Questions to non-native English speakers about singular they

[pauamma]

Do you know about it? If you do, how and when did you find out?

Do you use it? Why or why not?

Comments

[aim_of_destiny]

so i'm a german, english is my second language (and as you can see by my lack of capital letters, i am very lazy).

i know about singular they. iirc, i first saw it used in the modern sense, as a specific pronoun referring to a known person, on tumblr. i'd already encountered it as a generic pronoun in reference to unknown persons in regular old print texts.

i am all for using singular they in both these cases!

as a specific pronoun it's just basic consideration, and misgendering people just isn't cool. it doesn't cost me anything to use the correct pronouns for someone, and it's not like learning how to use they/them/theirs/themself is a particular burden after learning alllll the other stuff any esl speaker has to work through. (even if it were though... if my use of language can prevent someone from feeling unsafe, i will gladly adjust it even if it's hard.)

as a generic pronoun set for an unknown person, it's just nice and compact, and as i've said before i am lazy.

also, it makes right-wingers mad and that's a fun side effect imo.

[pauamma]

Interestingly enough, I learned a few weeks ago that relaxed capitalization isn't a sign of laziness.

[aim_of_destiny]

oh, i'm aware :)

personally, i think the concept of laziness is very nearly useless anyway, so anytime i describe myself as lazy it's probably facetious.

[ayakashi]

I'm Filipino and yes I know about it! Our language is actually pretty gender neutral so for us it's actually really common to hear even when we use English as a language in a specific setting it isn't weird at all hearing "they" used singularly.

I was actually surprised that there are some people abroad who are kind of anal about its usage (like strictly plural or something).

Since it's common usage in our language I use it a lot.

[moonreviews]

I know about it, but I learned about it on the internet and not in English class.
As such, I'm not using it myself... I write he/she or (s)he in cases of unknown gender.