As we all know, indefinite they is not quite the same as singular they

[conuly]

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.

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I usually notice them. I suppose I must use indefinite they sometimes because, as you say, it's been around for hundreds of years, but I think my tendency is to circumlocute instead. For much of my life I said "he or she" in those circumstances, but forcibly removed it from my speech when it sank in that not everybody is one or the other. He or She was a conscious choice at first, until it became automatic. I am old enough to have be taught in grammar class in elementary school that "he" was the correct default for an unknown person. Imagine a room full of ten year olds staring in disbelief at the idea that "he" was neutral. We were taught to start all business letters Dear Sir, too. I think taking up with he or she was the youthful version of F the patriarchy without yet knowing the expression.

[vvalkyri]

It's not even 10 year olds. I've dealt with a 50 year old who insisted that indefinite he ("when the student comes to class he must have all of his books") was only a formal writing and not in spoken word. But I remember indefinite he being replaced with he or she and somewhat s/he.*

I've been using zie/zir for that, at least in writing, for probably 30 years now.

Interestingly, indefinite he was a deliberate replacement for indefinite they, in the 18th century, on account of grammar complaints. There were a number of attempts to come up with a new pronoun, and thon was one of them, but languages don't do very well at integrating new words as pronouns. Repurposing other pronouns seems to work instead.

My issue with specific they is that it with some frequency needs some further explanation as to whether you are now talking about multiple people:

I asked Pat about dinner and they want chicken.

Pat says they will arrive at 8.

Context helps there, but zie will arrive at 8 is clearly just Pat, rather than Pat and zir date.

This is the first time I've seen anybody but me comment that indefinite and specific they are two different things and specifically is only honestly around a decade or so old. Moving off he/she to they was getting written about in maybe 2009, but they as personal singular pronoun wasn't getting talked about in wide society yet.

There's a really interesting on language article I ran across then I'll see if I can find again but not right now.



* At Wellesley we used indefinite she. There might well be some guys in the class, but there was a deliberate choice to replace he as default with she as default.

I don't know that nonspecific / indefinite they is that the gender is unknown but instead that the person is unspecified. I could see someone simply not changing their usage when the person is unspecified but the gender can be assumed.

Edit: webster's on Thon

And NYTabout introducing singular specific They in 2015

Found it! Nyt July 2009: All-Purpose Pronoun, in which they're talking about looking for a replacement for universal he.

(For the New York Times articles, I can copy paste later if you want)

In looking for that in old email Facebook replies, I found a comment from me in 2015 after "oh no! They must have left before I arrived!" got a response of "what pronouns does [name] use?"

Had singular specific They not started becoming A Thing of late it would have been obvious to the other person in my conversation that I was
referring to [name] and an unspecified other (or others) when I lamented
that they had left before I arrived.

Instead she took my use of they to mean that [name] might be gender identifying as something other than female; that would never happen in a situation where neutral identifiers still have
singular/plural - e.g. Ey, zie, sie, etc as the singular specific, leaving
they as plural.

[conuly]

My issue with specific they is that it with some frequency needs some further explanation as to whether you are now talking about multiple people:

Yeah, but this boils down more to the fact that we don't have the proximate/obviate distinction. You can get that exact same confusion with he and she. "Michael said John kissed his wife" - well, whose wife did John kiss?

[calimac]

It does, and when I'm writing fiction, so I have the choice, I usually make complex conversations between two characters ones who identify as M and F, so I can use "he" and "she" and avoid the problem of repeated identification.

But the potential confusion between singular and plural is an additional problem when using singular they, a problem that users of singular they are not always aware of.

[redbird]

languages don't do very well at integrating new words as pronouns

Amusingly, English has done this before, by adopting "they/them/their" from Norse to replace Middle English "hi/hem/hir," which was easier to confuse with "he/him."

[flamingsword]

Thank you for noticing this peccadillo of language. I should try to notice it more myself, being one such singular they.

[pauamma]

That was the original use of singular they, if I understand you correctly.

[calimac]

My experience with singular they is that singular they and indefinite they are entirely different usages which sit in the brain in entirely different places. People who struggle with using singular they should not be chided on the grounds that they use indefinite they all the time without any trouble, so they should have no trouble with this. That's not the case.

[conuly]

I don't particularly mind people who just "struggle".

I mind people who whine about it, and very obviously because they just don't wanna and are transphobic as hell. They're pretending to one complaint when they really have another, and that's just not okay. Neither is transphobia.

