There was a time when you knew where you were with a ‘they’. It was quite simply more than one person or thing. Okay, there was the exception of that strange anomaly, the pair noun, which often makes very little sense at all. I still call the thing I draw circles with a ‘compass’ rather than a ‘pair of compasses’. It has a pencil one side and a metal spike the other – how is that a pair? Even more perplexing is the question of why knickers are a pair but a bra is not. Generally speaking though, ‘theys’ used to be unarguably plural.
In these confusing times, however, we find ourselves having to adjust to the singular ‘they’. These ‘theys’ are usually people who would rather not commit to being a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ and prefer their gender to be a thing of mystery. Some ‘theys’ may have beards; some may have skirts and some may have both beards and skirts. Some ‘theys’ might be perfectly ordinary looking, perhaps even attractive and other ‘theys’ might look like Eddie Izzard. Of course, Eddie Izzard, herself is not a ‘they’, he is a ‘she’…or at least he was a ‘she’ last time she was in the news but this could quite possibly change if and when they/he/she decides to change their/his/her pronouns in order to get in the news again.
So all this confusion leads to a very important question: Is a ‘they’ just someone whose gender you are unsure about or should the pronoun be reserved exclusively for those who have specifically expressed a desire to be a ‘they’? Personally, I wouldn’t be offended as such if someone referred to me as ‘they’ but I might start to feel slightly insecure. Are these new shoes making me walk a bit funny? Did I put my wife’s glasses on by mistake this morning? Is the stress of adjusting to the New Normal making my voice a little high pitched? I may not be a he-man but I would not want people to think of me as a ‘they-man’. My guess is that most of us are the same i.e. we want to be easily recognised as either a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. But the problem is there is no way of being one hundred percent sure of what anyone’s pronoun preferences are unless they’ve made it known in some way. Perhaps in the name of equality we should all become ‘theys’ for the time being until we can sort it out.
It’s early days yet but hopefully in the future, when we are all wearing identity badges with ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’ written on them, things will be much easier. Perhaps one day we will even have an app on our smartphones that informs us of one another’s preferred pronouns. Some companies, like Halifax, are showing us the way forward by instructing all their employees to show their pronouns on staff badges. Previously you may have been wrong footed by your cashier having a strawberry blonde bob, red lipstick and a walrus moustache but now all you have to do is look at the cashier’s identity badge and you need not worry about any embarrassing faux pas. However, if they do indeed turn out to be a ‘they’ then you still need to consider how you intend to conjugate their verbs. ‘Theys’ rarely stipulate how they would like their verbs conjugated but the best thing to do is to correctly follow the rules of grammar. What we need to consider is that we are referring to the ‘they’ as ‘they’ not because there is more than one of them but because the ‘they’ does not want to be a ‘he’, a ‘she’ or an ‘it.’ In other words the third person singular conjugation of the verb should always be used. i.e. They is, they drives, they walks, they says etc. Most people overlook this simple grammatical principle and conjugate the ‘they’s’ verbs in the plural form but if the Halifax cashier tries to correct you on this then stick to your guns because they is definitely wrong.
Even if you are sure someone is a ‘they’ it can become confusing when they is with a group of other people. For instance, if you are standing at the bar and there is a particularly stunning ‘they’ that you want to impress, don’t just tell the bartender you want to buy ‘them’ a drink. You may end up buying the whole group a drink and it could be very costly, so try to be specific. Say “the pregnant ‘they’ with the beard,” or “the ‘they’ wearing the gold medal for the female shot put.”
Let’s hope that moving forward we can interact in a more caring and inclusive way with ‘theys’ or suspected ‘theys’. Perhaps technology may come to our rescue in the future like it has done with so many other things. The last thing any of us want to do is to offend anyone from the LGBTQQIP2SAI82QB4IP community and so we all need to keep our fingers on the pulse of our ever changing language. Consideration is really the key to this. Every one of us has the right to live freely as a ‘they’ rather than a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ and so we need to ensure we are using language correctly and respect what they wants.
122 replies on “Knowing your singular ‘theys’”
[…] “Knowing your singular ‘theys’” – A primer on progressive pronoun usage, courtesy of Andy Lambeth […]
There are three genders in English – He, She and It.
Take your pick….
The German language foresaw this situation. Everything is male, female or neuter. Send ok to me.
We use ‘they’ all the time when refering to one person but do not know if they (look! I’ve use it there) male or female. You see a figure in the distance fall down and know not if they are male or female we say:- “Look! they’ve fallen down.”
In the English language we simply lack a word that can refer to either a male or female in the singular – so we use the plural. In the Hungarian language I’m told they don’t have this problem – because the singular pronoun fits all.
When I was at school (which, coincidentally was a grammar school) we were taught to use ‘he’ if we were unsure of gender. Of course that is not politically correct these days. In any case I don’t want to split hairs – the article is not meant to be taken seriously.
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