I've tried to find this question already answered and it probably is here somewhere I haven't looked, but here's my question:
I'm using 'they' and 'them' as gender neutral pronouns but I am referring to one person. So writing 'they is', is awkward. But 'they are' isn't correct because I'm referring to one person.
I had to go back to he/she because the gender neutral pronoun confused the referred nouns:
There is no reason to attack [said person] for trying to get people to identify their links. I've never seen him/her do it when the link is identified in some other means than the means he/she is trying to get people to use.
If I use they/them not only is it a problem with plurals, it also confuses the pronouns:
There is no reason to attack [said person] for trying to get people to identify their links. I've never seen them do it when the link is identified in some other means than the means they are trying to get people to use.
I can see inserting [said person] to clarify the antecedent to the pronoun.
There is no reason to attack [said person] for trying to get people to identify their links. I've never seen [said person] do it when the link is identified in some other means than the means they are trying to get people to use.
But even when 'they' refers to the antecedent [said person], using 'they are' which requires 'are' but 'is' is the correct verb makes it sound like you are referring to 'their', the persons using the links one is talking about.
I'm sure I'm overthinking this. Help, thanks.