New York City is fining people for ignoring pronoun orders.

[pErvinalia]

Having been married to an Afrikaan speaker, I reckon it says - I piss and shit in your general direction.

I had no idea lol.

The Afrikaaners would be right down your alley. Racist, misogynist, knuckleheads.

[Scot Dutchy]

Having been married to an Afrikaan speaker, I reckon it says - I piss and shit in your general direction.

I had no idea lol.

The Afrikaaners would be right down your alley. Racist, misogynist, knuckleheads.

Dont talk about the Trekkers like that.

[rainbow]

Having been married to an Afrikaan speaker, I reckon it says - I piss and shit in your general direction.

I had no idea lol.

The Afrikaaners would be right down your alley. Racist, misogynist, knuckleheads.

Jou ma se poes!

That is a racist generalisation.

Are you not aware that the majority of Afrikaans speakers are not even white?

[pErvinalia]

That wouldn't be their first language, though, would it? You talkind about the Zulus et al?

Anyway, speaking Afrikaans isn't what makes you an Afrikaaner. You have to be a giant white knucklehead with no neck...

[pErvinalia]

I'm at the ex's place now. She mentioned the "Cape coloureds". That probably explains your 'Jou ma se poes' comment..

[Forty Two]

Interestingly the etymology of "guy" is "grotesquely or poorly dressed person" from 1806. It originally wasn't associated with males. Suck on that, feminazis!!

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... search=guy

[Forty Two]

For any who are interested in technical aspects of grammar, and why though the singular "they" may be a bugaboo of grammaticasters, it is in fact acceptable from a grammatical standpoint: "Singular 'they' and the many reasons why it’s correct | Motivated Grammar

It's acceptable to some grammarians. it's in dispute. The language is probably going that way, though, because English lacks a gender neutral pronoun in that situation.

Going that way? If you'd bothered to read the article you'd know that the singular "they" has been an accepted usage going back at least to Chaucer in the 15th century. It went "that way" a long, long time ago, and the prim wanna-be prescriptivist nitpickers have no genuine basis for sneering down their noses at this usage.

Thanks, I was going to post that. I wasn't aware until recently that it's become politicised, but I suppose that is not surprising.

In Chaucer's day, the rules of grammar and spelling were not consistent. They were all over the map. It's not really relevant to use their usages, from the 14th or 15th century, to discuss modern English usage. For the last 150 years, the singular "they" has been considered by most grammarians as incorrect. That's not "looking down noses" or sneering at it. I'm not judgmental about changing usages, and language changes. Like I said, some grammarians think it's o.k., and others think it's improper. Either way, it's all just opinion with some sort of argument behind it as to why it should be one way or the other.

To me, it sounds awkward in most instances to use they in reference to singular. It can be confusing. "Pat went to the store, and then they bought a pack of cigarettes." Doesn't sound right, and the use of "they" in that sentence creates confusion because Pat is one person but they refers to a group. Is they in that sentence referring to Pat, or some other people?

[JimC]

I agree. "They" as singular can get fucked.

[pErvinalia]

They can go and get fucked.

[L'Emmerdeur]

In Chaucer's day, the rules of grammar and spelling were not consistent. They were all over the map. It's not really relevant to use their usages, from the 14th or 15th century, to discuss modern English usage.

Again it appears that you've failed to read the cited source. It is not just Chaucer that is mentioned, and not just "14th or 15th century" usage that is presented. What is presented is a list of respected English language authors going back to Chaucer and right up through the 20th century who used the singular "they." If you did read the article, then you're being deliberately obtuse when you jump on my use of his name to make the specious point above.

For the last 150 years, the singular "they" has been considered by most grammarians as incorrect. That's not "looking down noses" or sneering at it. I'm not judgmental about changing usages, and language changes.

So we have centuries of a particular usage being completely acceptable, and then at some point it was decided by many grammarians that the usage was no longer acceptable. Let's look at why that decision was made.

[T]he "singular their" construction . . . is attested starting in the late 1300's. So from the fourteenth century on, both "singular their" and the pronominal generic masculine existed in English, and were two competing solutions for the same problem.

From then on, "singular their" was used without much inhibition (see the examples from the OED) and was not generally considered "bad grammar". It is true that starting in the 16th century, when English grammar began to be a subject of study, some rules of Latin grammar were applied to English; and that the Latin-based rules of grammatical agreement might have been seen as forbidding the English singular "their" construction -- if they were interpreted in a certain linguistically naïve way. (This may explain why certain classical-language-influenced authors, such as the translators of the King James Bible, tended to use singular "their" somewhat infrequently -- but see Phillipians 2:3.) However, the earliest specific condemnation of singular "their" that Bodine was able to find (in her 1975 article) dated only from 1795 (more than two centuries after English grammar started being taught, and at least several decades after the beginning of the 18th century "grammar boom").

