I used to consider myself a pretty tolerant, open-minded, and respectful person…until pronouns came along. Not that they’re new. They’re something we all learned in school. But that’s just it. What I learned 40+ years ago doesn’t apply to today’s world. And it drives me cuckoo crazy.
It all has to do with the singular usage of “they/their/them.”
The first time I noticed it was a couple of years ago on Twitter when people’s profiles started including their pronouns under their names. Except, at first, I had no idea it had to do with gender identity. I thought it was just letting others know how to address you.
On the one hand, I could see how it would be useful to know whether to address someone a certain way ahead of time. As far as knowing whether to address someone as Ms./Mrs./Miss or Mr. Names these days aren’t as straightforward as they used to be, as far as indicating if it’s likely a man or woman.
But did I expect anyone to address anyone as a Ms./Mrs/Miss or Mr. in such an informal place as Twitter? Nope. I thought it was stupid and ignored adding my pronouns. I had no interest in letting someone know if I was a man or a woman.
The Confusion
Then I started seeing more and more “they/them/their” pronouns, which completely confused me. What was up with that?
Then there was the first time I heard a friend refer to another person as “they.”
“Don’t you mean ‘she’?” I asked.
“No, that’s not how they identify.”
“They who? Her and her girlfriend?”
“No, just them.”
“Them who?”
Yes, it was totally like the “Who’s on first?” Abbott & Costello skit, except with pronouns.
Luckily, this particular friend is patient. She took pity on me and explained the whole “they” thing. I’m sure she expected me to understand, but she ended up being pretty surprised by my reaction.
The Rant about Pronouns
“What a bunch of horseshit!” I declared. “First, the Bible Beaters get offended if I say, “Oh my God” and ask me not to take their lord’s name in vain. So out of respect, I adopted, “Oh my gosh,” instead. Which gripes me every time. I’m not saying, ‘Oh, your God.’ I’m saying, ‘Oh my God,’ and my god doesn’t care if I take his name in vain.
“Now I’m supposed to address certain people using a plural form because why? They’re confused, so now I have to be confused too? No. Nope. Uh uh. This is taking it too far. Why don’t they just use ‘it’ then?
I mentioned this friend is patient, right? She tried again to explain it all to me because, in the past, we’ve always been on the same page about issues like gender and race equality. God bless her for having hope I’d come around.
Which I sort of did…but also didn’t.
Pronouns Pushback
I acknowledged that I understood what she was trying to say. Some people view themselves as non-binary. I totally respect that and have no issue with that, but then I implored her to see it from my side.
What do we use for the plural “they,” then?
“They” implies more than one. That’s what I learned in English, as well as in French and Spanish, which further distinguishes “they” as either masculine or feminine. (Ellos/ellas en espanol and elles/ils en francais.)
“They” is not singular, as many an English teacher admonished me when I’d slip one into a paper. In fact, I remember one paper in particular where I was trying to explain that a singular person did something. What exactly, I don’t remember. I just remember I used “they” for the person’s pronoun because I didn’t know whether the person was a man or a woman.
The rest of the paper was flawless, but that one goof cost me. Not my grade for the semester of anything as dramatic as that. Just my pride. Because the red markings matched my teacher’s fiery reprimand for missing —no, abusing— the pronoun so recklessly. (And that was her one and only comment/criticism on my paper, which otherwise would’ve received a coveted A+, which were extremely hard to come by from this particular teacher, whose regard and high esteem I was desperate for.)
Anyway, it stung —but also stuck— and I’ve been mindful of the usage ever since. Which probably contributes to why the usage of singular “they” bothers me so much.
Who’s going to know?
The other part of it is, I’m most likely not going to address someone as “he, she, or they” as I’m talking with them. (Uh oh. See? There I go using singular them.)
Anyway, I’ll always use “you” when I’m talking to a person directly. I’ll only use the pronouns when I’m talking about or referencing that person. Maybe that person will be there when it happens, maybe not. But how will that person know when I’m guilty of misusing their pronoun if he/she/there is not there?
Why make it more confusing?
