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They're human, not a child-eating clown (startrek.website)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I understand not wanting to ask everyone all the time, but defaulting to a neutral pronoun isn't going to become the norm unless people start using it even when it isn't the norm. That said, it does feel a lot less natural in Ukrainian and Russian to me, so I'm still trying to figure out the best option there. But in English, singular "they" is pretty widespread already, I think.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I don't think singular "they" is that common except among very young people, and does lead to confusion.

As an example, my brother once showed me a picture of a person on a dating app and said "they are nice" and I thought he was talking about the person's breasts...

Also, "it" is dehumanising, I'd feel uncomfortable calling someone "it" even if they told me it was their preferred pronoun.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Singular they has existed in English before the times of Shakespeare. It's not a fad. It's a bloody grammatical reality.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Context matters. Sometimes it's confusing!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Singular they has also always been used when the person is unidentified. "Somebody left their umbrella here!" It's when the person is identified that it feels awkward at first for us Gen Xers and older in particular.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

"They" is pretty widespread but I agree about the "it" part.