lead. CapnZapp (talk) 09:09, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Including the quotation is fine with me, as long as it's clear that this is a new innovation in English and not the prototypical usage of singular they, and as long as we aren't implying that the use with a specific, known referent is what prescriptive grammarians are objecting to (rather, all kinds of singular they are controversial). —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:40, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, you said I don't think this is a good example for the lead, at least not without further explanation - while used, it's not the most prototypical example, and even nowadays there are many speakers who don't find it grammatical in your revert comment. So help me out - what context would you need to see to find the example (or a better one?) acceptable? I am not trying to claim the usage is old and/or uncontroversial. What would you consider a more prototypical example (of non-binary usage)? What can I do to make an example agreeable to both/all of us? CapnZapp (talk) 10:50, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
I do think the example you gave is a prototypical example of usage of singular they for non-binary individuals, I'm just saying it's not a prototypical example of singular they in general. I'm fine with including it immediately after the sentence I added or something similar. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:48, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay then. Now my worry is - the bit about acceptability is separate, and covers the whole usage of the pronoun, making it possible to interpret our lead as saying the "new" usage is neither more nor less accepted (or substandard). (Compare to my initial - now reverted - attempt) I mean: while prescriptive grammarians might dislike every use of singular they equally, I'm concerned about staving off subsequent editors wanting to add more dislike for this particular usage. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 11:19, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Acceptability of use towards known referents

Most of the article is very careful to distinguish prescription/proscription and actual acceptability, but all of the parts discussing use for known referents do not, and seem to be conflating prescription with acceptability. Is there any evidence that this use has largely arisen naturally? I have never heard of a speaker that started using it this way on their own without it being prescribed to them, or at least creating the construction themselves consciously, in a sense prescribing it to themselves. I and every English speaker I've spoken to about this would, at the least, consider this usage highly marked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.91.12.211 (talk) 07:28, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I would say, that, in other cases where a person is referred to by the wrong pronoun (she instead of he, for example) and they are corrected, they're also being told what pronouns to use, but this is to correct a misconception. Because there are people to whom he and she cannot refer, it's a misconception that there aren't any singular people who may be referred to by they pronouns. It would make sense, as the population increases and discrimination against non-binary people becomes less acceptable, there would be more examples for you and every other English speaker, such that, as you learn how language is being used, you adjust. I can see how, given the very small population of non-binary people [1], many of the English speakers you know may have learned English never being corrected to a singular they, though I imagine you may have the ability to recollect an instance of referring to someone with a binary gender by the wrong pronoun, and been corrected. Many people have confused a lack of experience with informational authority, which is probably how this debate began. 24.124.90.194 (talk) 15:57, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Are you saying that it is prescriptive and you just hope it will be prescribed so much that it becomes common or are you claiming that there was somehow a hidden part of a language that none of its speakers knew about for centuries? I'm sorry, that sounds uncharitable but I can't understand any other positions from your comment. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any linguistic content in it. 165.91.13.151 (talk) 05:49, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/How-Many-Adults-Identify-as-Transgender-in-the-United-States.pdf