So it seems that it was only in the late 18th century or early 19th century, when prescriptive grammarians started attacking singular "their" because this didn't seem to them to accord with the "logic" of the Latin language, that it began to be more or less widely taught that the construction was bad grammar. The prohibition against singular "their" then joined the other arbitrary prescriptions created from naïve analogies between English and Latin -- such as the prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition.

[source]

The misguided and unfounded attempt to make English grammar conform to the strictures of Latin grammar is responsible for many ridiculous and useless rules favoured by those who thrive on stroking their own egos by correcting the way that others speak and write. The artificial and ahistorical attempt to quash the singular "they" is just one example of this.

Like I said, some grammarians think it's o.k., and others think it's improper. Either way, it's all just opinion with some sort of argument behind it as to why it should be one way or the other.

To me, it sounds awkward in most instances to use they in reference to singular. It can be confusing. "Pat went to the store, and then they bought a pack of cigarettes." Doesn't sound right, and the use of "they" in that sentence creates confusion because Pat is one person but they refers to a group. Is they in that sentence referring to Pat, or some other people?

OK, so you don't like it. In your example sentence, it is clear that "Pat" is a singular subject. Very few who have a good understanding of English are going to think that the subsequent pronoun is referring to a group, given the fact that the singular "they" has a long unbroken history in English usage. You may find it confusing, but I think that practically no native speakers of English would, and I dare say few who have a decent grounding in English as a second language are going to have trouble with it, either.

[JimC]

I have never, ever heard the singular they being used, and when I read examples in print (only in this thread, I've never seen it in everyday reading) it simply sounds wrong. I'm not building an academic case against it, it's simply that it is not part of the word universe around me in Oz...

[L'Emmerdeur]

I have never, ever heard the singular they being used, and when I read examples in print (only in this thread, I've never seen it in everyday reading) it simply sounds wrong. I'm not building an academic case against it, it's simply that it is not part of the word universe around me in Oz...

I'm pretty sure that you have, but it's so commonplace that you didn't even realise it.

From the Oxford English Dictionary ("In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she."), and one other source:

Leaving every Body to their liberty of believing what they pleas'd.
--Thomas Hearne, 1698

Every Body fell a laughing, as how could they help it.
-- Henry Fielding, 1749

If a person is born of a..gloomy temper..they cannot help it.
-- Lord Chesterfield, 1759

Nobody can deprive us of the Church, if they would.
-- William Whewell, 1835

Nobody fancies for a moment that they are reading about any thing beyond the pale of ordinary propriety.
-- Walter Bagshot, 1858

Every one likes to keep it to themselves as long as they can.
-- George Dasent, 1874

Nobody can bother you until they've passed three butlers, two secretaries, and my personal assistant!
-- Langston Hughes, 1932

She kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everybody ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes.
-- C.S. Lewis, 1952

When somebody becomes prime minister they're immediately put on a pedestal.
-- Listener 3, 1968

The psychiatric label for a transgender person is that they are suffering Gender Identity Disorder.
-- Allen and Barbara Pease, 1998

[JimC]

Most of those examples weren't about a particular individual, but about an example of a group, or of someone in general. Not the same as Forty Two's example, which I paraphrase: "Jim bought a bottle of gin, and a bottle of tonic, and then they went home and made and consumed several delicious G % & Ts"

No, simply doesn't work in an individual context...

[Sean Hayden]

Not so odd given that you and gin are old friends.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Most of those examples weren't about a particular individual, but about an example of a group, or of someone in general. Not the same as Forty Two's example, which I paraphrase: "Jim bought a bottle of gin, and a bottle of tonic, and then they went home and made and consumed several delicious G % & Ts"

No, simply doesn't work in an individual context...

You may not like it, but it does work in an individual context, and that is why it is the most appropriate gender neutral pronoun.

"Someone in general" is still a singular antecedent; we have "someone does" vs. "people do."

Forty Two's example is better than yours, since "Pat" can equally refer to either a male or female or to somebody who doesn't necessarily identify as either, and it's not hard to conceive of a case in which a "Pat" does not wish to have a gendered pronoun applied to them. On the other hand, "Jim" is practically always a male name, and therefore the "they" is practically never appropriate.

The summary to the previously cited source:

You don’t have to use singular they yourself. You can go ahead and re-work your sentences to avoid it. You can employ he or she, or s/he, or a made-up gender-neutral pronoun of your own devising like xe. You can even just stubbornly plow on, using he as a gender-neutral pronoun until you grow tired of people pointing out that it isn’t really. I don’t care, and you’re not grammatically wrong. But you’re just making a fool of yourself when you go around telling users of singular they that they’re wrong, because they’re not.