{"id":71,"date":"2022-08-20T19:25:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T19:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/?p=71"},"modified":"2022-08-21T18:18:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T18:18:21","slug":"knowing-your-singular-theys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Knowing your singular ‘theys’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There was a time when you knew where you were with a \u2018they\u2019. 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 \u2018compass\u2019 rather than a \u2018pair of compasses\u2019. It has a pencil one side and a metal spike the other \u2013 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, \u2018theys\u2019 used to be unarguably plural.<\/p>\n

In these confusing times, however, we find ourselves having to adjust to the singular \u2018they\u2019. These \u2018theys\u2019 are usually people who would rather not commit to being a \u2018he\u2019 or a \u2018she\u2019 and prefer their gender to be a thing of mystery. Some \u2018theys\u2019 may have beards; some may have skirts and some may have both beards and skirts. Some \u2018theys\u2019 might be perfectly ordinary looking, perhaps even attractive and other \u2018theys\u2019 might look like Eddie Izzard. Of course, Eddie Izzard, herself is not a \u2018they\u2019, he is a \u2018she\u2019…or at least he was a \u2018she\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

So all this confusion leads to a very important question: Is a \u2018they\u2019 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 \u2018they\u2019? Personally, I wouldn\u2019t be offended as such if someone referred to me as \u2018they\u2019 but I might start to feel slightly insecure. Are these new shoes making me walk a bit funny? Did I put my wife\u2019s 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 \u2018they-man\u2019. My guess is that most of us are the same i.e. we want to be easily recognised as either a \u2018he\u2019 or a \u2018she\u2019. But the problem is there is no way of being one hundred percent sure of what anyone\u2019s pronoun preferences are unless they\u2019ve made it known in some way. Perhaps in the name of equality we should all become \u2018theys\u2019 for the time being until we can sort it out.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early days yet but hopefully in the future, when we are all wearing identity badges with \u2018he\u2019, \u2018she\u2019 or \u2018they\u2019 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\u2019s 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\u2019s identity badge and you need not worry about any embarrassing faux pas. However, if they do indeed turn out to be a \u2018they\u2019 then you still need to consider how you intend to conjugate their verbs. \u2018Theys\u2019 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 \u2018they\u2019 as \u2018they\u2019 not because there is more than one of them but because the \u2018they\u2019 does not want to be a \u2018he\u2019, a \u2018she\u2019 or an \u2018it.\u2019 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.\u00a0 Most people overlook this simple grammatical principle and conjugate the \u2018they\u2019s\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

Even if you are sure someone is a \u2018they\u2019 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 \u2018they\u2019 that you want to impress, don\u2019t just tell the bartender you want to buy \u2018them\u2019 a drink. You may end up buying the whole group a drink and it could be very costly, so try to be specific. Say \u201cthe pregnant \u2018they\u2019 with the beard,\u201d or \u201cthe \u2018they\u2019 wearing the gold medal for the female shot put.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope that moving forward we can interact in a more caring and inclusive way with \u2018theys\u2019 or suspected \u2018theys\u2019. 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 \u2018they\u2019 rather than a \u2018he\u2019 or a \u2018she\u2019 and so we need to ensure we are using language correctly and respect what they wants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time when you knew where you were with a \u2018they\u2019. 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 \u2018compass\u2019 rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85,"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsubnormal.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}