Acknowledge this is controversial

It should be made more clear that modern usage of singular they, mostly the nominative form, has become very political and definitely controversial, especially with regards to legislative considerations. The whole article has a very leftist identity political tone to me. I for one don't agree with it's usage at all. CoatThese (talk) 08:42, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think the nominative form is any more controversial than the object or possessive forms, and I don't think it's any more controversial now than it was 50 years ago (excluding the still nonstandard but growing usage for known referents). But as always it's a question of what reliable sources say. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
I think much about singular they is very controversial, Mx. Among the general public. Not with the kind of sources we tend to reference.
In my humble opinion, it isn't so much that Wikipedia is leftist, CoatThese - it's more that "rightist" sources tend to be less encyclopedic. Maybe if English-speaking countries (and their linguistic institutions) are overtaken by nationalist conservative forces such as in Hungary or Poland the Wikipedia community will start to accept sources that enable you to change the article. Until then the lack of "clarity" regarding the modern usage of singular they will likely remain. CapnZapp (talk) 14:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Disagree with the idea that it is "very controversial with the general public." In fact, the sources in the article rather imply the opposite - it is now common and widely-accepted in colloquial, common use; the remaining resistance to it is largely in formal or academic settings. I think that part of the issue is that editors can have a distorted view of what is and isn't controversial in popular usage based on their own personal social circles (which is part of the reason why we require high-quality sources in the first place!) The reason opposition to it isn't reflected in the sources isn't because the sources are biased, but because that outright opposition is mostly confined to relatively small cultural bubbles of sentiment, albeit sometimes fairly strongly-held sentiment. --Aquillion (talk) 20:58, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
But you're talking about the traditional, centuries-old, established usage of singular they, which only starchy prescriptivists raise a fuss about. There is definitely a lot of vocal pushback against singular they used for known referents (such as for non-binary persons), which is new, far from universal or internalized, and associated with "the left". So many people arguing with each other are talking past each other because each side means something different when they say "singular they". The "it" in "it's controversial" refers to the newer usage. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:12, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
information Note: First off, I believe you are saying the same thing here as in the comment below, Turkey, and so I will respond below, but I'm not a grammarian, so feel free to move my comment up here if I'm wrong. CapnZapp (talk) 09:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
The only thing that's become political is the use of singular they with known referents—this is new and "leftist". The rest of it has nothing to do with right–left politics—only the politics of linguistic prescriptivism. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
To a non-expert like me, it seems like what you're saying is that our article isn't sufficiently clear towards average readers. That is, that it is too technical and might merit {{Technical}}, a cleanup tag. I would then invite all contributors to not just simply note this discrepancy, but to actually do something about it - i.e. editing the article. Just squabbling over which exact usage is controversial and not controversial is not cutting it - that's just the kind of response that drives people away from the project! Maybe we need an explanation in layman's terms. Maybe we need to reconsider the phrase "use of singular they with known referents". Maybe we need to restructure the information into one friendly simple "landing page" (this title) and split out details into their own subpages. Whatever you may think, thanks to the great surge in the use of singular they (both with "known referents" and when gender indetermination is desired) this article now has a high exposure to the general public - it is no longer one of those obscure academic articles where TOOTECHNICAL can or should be met with just a shrug. CapnZapp (talk) 09:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I agree that the novel use for known referents is controversial. If we can find a reliable source confirming this, maybe it would be worth adding the word "controversially" so that the lead says "In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals has controversially been promoted for those who do not identify as either male or female." —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:01, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I've hunted around a bit, and while I find articles that touch on it, they don't wuite touch on it in the way that we're looking for (not clearly enough, anyways). Most sources seem to be by people who don't understand the difference in the first place, making for some head-scratching reading. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

The lead ...

There's an awful lot of mucking around happening with the lead lately. I don't think any of it has been an improvement—much of it is verbosity for the sake of verbosity, citations that belong in th ebody if anywhere at all, and editwarring over preferred wordings (conflating "formal English" and "standard English, for example). Can we do something about this nonsense? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:19, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

You taking it to talk is a good start! (The page getting protected probably helps too) CapnZapp (talk) 12:25, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Use for specific, known people; Use as a non-binary identifier

Short story: Slightly messy, needs improvement. Go ahead.

Long story: I feel it is inappropriate to bury the lede here, to discuss gender identity under a seemingly irrelevant header like use for "specific, known people". As if that's the point, and not to avoid having to choose a traditional gender?

But since the article is heavily edited and contested, I broke off my editing and took it to this talk page instead.

Ideally we should elevate the non-binary identifier usage of singular they to a third level header, so it shows up in the TOC. Maybe reuse the "Trend toward gender-neutral language" topic title, which you'll notice I tagged as not discussing singular they at all?

Thoughts? CapnZapp (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

  • "Trend toward gender-neutral language" does not refer (exclusively) to avoiding having to use "traditional gender", though—a lot of it is about avoiding the ugly "he or she" construction or the so-called "generic he", rather than with non-binary stuff. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Can I take your reply as agreement "Trend..." discusses other things than the article subject? CapnZapp (talk) 09:56, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Granted, I removed a website that is restricted by a paywall as they don't provide the source for Wikipedia

On the pertaining changes, if you have any doubts, please see my sources before you undo the research that I worked for this page:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/column-he-she-they-grammar-rule

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/donald-trump-may-win-this-years-word-of-the-year/?noredirect=on — Preceding unsigned comment added by DStorm420 (talk • contribs) 11:45, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

User:DStorm420, you need to read WP:PAYWALL. In particular, Do not reject reliable sources just because they are difficult or costly to access. CapnZapp (talk) 13:12, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

This is noted, CapnZapp.

