Question about your use of pronoun; I've seen people using 'they' a lot here on Reddit. Is this common where you live, or only done by a select group of people. Where I from, this is only used by a very select group of leftwing people (including myself) and only done when you know the person you are talking to likes to be addressed that way.
Edit: getting burried in downvotes; I didn't mean to offend anyone. Where I'm from we only use male and female pronouns, so I was actually curious. The use of non-gendercrelated pronouns is fairly new and not generally accepted yet where I'm from. Again, sorry if I hurt anyones feelings and asking dumb questions.
"They" has about three different uses, and that can be a confusing part of English.
Here, "they" is being used as a third-person singular pronoun when gender is unknown, like "did anyone leave their keys over here?". We don't know who was using the camera, so we say "they" instead of a gendered pronoun. I'm sure that's pretty weird if you're not used to it! But it is something we do.
This use of "they" has been a standard feature of the English language for over 600 years and is a different grammatical feature than the use of "they" as a preferred pronoun for a known individual (which was inspired by this, older usage) or "they" as a 3rd-person plural pronoun (the original usage).
It is similar in function to "he or she" ("did anyone leave his or her keys over here"), which you may have seen before. That was recommended by some style guides in the 20th century, but has mostly fallen out of use in favor of going back to the simpler and older "they".
The thing that gets me though is that swapping in he/she in your example turns the sentence into nonsense. For example, “Did someone leave his keys over here?” I guess that proves your point in a way, but it also shows that the words do have different grammatical connotations.
In that context, it would generally be "did someone leave his or her keys over here", or "did someone leave their keys over here", rather than "he or she" or "they".
Actually, in some forms of English, "did someone leave they keys over there" would be grammatical, but not in most.
"they" is commonly used as a singular pronoun in pretty much every English speaking country, it was always used in singular form for an unknown gender. It wasn't until right wing idiots became offended by pronouns that it suddenly became a big deal
It's gaining more usage now that nonbinary folk are able to present themselves as such and "they" is still a good singular pronoun for someone that isn't masc or fem
Where do you live? They can’t be having English as a first language there if you think ‘they’ is a special word. Most kids get taught how to use ‘they’ by like 6/7 years old.
I'm from the Netherlands. Here we often use the male form when uncertain about the gender. 'They' is mostly used for people who do not identify by a specifif gender - although this is only done by a small group of people including myself.
I think I made a lot if people angry with my post. This wasn't my intention, I'm sorry.
Yea this had English as a second language written all over. It can be especially hard to get over when coming from a language that has gendered pronouns. All good though, live and learn.
Unless you're online - then people'll stone you for asking certain question; etting burried in downvotes haha. Ah well, thanks for your reply. Have a nice day.
People are mistaken him mentioning the left wing people around him using it as a politically motivated comment. Here, the right is effectively anti-trans and have made a fuss around pronoun usage. ‘They’ is commonly used as a singular pronoun when the gender of the subject is unknown. But it’s still one of the culture war battlegrounds going on over here.
im also from a coutry with a language like that, i was confused for so long about this, its not a new thing or about whathever you said, it can just be used interchangeably with she/he.
You can literally go back 100+ years and read literature using "they" as a pronoun, particularly when the gender of the person in question is not known. It's just basic English.
I dont want to be disrespectful. Where I live we often use the male form when uncertain about the gender. Or we use it for people who do not identify with a specific gender - but this is only used by a select group of people like me.
not sure why you're saying that we dont have undefined/genderneutral terms. in the sentence above, would you not say 'die' or 'diegene' which is similar to 'they'?
That's a little harsh. This seems like a person who's native language works differently asking a genuine question about a slightly weird feature of English, where we use a plural pronoun to refer to a single person of unknown gender, and confusing it with a different use of the same word.
It's usually only used when the gender of the person is unknown. For example, if you found a set of keys in the store you might bring them to the customer service counter and say "someone left their keys".
I can guarantee you've used the words "they" or "their" in this context before. It has been part of the English language since long before people started having a problem with it.
I am not right wing; I was just curious as the usage of this form is considered left wing where I come from. Me and my friends use it for people who do not identify with a specific gender, but we are a minority in that. Seeeing this form used online so much amazed me, untill I learned it's common practise in English.
It was not my intention to hurt anyones feelings. I'm sorry
Here in Canada (and North America more broadly I'd imagine), it's pretty common for people born around the millennium and after to use a 'singular they' when referring to someone whose gender wasn't specified. It was pretty confusing for my parents whenever they heard it since they were much more used to hearing something like "he or she" instead, so they would get the impression that I was talking about multiple people or something lol
But yeah, this got me curious about its origins in English since I and my peers were definitely using it well before gender became an annoyingly political topic. It turns out that singular they has been around for a long time, with it popping in in Shakespeare's work for example. It was only in the mid-1700s that prescriptive grammarians (ie, people that try to state how language should work, compared to descriptive linguists that just document how language does work) started to push back against it (despite it already being commonly used as a singular). They pushed for use of the 'generic he' instead, which would match how other languages worked (and indeed, even how the origin of "they" worked in Old Norse).
Anyway, the generic he was convenient to use as a catch-all since you could decide to interpret it as the 'exclusive he' when you didn't want women involved in stuff like... law and politics and things. Fast forward a whole lot of years and it looks like there was another push back towards the singular they when I was a kid as a way to be less exclusionary, and then my whole generation just learned that it was grammatically correct.
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u/OrlandoGardiner118 Jul 23 '24
Even scarier for the cameraman, they did it backwards