{"id":43605,"date":"2019-07-12T05:44:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T10:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=43605"},"modified":"2019-07-12T14:49:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T19:49:51","slug":"they-triumphs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=43605","title":{"rendered":"They triumphs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farhad Manjoo, \"Call Me 'They<\/a>'\", NYT 7\/10\/2019:<\/p>\n

The singular \u201cthey\u201d is inclusive and flexible, and it breaks the stifling prison of gender expectations. Let\u2019s all use it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am your stereotypical, cisgender, middle-aged suburban dad. I dabble in woodworking, I take out the garbage, and I covet my neighbor\u2019s Porsche. Though I do think men should wear makeup (it looks nice!), my tepid masculinity apparently rings loudly enough online and in person that most people guess that I go by \u201che\u201d and \u201chim.\u201d And that\u2019s fine; I will not be offended if you refer to me by those traditional, uselessly gendered pronouns.<\/span><\/p>\n

But \u201che\u201d is not what you should call me. If we lived in a just, rational, inclusive universe \u2014 one in which we were not all so irredeemably obsessed by the particulars of the parts dangling between our fellow humans\u2019 legs, nor the ridiculous expectations signified by those parts about how we should act and speak and dress and feel \u2014 there would be no requirement for you to have to assume my gender just to refer to me in the common tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Usage of singular they<\/em> has seen a progression from indefinite singular referents of unspecified gender, to definite\u00a0 singular referents of unspecified gender, to definite singular referents of\u00a0 known gender but unspecified identity, to definite singular referents of known birth sex and specified identity — with the last-named stage sometimes just a new kind of 3rd-singular pronoun applied indiscriminately to any referent at all, and sometimes seen as an option to be applied to certain people who have chosen to opt out of the binary gender system.<\/p>\n

Manjoo is apparently suggesting that everyone should choose the opt-out option, at least with respect to pronoun choices,\u00a0 so that they<\/em> replaces he<\/em> and she<\/em> just as you<\/em> replaced thou<\/em>. This will certainly get pushback from traditionalists like Mary Norris<\/a>. Will there also be objections from people on the other side, who want to see explicit non-gendered pronoun choice retained as an expression of personal identity?<\/p>\n

A sample of LLOG posts on the topic over the years:<\/p>\n

\"They are a prophet<\/a>\", 10\/21\/2004
\n\"The SAT fails a grammar test<\/a>\", 1\/31\/2005
\n\"Singular they and plural he\/she\/it<\/a>\", 10\/12\/2005
\n\"Singular they with known sex<\/a>\", 1\/3\/2006
\n\"Shakespeare used they with singular antecedents so there<\/a>\", 1\/5\/2006
\n\"Is singular they verbally and plenarily inspired of God?<\/a>\", 8\/21\/2006
\n\"'Singular they': God said it, I believe it, that settles it<\/a>\", 9\/13\/2006
\n\"Everyone knows each other<\/a>\", 3\/26\/2008
\n\"Canadian Department of Justice: use 'singular they'<\/a>\", 4\/13\/2008
\n\"Xtreme singular they<\/a>\", 4\/18\/2008
\n\"'im or 'em?<\/a>\", 5\/9\/2008
\n\"Presidential pronoun watch<\/a>\", 5\/20\/2008
\n\"Prescriptivist Science<\/a>\", 5\/30\/2008
\n\"Facebook phases out singular they<\/a>\", 6\/27\/2008
\n\"Knuckling under<\/a>\", 3\/16\/2009
\n\"Candidates must be a student<\/a>\", 4\/16\/2009
\n\"As they arrive<\/a>\", 6\/9\/2009
\n\"The President and the pronoun<\/a>\", 8\/3\/2009
\n\"Singular they trudges on<\/a>\", 1\/24\/2010
\n\"What he used to be and who they are now<\/a>\", 2\/2\/2010
\n\"Their mouth … its mouths<\/a>\", 5\/15\/2010
\n\"Sometimes Strunk and White are right<\/a>\", 7\/1\/2010
\n\"David Pogue assails singular they<\/a>\", 7\/7\/2010
\n\"Singular they with personal name antecedent<\/a>\", 9\/1\/2010
\n\"Annals of singular their<\/a>\", 9\/21\/2010
\n\"'Dan has noot filled out their profile yet'<\/a>\", 7\/31\/2011
\n\"Sweden's gender-neutral 3rd-person singular pronoun<\/a>\", 4\/13\/2012
\n\"Plural it in E. Nesbit<\/a>\", 6\/2\/2012
\n\"'The nurse who has a low opinion of oneself<\/a>\", 7\/19\/2012
\n\"We all need someone who relies on<\/a>\", 11\/16\/2012
\n\"Popes and prophets<\/a>\", 2\/12\/2013
\n\"The future of singular they<\/a>\", 3\/8\/2013
\n\"I met someone and they make me happy<\/a>\", 12\/4\/2013
\n\"Enlightened singular they<\/a>\", 1\/22\/2014
\n\"The manuscript they would have written<\/a>\", 1\/29\/2015
\n\"Typical options like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153she\u00e2\u20ac\ufffd<\/a>\", 9\/15\/2015
\n\"Annals of singular 'they': another case with known sex<\/a>\", 11\/30\/2015
\n\"The Washington Post concedes on singular they<\/a>\", 12\/13\/2015
\n\"Linguistic reaction at The New Yorker<\/a>\", 3\/8\/2016
\n\"Choosing their pronouns for oneself<\/a>\", 9\/15\/2016
\n\"The craven feminine pronoun<\/a>\", 2\/8\/2017
\n\"The Daily Mail deluding themselves<\/a>\", 2\/28\/2017
\n\"What a woman can't do with their body<\/a>\", 3\/10.2017
\n\"Singular They of the day<\/a>\", 4\/14\/2016
\n\"Schooled on singular 'they'<\/a>\", 4\/21\/2017
\n\"Pronominal reference to the arbitrary dog<\/a>\", 4\/22\/2017
\n\"Or the arbitrary cat, horse, or pig<\/a>\", 4\/23\/2017
\n\"Terror of singular 'they'<\/a>\", 10\/13\/2017
\n\"A letter saying they won<\/a>\", 12\/4\/2017
\n\"If you can't say something nice…<\/a>\", 12\/5\/2017
\n\"Courtesy and personal pronoun choice<\/a>\", 12\/6\/2017
\n\"On when listening is better than talking: A call for contemplation and empathy<\/a>\", 12\/11\/2017
\n\"Linguists and change<\/a>\", 12\/15\/2017
\n\"Tolerance for singular they<\/a>\", 9\/4\/2018<\/p>\n

And for a seventeenth-century precedent, see<\/p>\n

\"George Fox, Prescriptivist<\/a>\", 10\/24\/2010
\n\"Fox redux<\/a>\", 9\/26\/2015
\n\"That false and senseless Way of Speaking<\/a>\", 7\/1\/2016<\/p>\n

Update — Rachel L. Harris and Lisa Tarchak, \"I'm with 'They'<\/a>\" (\"What\u2019s the big deal with gender-neutral pronouns? Some readers and our columnist disagreed\"), NYT 7\/12\/2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farhad Manjoo, \"Call Me 'They'\", NYT 7\/10\/2019: The singular \u201cthey\u201d is inclusive and flexible, and it breaks the stifling prison of gender expectations. Let\u2019s all use it. I am your stereotypical, cisgender, middle-aged suburban dad. I dabble in woodworking, I take out the garbage, and I covet my neighbor\u2019s Porsche. Though I do think men […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-changing-times","category-language-and-gender"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43605"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43623,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43605\/revisions\/43623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}