I would also like to take note the I made changes to the usage of "prescriptive commentators" to "prescriptive linguists". You may see from the history of the article. Let's talk here first before we make changes. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DStorm420 (talk • contribs) 23:02, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I've corrected the parts of your addition that were redundant or not supported by the sources but otherwise left it intact. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:18, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Usage section

No need for a separate "Contemporary usage" section - the overall "Usage" section assumes current use. Anything not contemporary we can discuss under "Older usage" (or maybe better "Historic usage").

This allows us to elevate the level-3 headers one step. Currently I'm a bit confused if these sections discuss general usage or specifically new developments.

There are four such sections

  • "Use with a pronoun antecedent": Am I to assume this is a recent development? Examples are relatively fresh, but the text doesn't elaborate.
  • "Notional plurality or pairwise relationships": maybe just too technical for me. Do you feel this carries the same weight as the others?
  • "Use with a generic noun as antecedent": same here
  • "Use for specific, known people, including non-binary people": definitely contemporary, definitely established and worthy of level-2 header

Again I remind everyone of the off-topic template on section "Gender-neutral language". I also note we don't have a single main target for all this info. Basically this section would make a great article of its own, while not really fitting here. I'll simply remove it soon; the tag has been up since June and noone has commented, so... This has the advantage of no longer shifting away the reader's focus: instead of finding a section called "Gender-neutral language" that doesn't discuss the word of the year, we'll have a section called "Use for specific, known people, including non-binary people" that does!

CapnZapp (talk) 23:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

With singular they both crowned word of the year and of the decade it is high time to reorganize the article as above. CapnZapp (talk) 11:44, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Origin of singular they with known individuals

I don't believe dictionary references are sufficient to establish a claim such as "this usage originated here"; only that the usage is part of that regional variety. You'd need a reference specifically discussing etymology for that.

CapnZapp (talk) 16:43, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

"those who do not identify as male or female"

The above phrase does not contain typos. Do not make changes based on misleading justifications. Thank you. CapnZapp (talk) 13:44, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I forgot about going here. Can't intersex people be nonbinary too, though? It's true that they're neither male or female anatomically, but that's not gender. Either way, while "those who do not identify as male or female" is completely correct, it's also redundant- literally everyone identifies as the gender that they are. "Nonbinary individuals" is more obvious and makes it clear that it's referring to nonbinary people including intersex people that are nonbinary, not simply people who consider themselves intersex anatomically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.77.209.135 (talk) 20:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Intersex people are not by default NonBinary. Many Intersex people will identify within the male/female binary, so forcing the NonBinary label on them is wrong, as is grouping them with NonBinary. Regardless, simply saying NonBinary assumes knowledge of what this means in the reader, whereas explanations are better. I might word it differently, such as "those who identify outside the male/female gender binary (known as NonBinary people)" UrsaMinora (talk) 00:57, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
I don't think anyone suggests all intersex people are nonbinary. Also, the word 'intersex' isn't even on this page (yet). Laurier (talk) 07:29, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

acceptability

Merriam-Webster dictionary adds 'they' as nonbinary pronoun:

Guardian WP BI

As soon as the majority of authoritative sources accept it, it is time to rewrite the acceptability sections to use past tense. CapnZapp (talk) 13:53, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Current phrasing paints the usage as a process, as an experiment rather than established fact: In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals has been promoted for those who do not identify as male or female. and The increased use of singular they may owe in part to an increasing desire for gender-neutral language. Once it is established fact we should rewrite those passages and move up the fourth bullet point "This is my friend, Jay..." to join the other three, and no longer single it out as some kind of special case.
it shouldn't be bullet point with the other three, since it is a different usage, almost as different as its plural use — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1014:B027:B896:5043:91F1:9D07:BC (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
The determining factor is common usage, not usage by reliable sources. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 11:13, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
Our job is to achieve consensus on making our articles reflect reliable sources' opinion of "common usage", not to interpret "common usage" ourselves. (If the determining factor was "common usage" as opposed to what authorative sources have to say, I could argue singular they as a non-binary pronoun is not only not accepted by large swaths of the population, but actively reviled too. Luckily I don't have to make that argument :-) CapnZapp (talk) 11:29, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
The earlier remark said "as soon as authoritative sources accept it", which is not the same as :...confirm that it is common usage". I think a problem is that very few sources will state what is common usage. Common usage will then need to be determined by other means, including personal opinion, which will come down to a consensus decision. What is written, which could be in an academic book or graffiti on a wall, will be a consideration in determining consensus opinion, but that is all. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 12:00, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
"Okay..." he said while backing slowly out of the discussion, making no sudden moves, all the while he secretly asked himself why this article should depend on some nebulous standard for which there is no reliable sources and a dependence on original research. CapnZapp (talk) 13:17, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Chaucer citation might be wrong, or also evidence for nonspecific "he"?

