Verb Use with Gender-Neutral Pronoun

See "singular they":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ld-trump-may-win-this-years-word-of-the-year/

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/13/462906419/everyone-uses-singular-they-whether-they-realize-it-or-not

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/he-or-she-versus-they

And finally, the Blessed AHD on the Old Norse loan word they — with a helpful Usage Note

I believe when someone uses "they", they use the plural verb.

Historically, it's the same as "you", which used to be a plural pronoun only. (Singular was thou / thee.) When it began to be used for the singular second person, it still brought with it its plural verb agreement: "You are", "You do". Similarly for German "Sie", which originally meant "they", but now is also used as a polite "you". It takes the same verbs as they, not the family that goes with singular informal "du" or plural "ihr".

I would use "they are" rather than "they is".

As pointed out above, we still say "you are" rather than "you is" regardless of whether "you" is being used in its singular or plural form.

I had a conversation about this matter earlier today, and I was informed that the new way to handle that is with "ze". http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/14/opinions/mcwhorter-pronouns-gender-neutral/ I disagreed strongly, contending that there are more than enough third person singular pronouns already, and most people don't take full advantage of the situation, because they do not use "one" to refer in people.

The English language today is lacking a sensible gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. My usual fix is simply to write a sentence in another way that avoids the issue.

caw

blacbird said:

The English language today is lacking a sensible gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. My usual fix is simply to write a sentence in another way that avoids the issue.

caw

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They/their seems to be the best one for now, since there's a historical antecedent. Sometimes it's darn hard to write around, and using "he or she" for each and every usage is darned awkward (plus not everyone is a he or she, though getting some people to admit this is like pulling teeth). One is an alternative, or directly addressing the reader (if it's instructions), but when talking about a process or procedure in the third person where a pronoun is needed, we run into a problem with the possessive form of "one."

"After everyone took their seats, Tom began his speech," for example.

I've seen 'se' / 'ze' and 'hir' used well. I once wrote 50K of a book in first person, because my protagonist was gender neutral before puberty. It worked well, but what a balancing act. It was also humbling to develop the character as having equal possibilities of being female or male, and being exactly the same person.

I'd go with "they are" because it sounds much more natural to my ear than the other options. I'd guess it's usually clear from the context that you mean one person.

Roxxsmom said:

"After everyone took their seats, Tom began his speech," for example.

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"After everyone took seats, Tom began his speech," is another option. Often you simply don't need the pronoun at all. That's the kind of thing I meant by "writing around" the problem. I detest the "he or she" construction even more than you do, I suspect.

caw

blacbird said:

"After everyone took seats, Tom began his speech," is another option. Often you simply don't need the pronoun at all. That's the kind of thing I meant by "writing around" the problem. I detest the "he or she" construction even more than you do, I suspect.

caw

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"Everyone took seats" actually sounds more awkward to me than singular "their." It feels like a word was left out on purpose

But singular their doesn't bother me that much. With fiction, it's easier. I use whatever pronoun the pov would use. Old school type would say "his," even if it makes me grit my teeth. However, one of my stories takes place in a matriarchy, so the "default" pronoun there is "she" in most situations.

"After everyone took their seats" -- who else's seats would they take? Then again, where did they take these seats?

How about "After everyone sat"?

caw

Actually, "Everyone took their seats," and "Everyone took seats," are both wrong. The subject is singular while the object is plural: not a grammatical error, but not likely what you mean. In this scenario there are at least twice as many seats as people. Consider the non-gender-shy way to say it: "Everyone took his seat." With "they" it should be, "Everyone took their seat." Plural verbs agree with singular "they", but plural objects need not.

If you want to avoid the controversy altogether, "Everyone took a seat," which sounds perfectly natural.

Singular verbs for "they" always bug the hell out of me. I can't understand why won't these intelligent advocates create a new word for a gender-neutral he/she. Maybe we should leave the creative decision to chatty teens?

I'm fine to "everyone took seats." "everyone sat," "the class sat," "they took their seats" or any similar workaround.

Bing Z said:

Singular verbs for "they" always bug the hell out of me. I can't understand why won't these intelligent advocates create a new word for a gender-neutral he/she. Maybe we should leave the creative decision to chatty teens?

I'm fine to "everyone took seats." "everyone sat," "the class sat," "they took their seats" or any similar workaround.

