Current Events > Why do people pretend they don't understand singular they?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Really weird to insist a grammar staple isn't real because you don't want to validate non-binary people.

Because they think it gives them plausible deniability when sniping at trans people.

Because they just don't wanna do it

Yeah, I had a professor like that. It was a weird hangup of his. He taught IT classes and not English, obviously.

Edit, this was years ago now, and didn't have to do with transpeople. Just said singular they wasn't something you should use in your papers for some reason.

Bass posted...

Yeah, I had a professor like that. It was a weird hangup of his. He taught IT classes and not English, obviously.

I'm sure there are plenty of English professors that suck at English

It can get pretty clunky in writing. Trying to read a fight scene involving a genderless character can get kind of hard to follow, especially when translated by a fan. It would be nice if we had a dedicated gender neutral option already integrated into the language. I don't think any of the proposed ones are going to take off any time soon.

They understand it just fine they just don't wanna use someone's preferred pronouns

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this

ai123 posted...

Because they think it gives them plausible deniability when sniping at trans people.

It's bizarre because the same people sometimes go out of their way to not assign gender to trans people. Like, people calling LGBTQ people "they" is something I've known of for YEARS.

I understand and respect singular "they," however, I will say that I distinctly remember being taught in 2nd grade in Mississippi that "they" is always plural and that it was incorrect to use "they" when in a singular fashion. This was a huge point because kids would always say "they" and the teacher would correct them to say "he or she."

Not quite the same thing, but that's why I can understand why it feels off to some people, because it was driven into us very hard in my elementary school and the reason why it felt weird for me in the beginning. However, I was never resistant to using it when requested, and I believe this does not in any way excuse a person to continue to remain ignorant about it.

"My friend is in the hospital"

"How are they doing"

Starks posted...

"My friend is in the hospital"

"How are they doing"

This is an example of what would have gotten us corrected for being wrong back in my 2nd grade class. But like I said, that's not an excuse to refuse someone's pronouns.

Even factoring in possible complication with other uses of the word "They", English language has a lot of odd rules anyway like words that are pronounced or inconsistencies with plural words (House being houses instead of say hice?).

Because bigots.

Nemu posted...

It can get pretty clunky in writing. Trying to read a fight scene involving a genderless character can get kind of hard to follow, especially when translated by a fan. It would be nice if we had a dedicated gender neutral option already integrated into the language. I don't think any of the proposed ones are going to take off any time soon.

Sweden got one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_(pronoun)

Why do bigoted shitbags do anything? Hint: the answer is right there in the question.

Foppe posted...

Sweden got one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_(pronoun)

Doesn't Japan have such a pronoun even if not for NB purposes like when they are trying to keep a character's identity secret?

The other one is deadnaming and then being all like "why should I change what I call them"

Yeah, like you ever had a problem when a straight couple get married and the lady changes her surname -_-

Jupiter posted...

This is an example of what would have gotten us corrected for being wrong back in my 2nd grade class. But like I said, that's not an excuse to refuse someone's pronouns.

There is nothing in the English language that requires a determinate gender.

Jupiter posted...

This is an example of what would have gotten us corrected for being wrong back in my 2nd grade class. But like I said, that's not an excuse to refuse someone's pronouns.

Very few people say, "how is he or she doing?" despite how many 2nd grade teachers encouraged it.

Even if I know someone's gender, I may say they when speaking to someone who does not know them

The standard way of speaking/writing properly in grade school and high school definitely seemed to discourage it, but I don't see why common use can't allow the language to evolve. It's not transgender peoples' fault the English language falls short here.

pinky0926 posted...

The other one is deadnaming and then being all like "why should I change what I call them"

Yeah, like you ever had a problem when a straight couple get married and the lady changes her surname -_-

They also have no problem calling celebrities by their legitimately pretend stage names. Can't say Caitlyn, but no issues with Vin Diesel.

PurpleOutsider posted...

They also have no problem calling celebrities by their legitimately pretend stage names. Can't say Caitlyn, but no issues with Vin Diesel.

And they (lol) can't even be like "I only know them as the stage name!" because they'll act like this even if they don't know a person's deadname or dead pronouns.

I find it funnier when they apparently don't understand that pronouns apply to everyone

hockeybabe89 posted...

And they (lol) can't even be like "I only know them as the stage name!" because they'll act like this even if they don't know a person's deadname or dead pronouns.

They do even when it's obvious, like with Martin Sheen and his sons, Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.

...One of these things is not like the other...