As noted in https://www.reddit.com/r/Chaucer/comments/5sk3wr/did_chaucer_use_the_singular_they/ some online texts list "And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, They wol come up" with the word He instead. It's not clear to me what texts these online texts are sourced from, but they may attest to earlier usage of nonspecific "he". If someone could find out about this, that'd be great. Dingolover6969 (talk) 21:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

As for "wrong", se crunkbash's comment here: [12]. I.e., the very dichotomy "right" or "wrong" according to modern notions of how language is regulated is an anachronism when applied to times or environments when it was regulated otherwise (as in, here, greater scope for dialects, scribal idiosyncracies, weaker notion of one "original version", etc.). And that applies even should you find an authentic Chaucer manuscript: that is, it still couldn't be taken as "the correct" text in the way a manuscript by a contemporary writer might. 151.177.57.31 (talk) 20:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
Yes, good point. But there are weaker notions of "right" and "wrong" that apply here; for instance if no manuscripts from the time had one or the other, that would be quite interesting. And if they all agreed on one version of the line, that version would seem definitive and we would have to revise the wikipedia article, etc. But there's definitely room for conflicting versions, if that's what was around then. Dingolover6969 (talk) 15:53, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

acceptability 2

Again I ask what prevents us from rewriting the acceptability sections to use past tense, see #Acceptability. CapnZapp (talk) 16:02, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I think the sources would agree that it's time. The Washington Post, for example, continues recommending it when appropriate and also highlighted other similar language changes. Woodroar (talk) 17:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Page size

In the light of recent edit warring, here's a talk section for you to detail your concerns about the article quality, User:MelonIsYes.

I should say that if Melon - or any other user for that matter - does engage in fruitful discussion, reverting the addition of cleanup templates before a consensus is reached is frowned upon. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD, it's up to the user adding the tags to make a case here. But for the record, the article is not WP:TOOBIG, but actually right at the recommended size of 100 K bytes. I strongly advise User:MelonIsYes not to text add the tag without explaining in detail here what needs to be removed. BilCat (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
What a strange comment to make. I literally said exactly that. You should really wait until the user does make his case because I did not. CapnZapp (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
And what a strange response, because we did not say the same thing. I clearly asked the user in my revert edit summary to make their case here if "they" (typical use of "singular they" marked) re-added the tag, and "they" have not. (I also added the "Deleted" response at Wikipedia:Cleanup.) BilCat (talk) 17:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
? I noticed the edit war and provided the user with a place where to take their grievances. You misunderstood, and assumed I made their case for them. Case closed. CapnZapp (talk) 20:29, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Far less than 100k from my estimation. WP:TOOBIG says to get the "Prose" length from XTools. XTools shows 33,068 characters, which is just over 33k. That's under "Length alone does not justify division". Woodroar (talk) 16:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
To nitpick, 33,068 is just under 33k. (33 kilobytes is 33792 bytes and, no, "kibibytes" is never going to catch on) Cheers mate CapnZapp (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
In my opinion it doesn't matter that the article is not too long according to it's size in bytes, the article is just bloated, and if somebody wanted to read through the entire article, they would surely skip over many parts that should be and can be removed/changed.
MelonIsYes (talk) 17:20, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Again, that is too vague. If you want to tag specific areas you believe are bloated, that would be more helpful, assuming everything isn't tagged. Or.you could list specific sections here that you believe are bloated, and get a consensus to remove them first, so other editors can comment on whether or not they believe those sections are bloated. BilCat (talk) 17:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
For Particular sections, I think mainly the 'Acceptability and prescriptive guidance' section is not easy to read. There are also some unecessary examples of usage such as examples in the 'Older usage' subsection, and unecessary quotes such as the long quote in the 'Prescription of generic he' subsection. Generally, some quotes and examples can be removed, and some sections could be reworded to be easier to understsnd
MelonIsYes (talk) 17:47, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. You can probably tag that section with a {{copy edit}} with an explanation, or a similar tag. I think that would be more effective. Alternatively, you could edit it yourself if you believe you could do a good job, or had the time. BilCat (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
I've done similar things to country articles before so I should be able to shorten it, as for the in-depth grammatical things, I might not be the person to do something like that, though I can try.
MelonIsYes (talk) 19:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
I think my only concern with removing any content is that it appears to be well sourced, and our "job" is to summarize what reliable sources say. But if we're pulling too much from any specific sources, like long quotes, then it's probably a reasonable change to make. Woodroar (talk) 19:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Alright I think I have shortened it well up until the 'Acceptability and prescriptive guidance' section, everything after that is not something I can 100% understand but I can tell it still could use shortening. If someone with more experience in grammar thinks they could do it, i'd appreciate it.
MelonIsYes (talk) 13:24, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It