[silveradept]

I can only speak for my own experience, but I'm very fond of the obscuration of gender that happens from using they as the pronoun. It sometimes cuts through a certain amount of faff and allows an issue to be discussed without diversions taken about whether or not the accounts of one gender or another are to be believed more about the reality of the situation.

[cellio]

Indefinite they was the only kind of "singular they" until very, very recently. When I first encountered the term "singular they", decades ago, it was in reference to indefinite they. That always weirded me out some in writing, both as a reader and an author, and as the latter I've avoided it. (Speech is different for me.)

A lot of confusion could have been avoided if the new "singular they" -- very different from indefinite they -- had used any of the other neopronouns instead. Now when people talk about, or use, "singular they", it's not always clear which it is. That's confusing.

Singular they breaks my brain. When I see it in writing, it stops me cold as I mentally backtrack to find the other people included. Or sometimes it's just ambiguous. I have stopped reading fiction that does this a lot, that I otherwise would have enjoyed, because of the cognitive load. This is entirely about my brain, my ability to parse. You know how (probably) a misplaced "it's" (instead of "its") or "they're" (instead of "their" or "there") kind of pulls you out of what you're reading for a moment? Singular they, for me, is a thousand times worse. I don't know why. I've tried to push through it, and I haven't been able to make it work in my brain.

Some people decided to overload the use of "they" for this new specific-reference purpose, instead of adopting or coining a new pronoun. We have to live with this now, but I wish more of them understood that for some of us, this is an actual cognitive issue, not transphobia. I've been attacked -- called a bigot, publicly smeared -- because I try to write clearly to avoid confusion and sometimes that means not using pronouns at all. According to some people, attempting to avoid confusion is "refusing to use people's pronouns" and should be a firing offense or worse. Bigotry is not ok, and false accusations of bigotry are also not ok. We need to find better ways to all get along, maybe even try to understand each other better.

I am totally cool with non-binary. Gender is a spectrum; I get that. I just want us to find ways to talk that reduce rather than increase confusion.

I'm sure I've slipped up occasionally and written indefinite they, though I think it's pretty rare because avoiding this kind of confusion was part of my training as a writer (along with being my natural inclination). Speech is different and while I think I don't do it a lot, I'm sure I do it some of the time. When talking with a group of people synchronously, there's a lot more common context than there is in any written work. I probably do it unknowingly, like everyone else. But, as you said, indefinite they is not the same thing as the new singular they, and thus it's not really the precedent some say it is. When people point to Shakespeare, they're pointing to indefinite they, not specific they. That makes a world of difference.

[conuly]

A lot of confusion could have been avoided if the new "singular they" -- very different from indefinite they -- had used any of the other neopronouns instead. Now when people talk about, or use, "singular they", it's not always clear which it is. That's confusing.

Singular they is not inherently any more confusing than "singular you". And pronouns in English are largely a closed class - it's easier to modify an existing usage of a pronoun that exists than to get people to accept a new one.

[cellio]

I usually say (and in non-formal settings, write) "y'all" if I mean the plural and that wouldn't otherwise be clear. Also "folks", "hey everyone", etc, as appropriate.

Singular they might not have been any more confusing than singular you if we didn't also, first, have indefinite they.

I envy people who can just understand all the overloaded confusing meanings without getting derailed. I'm not one of them.

As for closed systems, "thee" and "thou" gave way to "you", didn't they? I think there was a window, about 10-15 years ago, where "zie" or "xi" could have become mainstream, and it might not be too late even now to get some ungendered unambiguously-singular pronoun into the lexicon. Or maybe that's just the circles I run in.

[conuly]

As for closed systems, "thee" and "thou" gave way to "you", didn't they?

No. "You" already existed as a plural and - crucially! - as a formality marker in the singular. That's how it crept in and took over from thou entirely, and you'll note that all new plural second persons are not wholly invented out of whole cloth, but incorporate the word "you" in there somewhere - y'all is you all, youse is you + plural, yinz is you 'uns with lots of linguistic evolution, with-you (which I think may be from the Outer Banks, but don't quote me) is transparently with + you, you guys is you + guy + plural....

[cellio]

Oh! Yes, that makes a difference. Thanks for reminding me. (Sigh. I did know this at one time...)

It's a pity that for specific singular they, we didn't use a "they-adjacent" word instead of "they". "Thet/thes" would have been fine, close to "they", not confusing... probably too late now, alas.