ALT TEXT:
- Panel 1: A person with the text “Singular ‘they’” written on them smiling with open arms.
- Panel 2: “Singular ‘They’” beaten up by others who said, “Singular they is ungrammatical. It’s too confusing,” “How can anyone use plural pronouns for singular,” and “Every pronoun should only have one purpose.”
- Panel 3: “You” hiding from the mob who was beating “Singular ‘They’”
- Panel 4: “German ‘Sie’” hiding with even more fear next to “You”
I hate English, it’s also the only language I’m fluent in, so it’s a love/hate relationship.
The disconnect that most people mistake here is between direct and indirect pronouns. Until recently, they/them has been used indirectly, to refer to someone who isn’t present. To use it while they’re present is uncomfortable for many not because it’s supposed to be plural, but because it’s supposed to be indirect. The only time you would (previously) say they/them in the presence of the individual in question, is to disregard them. An effort to make them irrelevant, like, I care so little about you that I’m not even going to recognise your presence.
They/them is very common as a singular pronoun. There’s a ton of good examples of it being used in this way in this thread.
The thing I love/hate about English is that it adapts to how people use it, and right now, we’re adapting they/them to be direct singular, instead of exclusively indirect singular. Unfortunately everyone knows this on some level, and while many are crying about it being plural (not understanding why it makes them uncomfortable), while it’s definitely not, it is indirect, and the non-binary folks have asked us to use it as a direct singular for them (which I support).
IMO, this is a change that can, and by all means, should happen.
The hate of English for me is when perfectly good under-used terms have their definition applied to more commonly (albeit incorrectly) used words, a prime example of this is jealous. Historically it has meant: fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s rights or possessions. Which, when applied to a relationship, results in the other definition for jealousy: feeling or showing suspicion of someone’s unfaithfulness in a relationship. However, people have used jealous under it’s newest definition for a while now, which is: feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages. Which as the definition clearly shows, it’s simply a showing of envy, or the act of being envious. The problem I have is that this legitimizes the incorrect use of the word, when we have another word that already means that… Envious. One word co-opting the definition of another is simply a demonstration of the lazy nature of English speakers. We would rather redefine the commonly, and incorrectly used term than learn and use the correct one.
When it comes to they/them, there is no direct singular ungendered term for an individual besides “you”, which will always refer to the person being spoken to. So a new term, or a new definition of an existing term is required. Non-binary people seem to have unanimously agreed that the terms that they want to adapt for this purpose is they and them. I’m fully in support of this, and while it may be uncomfortable for people to adapt to this new usage, it’s something that should be done, and IMO, will be done.
Alternatively, we could co-opt a new word, either entirely unique, or derived from another language, for the direct singular ungendered person. This would probably be more comfortable for the more cis-normative population, but bluntly, getting all of the non-binary people, or at least the majority of them, to agree to the use of the new word, whatever it is, would be challenging at the very least, and it may, in a worst case, be rather insulting to those who prefer they/them, who wouldn’t want to change that just to appease some gendered people who are uncomfortable with they/them. It’s a valid option, but not one that I believe is viable.
On top of that, these are the pronouns they have chosen. As a matter of respect for your fellow humans, we should let the non-binary people choose the words that they would like to use for their pronouns. Something which they have already done, and those terms are they/them. If we, as a species, have any respect for eachother at all, we’ll respect that decision, and adapt, regardless of the temporary discomfort we may have about it in the interim.
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It’s not change itself that I hate, it’s when the change makes language less useful. Example, “literally” meaning its opposite, “figuratively,” through common misuse. “It was literally the million-dollar question” used to mean that it was a question that, if answered, would actually be worth a million dollars rather than figuratively meaning it was an important one to answer. Now it’s unclear.
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Care to give examples?
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No, examples of words that mean two opposite things at the same time, since you apparently said that every single word in existence has always been that way. “Bad” comes to mind, though it’s a lot easier to tell from context which meaning it has compared to “literally.”
Another non-english example would be the german word “umfahren” which can mean both driving around or over something, depending on context
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I like you, you get me. Adapting the language to serve the common denominator isn’t great since the common denominator is generally an idiot. We, as a people, are fairly stupid on the whole. Codifying the literal opposite of a word into that words definition is reducing the clarity of the language, requiring further clarification for the uncertainty, suddenly a relatively terse statement becomes a long unwieldy mess of clarifications for all the idiosyncrasies of the words, since the words have so many contradictory meanings that the statement can be interpreted in any number of ways, instead of how it was intended.
Over time, the common meaning of terms has been diluted to the point where most statements need clarifying context to even be correctly understood.
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Or extensive, originally meant spread out, but is also used for comprehensive.
I don’t disagree with you, but the changes I tend to have a problem with, as samus12345 pointed out, is that it robs the statement of clarity. I just want language, any language, to be as specific as it can, so that misunderstandings are minimized because the words used have specific definitions, which are all similar. Instead of the contradictory definitions many words seem to have.
It’s by far not the majority of words that have this problem, but it’s definitely a non-trivial number of them that do.
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Another more cultural issue is the fact that there WAS a movement to create a new direct genderless pronoun, xe/xem. However, those who are hateful or resist this study of change to the language made a mockery of it.
People are always going to resist and mock, not on the word choice, but that it represents something that they hate.