G'day everyone, I have a question `bout this topic:

Why is singular-they used for gender-neutral, even though there's pronoun <It>?

I'm sorry for my English language skills, but it ain't my mother tounge. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.56.161.96 (talk) 21:38, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

In English, the pronoun "it" is used for inanimate objects and animals. So when used to refer to people, that means the speaker/writer considers them inhuman or even less than human. Woodroar (talk) 21:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
93.56.161.96 -- if it makes you feel any better, Samuel Taylor Coleridge also thought that "it" should be the English-language pronoun of unspecified human gender, but that usage has not prevailed among speakers of English... AnonMoos (talk) 23:35, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
"It" could be used to refer to a person, just as much as "they." The only reason "it" is used for objects is because English considers objects to have no gender (not true in some other languages). However, the important distinction is that people associate "it" with objects, and that makes them uncomfortable. In languages more directly derived from Latin, many objects and descriptors (but not all) carry gender labels, as is the case in Latin itself (i.e. the male "agricola" - farmer, the female "villa" - house). It's more an issue of personal perturbation rather than grammatical inaccuracy. Pernicious.Editor (talk) 00:33, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Page organization

I find the order and flow of sections to be poor. For example, Contemporary usage concerns itself with gender-neutral usage. But then there's subheaders that... doesn't deepen this subject, but completely disregards it and instead discusses other contemporary issues! A reader would have expected the "main" (first) section on Contemporary usage to discuss it in general, with subheaders drilling down into specialized subjects.

I think this is the result of the intensive patching done continuously on the article. Any original editoral voice and continuity is pretty much destroyed at this point. This article is getting closer and closer to earning a {{copyedit}} or even a {{rewrite}} tag. CapnZapp (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, it's too varied in it's writing, sometimes it's easy to read but sometimes you can't understand it without knowing a good deal about grammar, and each sections don't have much coherency with eachother. Definitely fixable though.
MelonIsYes (talk) 13:20, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
The quick fix would be to put a (sub)header over the top of that (un-sub-headered) Contemporary usage content, so that it's clear that it's talking about one facet of contemporary use, and the following subheaders are talking about other facets. In the longer term, copyediting for internal consistency and clarity is the better fix, yes. -sche (talk) 15:35, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Detailed citation for a Psychology manual or handbook?

Hi Everyone,

I'm having trouble finding text from a Psychology manual or handbook that provides explicit guidance on the use of "they" or "them" when a person has an identity disorder. Searching the web I've found many references claiming American Psychological Association, Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or some other professional organization or manual endorses the use of "they" or "them", but claims don't provide a proper citation with relevant text and context. The claim usually just points to the APA website or a book on Amazon.

The reason I bring it up is, I read the guidance from a psychology handbook back in 2020. Unfortunately, I don't recall the handbook name and I don't have a reference to it now (I should have bookmarked it). The handbook was clear that it was OK for a practitioner {can|may|should} use "they" or "them" when treating someone with an identity disorder during a therapy session. But the handbook did not state anything else, like it was OK to call someone with an identity disorder "they" or "them" by non-practitioners, or outside of treatment, or outside a therapy session.

