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

[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."