Yeah, I don't get being difficult about it. It took me a while to get my head around it at first and even then I wondered things like "if it's singular, should I be using "is" rather than "are" etc for a while. Not "getting" it is one thing. But some people just being intentionally difficult, I don't get.

hockeybabe89 posted...

Really weird to insist a grammar staple isn't real because you don't want to validate non-binary people.

I used to use it all the time to talk about ex boyfriends cause I didn't wanna lie but I didn't wanna out myself either.

It's more political rather than personal. Jordan Peterson makes a good point on how language use should not be dictated by the government. The development of language is a socially negotiated phenomenon. The more you force it, the less accepted it will be. The whole pronoun thing is like non-newtonian fluid physics. Give it like a decade and people will ease into it.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I mean if you learned it in elementary school and went the rest of your school career never using they as a singular pronoun because you're under the impression that it would be incorrect usage you're never going to be corrected. No one is going to read something written and question why a person isn't using the singular they.

The more you force it

Yes. How dare people have pronouns. How dare you be asked to show basic respect for another person. I too decide I'm going to repeatedly knowingly misgender somebody purely because I get a reminder.

Oh, wait.

DipDipDiver posted...

I find it funnier when they apparently don't understand that pronouns apply to everyone

Yeah, like I just saw some dumb MAGA dating app that advertised "no pronouns!" like how fuckin' stupid can these people be?

I've used they for as long as I can remember.

I don't know, these are the same people who claim not to use pronouns, and nothing says you can't be super dumb and a bigot.

Jupiter posted...

This is an example of what would have gotten us corrected for being wrong back in my 2nd grade class.

They also teach that you shouldnt end sentences with prepositions. Then you grow up and realize thats a misconception carried over from Latin (and English isnt even a Romance language, its Germanic).

They also teach you that when listing items not put a comma before and. Then you grow up and learn about the Oxford comma and how not even the top academics in the field can agree on when to use it.

They also teach you i before e except after c. Then you grow up and learn theres something like eleven times as many exceptions to that rule as there are straight examples.

2nd grade education is a joke.

Fast forward a few years to around 5th grade when I had my first Japanese classes. We were taught that when introducing yourself, watashi if youre female and boku if youre male. Then I grew up and learned theres so much more to it than that, and that basic rule was wrong to begin with.

5th grade education is a joke.

In fact just watch QI and youll learn that most of what you think you know is wrong.

They just don't understand language, they won't understand and they don't want to understand. Elon and Ian Miles Dong were going on about how sign language, they were like "uhhhh but it's just ENGLISH what is this PANDERING and VIRTUE SIGNALLING" except that sign language (any of them, literally any of them) are NOT language of that country/etc. Sign languages are their own languages with their own grammar their own syntax and their own vocabulary.

Dark_Arbron posted...

Then you grow up and realize thats a misconception carried over from Latin (and English isnt even a Romance language, its Germanic).

We must build a time machine and then nuke John Dryden from orbit, then go further back and nuke the coast of France from orbit for murdering this language.

"Most people don't understand the stupidity of singular they because if they did they would use xe"
Is often how such people defeat themselves

The he or she thing sounds distantly familiar, but I definitely used they all the time and I dont remember being corrected. Like, maybe for writing purposes? But I dunno, they is just very easy to say.

hockeybabe89 posted...

Really weird to insist a grammar staple isn't real because you don't want to validate non-binary people.

Ambiguous about what is probably what the teach said when I asked, but I asked in a vacuum

You give people way too much credit. You assume everyone isn't simple minded and must be a bigot. Granted, many are. But the majority of Humans are just that ignorant.

nocturnal_traveler posted...

You give people way too much credit. You assume everyone isn't simple minded and must be a bigot. Granted, many are. But the majority of Humans are just that ignorant.

They literally use they and other pronouns all the time

hockeybabe89 posted...

They literally use they and other pronouns all the time

When referring to the plural, or if the person they are referring to is an unknown. It's only recently that the individual they started to surface.

nocturnal_traveler posted...

When referring to the plural, or if the person they are referring to is an unknown. It's only recently that the individual they started to surface.

1375

People do the same thing with gendered languages (most commonly when the topic of latinx comes up) where they're fine incorporating all sorts of slang, ignore that grammatical gender is generally disconnected from sociological concepts of gender (e.g. the Russian word for "giraffe" is grammatically female but you still call a male giraffe by the same word), and accept all sorts of loan words that defy all rules of declension...

but the second it becomes about trans people, they're like "Sorry, I would respect trans people but I'm just too grammatically minded!"