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There are several options (ze, hir, e...), but getting everyone to agree on one seems like a lost cause. In the meantime, singular they is quietly growing into a default standard, at least in spoken usage - and as someone said above, there is actual linguistic history behind it already. (Of course, I'm still bitter over the loss of the "thou" form, so I may not be the best judge... )

I do have one moment in my MS where a gender-fluid NPC is introduced, and I use singular they as the pronoun.

The only reason to refer to any singular person as "they" is because the writer is too lazy to rewrite the sentence. The funny thing is that I know very, very, very few non-writers who do this, even in writing, and almost never in speech. It simply is never necessary. Most non-writers seem to understand this. Too many writers do not.

Surprisingly often, the writer could eliminate the problem by making the entire sentence plural. It's a two second fix. The rest of the time, a simple rewrite takes care of the problem, and creates a better sentence. If writers spent a thousandth of the time fixing the problem as they do looking for ways to make bad writing work, the problem wouldn't exist.

Jamesaritchie said:

The only reason to refer to any singular person as "they" is because the writer is too lazy to rewrite the sentence.

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Edge case: I have three personal acquaintances who prefer the pronoun "they". So I use it when referring to them. (I use the plural verb form; it's what sounds right.)

Mainline case: Please respect your fellow writers enough not to assume that they're lazy because they don't use the constructions you approve of. It's not an acceptable inference, and not appropriate in this or any other conversation in this room. I'm increasingly weary of seeing it.

Jamesaritchie said:

The only reason to refer to any singular person as "they" is because the writer is too lazy to rewrite the sentence. The funny thing is that I know very, very, very few non-writers who do this, even in writing, and almost never in speech. It simply is never necessary. Most non-writers seem to understand this. Too many writers do not.

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So if you wrote a manuscript featuring a non-binary protagonist, you would avoid using their pronouns for the entirety of the novel?

THEY ARE.

Jamesaritchie said:

The only reason to refer to any singular person as "they" is because the writer is too lazy to rewrite the sentence. The funny thing is that I know very, very, very few non-writers who do this, even in writing, and almost never in speech. It simply is never necessary. Most non-writers seem to understand this. Too many writers do not.

Surprisingly often, the writer could eliminate the problem by making the entire sentence plural. It's a two second fix. The rest of the time, a simple rewrite takes care of the problem, and creates a better sentence. If writers spent a thousandth of the time fixing the problem as they do looking for ways to make bad writing work, the problem wouldn't exist.

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Bolding mine. NO. You're wrong. Genderqueer and most transgender use their and they. Not because we're lazy...because the he/her doesn't work.

edutton said:

There are several options (ze, hir, e...), but getting everyone to agree on one seems like a lost cause. In the meantime, singular they is quietly growing into a default standard, at least in spoken usage - and as someone said above, there is actual linguistic history behind it already. (Of course, I'm still bitter over the loss of the "thou" form, so I may not be the best judge... )

I do have one moment in my MS where a gender-fluid NPC is introduced, and I use singular they as the pronoun.

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I frankly would rather they push ze or hir as part of an evolving language, instead of creating a potential confusion that drives grammarians and students nutz. Maybe you would want to be a (linguistic) pioneer?

What do they call BB8 these days?

Bing Z said:

I frankly would rather they push ze or hir as part of an evolving language, instead of creating a potential confusion that drives grammarians and students nutz. Maybe you would want to be a (linguistic) pioneer?

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Eh. I'm (linguistically!) conservative enough to think there's no point reinventing the wheel when singular "they" already has a long and mostly honorable history. If someone wants to be referred to by one of the new pronoun forms I will do so, because I don't like to be rude, but I'm not really a fan.

Like some other things we "know" as absolute rules of English grammar (don't split infinitives, never end a sentence with a preposition), the plural-only "they" is mostly the child of snobbish, prescriptivist Victorian grammarians who wanted to torture English into being as much like Latin as possible.

Bing Z said:

I frankly would rather they push ze or hir as part of an evolving language, instead of creating a potential confusion that drives grammarians and students nutz. Maybe you would want to be a (linguistic) pioneer?

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(Bolding mine.)

Language does evolve, but it resists attempts to invent things out of whole cloth. Invented words like that are a little like Esperanto. I don't think they'll ever catch on.

I guess some terms like "grok" and "chortle" do catch on, if they appear in popular literature. But really basic categories like pronouns and prepositions are more conservative.

Besides, in spoken language, doesn't "hir" sound the same as "her"?

morngnstar said:

Besides, in spoken language, doesn't "hir" sound the same as "her"?

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I've never heard it spoken, but in my head it sounds like "here"...

yep, just checked Wiktionary and they concur.