And if you look closely at the section Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association in the article, it says to use "they" or "them" when the gender is unknown or irrelevant. Is it the case that gender is unknown or irrelevant when a person is suffering an identity disorder? Naively, I would think gender is _very_ relevant when a person is suffering an identity disorder.

I think the article would benefit from the detailed scrutiny provided by context and proper textual citations.

Jeffrey Walton (talk) 02:27, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

If the text talked about "identity disorders", it's quite possibly out of date. As outlined at identity disorder, the term "identity disorder" was changed to "identity problem" in the DSM-IV in 1994 and "identity problem" was later removed outright in the DSM-5 in 2013. Woodroar (talk) 02:44, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Woodroar. The manual was talking about the people who want to be called "they" or "them" for their gender.
Jeffrey Walton (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

History of use for a known definite person but where the gender is considered irrelevant?

I'd be very interested to see more detail included throughout the article on the use for a known definite person where gender is considered irrelevant to the conversation. I know for a fact this predates 2009 as I specifically remember a book being read to me when I was a child in the early 2000s which contained a specifically called out case of a character using singular "they" to hide the gender of their friend, and at the time it was read to me it didn't seem at all odd that they would speak like this. I feel like this creates a natural bridge between the historic use of it for referring non-specifically to a single person, and the modern use of it for specific known non-binary people, and if anyone knows something about this subject I think it would be a valuable addition to the article (including in the Usage section and the introduction). --69.191.176.31 (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC) (User:Muzer not logged in)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Problematic lede: a quick take

Both current lede (which I wrote) and the immediately preceding ones fail to make a proper Use–mention distinction. The {dfn|term|definition} template suggests a lede along the order of this:

"Singular they, along with its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs and themselves (or themself), is a specialized term for they when used for a an individual third-person."

That iteration excludes mention of "epicene" for reasons Weathering pointed out here. The proposed lede also:

  • Remedies the "Singular they is ... a pronoun" inaccuracy that AJD pointed out here.
  • Italicizes "singular they" in a manner consistent with Wikipedia format for terms in the lead sentence.
  • Repositions the "they" link from Singular they to the second mention of "they," per Wikipedia format for terms in the lead sentence.
  • Avoids conflating what singular they is (i.e., neither a pronoun nor a use) and how that term is used.
  • Avoids describing singular they as "so-called" (which can connote a disparagement) and instead describes it as jargonistic (as imbedded in and explained via the "specialized term" link).

Cheers to all. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:28, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Use for specific, known people, including non-binary people

Hi, this sentence "A known individual may also be referred to as they if the individual is non-binary or genderqueer and considers they and derivatives as appropriate pronouns" is phrased oddly. I propose to change the sentence to "A known individual may be referred to as they if the individual is non-binary or genderqueer and considers the singular they pronoun set appropriate." This would make the language more uniform with the rest of the paragraph. Noname503 (talk) 21:06, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

For the most part this suggestion looks good to me, but I would keep the word "also". —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:57, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
There's no particular reason why a person would need to identify as nonbinary or genderqueer (or, really, to have any specific gender identity) for the use of "they" pronouns to be appropriate, at least in specific cases. There's obviously some overlap there, but they are at least in part separable issues. Archon 2488 (talk) 16:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Unnecessary change in example from pole dancer to pole dancer and mercenary

Currently our article gives these two examples:

  • "If you had an unemployed daughter, what would you think if she wanted to accept work as a pole dancer?"
  • "If you had an unemployed child, what would you think if they wanted to accept work as a mercenary or a pole dancer?"

I think from reading the section, these are our own examples rather than directly copied from a source and I'm not sure we should be directly copying examples like this anyway and if we are going to, I think we need to make it clearer we are doing so (like in the next part). If these are our own examples, am I the only one to feel it's completely unnecessary to change the example when it goes from daughter to child to include mercenary rather than just pole dancer? It seems better to either always use mercenary or always use pole dancer or always use both, especially given the subject of this article. Nil Einne (talk) 08:29, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this example is unnecessarily confusing. I'll change it to use "mercenary" for both. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 08:42, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
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