Maybe a year from now (or five or ten), I’ll be used to it when someone says, “They said” or “They did” (or some other equivalent), when the “they” refers to a singular person. But to hear it in my ears now is still super confusing. (And so awkward!)
Life is confusing enough as it is without trying to usurp the English language like this.
And, no, the irony isn’t lost on me that for a lot of non-binary folks, that’s what life is: confusing.
Understanding
Still, I want to find a way to understand all this pronoun stuff, so I spent part of Pride Month 2023 trying to educate myself about the use of pronouns. Specifically, how it came to be that “they” (as in people who don’t want to use he or she) decided it was okay to use “they” in a singular way.
That led me to the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) “a brief history of singular ‘they.'” The dictionary traced the first use of singular “they” to “1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. ” (Loving the title!)
OED then explained how in the eighteenth century, grammarians “began warning that singular they was an error because a plural pronoun can’t take a singular antecedent.” The article argued that these grammarians had clearly forgotten that once upon a time “you” was considered a plural pronoun (with “thou” being the singular), but look at it now.
Huh.
OED admitted that “not everyone is down with singular they,” (Yay! I’m not alone!). Even the Chicago Manual of Style “still rejects singular they for formal writing.”
However, the dictionary also said we’re all guilty of using singular “they” when we talk (and write), whether we’re aware of it or not. Or as they put it: “Even people who object to singular they as a grammatical error use it themselves when they’re not looking…” (Guilty!)
But what struck me was the dictionary’s reference to something Robert Burchfield, the former Chief Editor of the OED, said about singular “they.” Namely, “that this trend is ‘irreversible,’” whether it’s in reference to non-binary people or the way we’re now writing and speaking in general.
Grammatical Evolution: We Need a New Pronoun
Us people are weird. We always want to bucket and shelve ourselves into one category or another. Whether that’s using pronouns or other descriptors, like Black, White, Brown, Yellow, heathen, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, rich, poor, young, old, etc.
And don’t even get me started on why single and married men are simply Mr. while women have three different titles.
But even folks who identify as non-binary want to bucket themselves as something, i.e. neither man nor woman. Which I respect. Dividing ourselves has led to many problems, like the Battle of the Sexes, pay discrepancies, and even chore allocation imbalances. And it stinks because, at the end of the day, we’re all the same: people. Human beings. Homo sapiens. Earthlings.
It would behoove us to have a gender-neutral pronoun to describe ourselves. It might even facilitate better relations amongst us as a whole.
I’m just firmly against using “they” in a singular form to accomplish that. I found a list of gender-neutral and inclusive pronouns on the University of Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center while researching pronouns this month.
To my surprise, “it” was an option, but how they used it in an example… nope. (“Alex ate its food because it was hungry.”)
Just using someone’s name was another option. (Ash ate Ash’s food because Ash was hungry.) But, again, it’s so awkward. (Almost as awkward as if that was someone talking about themself in the third person.)
Then there was an option for “ze”:
Ze is pronounced like “zee” can also be spelled zie or xe, and replaces she/he/they.
And another one for “hir”:
Hir is pronounced like “here” and replaces her/hers/him/his/they/theirs.
“Per” was yet another one:
Per/per/pers (“Kyla ate per food because per were hungry.”) Think of it as a shortened version of “person.”
Of them all, I could get on board with “per” the most. But then I also started thinking of others.
What about these?
“Hum” (hum/hum/hums) for human. Except then this sentence example popped into my head: “Hum hummed a catchy tune.” Eh. Maybe not.
“Non” (non/non/nons) for non-binary came to mind too. Except “non” could also have negative connotations.
So what about another form of non-binary, like “nobi” (nobi/nobi/nobis)?
Or there’s always “sap,” for homo sapien. (Because obviously either “ho” or “homo” wouldn’t work.) But sap, too, is also already a word of its own. I’m sure it wouldn’t appreciate being hijacked for a pronoun.
Sigh.
Creating new pronouns is hard. But I implore the genius grammaticians and linguists out there to try. If for no other reason than to spare us from the singular “they.”