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Singular they is what we are doing when we refer to somebody who uses they/them pronouns. Indefinite they is what we're doing when we're referring to somebody unidentified or unknown - somebody or anybody or everybody and so on.
A lot of times when dealing with people who claim their objection to singular they is purely grammatical, no politics or transphobia at all we point out that, in fact, those people use indefinite they all the time without even noticing. Everybody does! And they probably also have used, or at least heard other people use "they" as an indefinite pronoun to deliberately obscure the gender of somebody else, for whatever reason. This is wholly normal and you can find examples in print dating back your entire lifespan and longer.
This is kinda cheating, because neither of those is really the usage of singular they that those people object to, but they're cheating too by saying it's just grammatical grounds when it's really not, so I don't really care. Anyway, getting slowly around to the point, people typically will define the indefinite usage of the word "they" with some note that the gender of the person referred to is unknown or, well, indefinite in some way.
But it doesn't have to be that way and often isn't!
I've been watching the TV episodes of the recent Malory Towers series, which btw is written by somebody clearly much more sympathetic to Gwen than Blyton ever was, and just now somebody referred to another student, an obvious thief, as "they" because they don't know which student it is who's stealing people's things that their loved ones gave them. (I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say it's Gwen.) It's an all girls school in the post-war period, so we can safely assume this thief is "she", unless the kids think it's maybe their teacher who's engaging in petty theft.
I probably see and hear examples like this all the time, I just don't notice them because they're so unremarkable and ordinary, so now that I have noticed one I wanted to make sure to note it down somewhere.
A lot of times when dealing with people who claim their objection to singular they is purely grammatical, no politics or transphobia at all we point out that, in fact, those people use indefinite they all the time without even noticing. Everybody does! And they probably also have used, or at least heard other people use "they" as an indefinite pronoun to deliberately obscure the gender of somebody else, for whatever reason. This is wholly normal and you can find examples in print dating back your entire lifespan and longer.
This is kinda cheating, because neither of those is really the usage of singular they that those people object to, but they're cheating too by saying it's just grammatical grounds when it's really not, so I don't really care. Anyway, getting slowly around to the point, people typically will define the indefinite usage of the word "they" with some note that the gender of the person referred to is unknown or, well, indefinite in some way.
But it doesn't have to be that way and often isn't!
I've been watching the TV episodes of the recent Malory Towers series, which btw is written by somebody clearly much more sympathetic to Gwen than Blyton ever was, and just now somebody referred to another student, an obvious thief, as "they" because they don't know which student it is who's stealing people's things that their loved ones gave them. (I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say it's Gwen.) It's an all girls school in the post-war period, so we can safely assume this thief is "she", unless the kids think it's maybe their teacher who's engaging in petty theft.
I probably see and hear examples like this all the time, I just don't notice them because they're so unremarkable and ordinary, so now that I have noticed one I wanted to make sure to note it down somewhere.
