Grinds my gears as well

UD2,
Are you going to explain what you were getting at with the editing vs revising thing because I'm pretty confused about what that was about?

As far as I'm concerned, singular they needs to be licensed by some sort of antecedent involving vagueness. So...

Perhaps you can ask someone if they can help.
*Perhaps you can ask Mary if they can help (where 'they' refers to Mary obviously and not her friends down the street with a truck)
? Perhaps you can ask Mary if Mary can help

Assuming Mary doesn't want to use 'she'.

What are you asking? Obviously, like with 90% of the english language, context matters

Don’t worry about it, sorry for the confusion. Editing/revising is a lesson I teach kids and something you did reminded me of that.

Perhaps you can ask Mary if Mary can help you sounds horrible to me, they would make much more sense there if the person prefers that pronoun to s/he...
And as a writing teacher, the repetition of the proper noun just rubs me the wrong way, it’s why we have pronouns.

language log archive of entries on singular they is worth a gander as there appear to be a number of posts on it.
Geoffrey Pullman who is a somewhat well known linguist at least agrees that when the antecedent is a personal name, that singular 'they' is ungrammatical in this piece a letter saying they have won

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this, because for me singular they is ungrammatical with a personal name as antecedent. A sentence like Whoever your visitor was, they have left their coat behind is grammatical for me, but *Chris has left their coat behind is not. Not even if I know your visitor was named Chris but I don't know whether it was a Christopher or a Christine.

I don't want to offend anyone. But it's a bit much to expect me to start saying things that are clearly and decisively ungrammatical according to my own internalized grammar. I'll do my best, but it will be a real struggle.

Idk it works for me: Chris left their coat on the chair (and I say that because they prefer to use non-gendered a pronoun but hopefully you know I’m still talking about Chris because it is obvious that they are the owner of said coat).

Interesting site though, thanks for sharing.

POG Politics Thread: Sometimes semantics, sometimes pedantic

'Chris left their coat on the chair' lacks the ambiguity that something like 'Ask Thomas if they can come' has-- because we presume that a coat isn't jointly owned. So I agree that in that context it doesn't sound as bad.
Where are you at on 2nd person plural? I'm a "you guys" person which is as gendered as it gets, but as I'm currently in the South I hear a fair amount of the more gender neutral "Y'all".
But I definitely think that if English is going to clean up its pronoun act this is where to start. I doubt "Y'all" will catch on though as people won't want to be associated with southerners.
But this also gets at some of the issues surrounding singular they-- because as we already lack a clear 2nd person plural, messing up third person plurals seem ill-advised

Finally, an excuse to go on vacation up north. I can topple a staute and go swimming all on the same day!

The last thing I want to say on pronouns for a week: the very best languages have both inclusive and exclusive 1st person plural. So..
"We're going to the store" can, depending on the pronoun used, mean either that the speaker and listener are going together, or the speaker and some third party.
Those languages don't screw around with ambiguity there. here is a good resource on the topic.

I do with they came up with a singular non-gender pronoun



bird it even mentions "i could care less"

wat

i hate that the word you can be plural as well

maybe the Philadelphia "youze guys" should become standard

True story, I briefly wondered if you were a gimmick account of UD's when you registered and tried to "in" Harry Potter.

He has sworn off of werewolf as a player forever, so if he decided to dip his toe back into the water, I, for one, wasn't going to out him.

But now you are legitimately delightful as yourself.

I like y'all and use it freely. BobOjedaFan used to make fun of me for it on Skype. He thinks I have a southern accent, but afaik he and Tokyo and OurHouse are the only ones that ever thought so.

I have to admit, I can't stand "they" in a singular context. I appreciate the inclusivity factor, but I had it drummed into me too many times that it was incorrect usage.

Like the subjunctive use of "was" vs "were." "Were" is no longer considered mandatory, even by the nittiest of nits. But I can't let it go. "If I were a car..." is just so much more lovely than "If I was a car."

Interesting that you use it because I know it's not standard at all in KC area. Also interesting that 'they' had to be reinforced for you, because that's one of those things that I assumed was natural and intuitive.
I usually manage to correct myself in writing was vs were in subjunctive contexts but that wasn't something I learned until later in life. In speaking I'm not sure and will try to take note.
Lastly, I just made some really good creamed spinach because I used heavy cream instead of half and half and actual parmesan cheese.

yeah when the sat was 2400 points and had a grammar section, i would hammer this into to all my students i tutored and their grammar score went up 100 points just from the word they

i used to debate subjunctive tense with atak

oh the memories

It would be neat to be a car

VR, I feel like cars make their way into your figures of speech a lot

Come on now, we are wayyyyyyy past that

In the last WW game you said "if that is villagery I will eat a car"

Ah, but you may not know that I lived in Texas from the age of 3-12.

My California parents were astounded when I came home from first grade with a speech full of "they"s and "y'all"s. My mother tried really really hard to obliterate them, and was successful with "they." But I like y'all and all she did was drive it underground. I used it whenever she wasn't around.

Also, birdman, you are correct. Which is funny because I think I have driven my car ~5 times since COVID became a thing. Maybe it's repressed guilt for neglecting her.