But… stating the obvious: “they” is plural.
Third-person singular: He/She eats.
Third-person plural: They eat.
Something that is plural cannot also be singular, except for moose and fish.
Stating the obvious: meanings change. Language changes to accommodate new needs,like the need for a nongendered singular third-person pronoun. They was plural. Now it has become singular when it has a singular antecedent, for many.
You can try to advocate for ze, hair or other new introductions. They might win out, but so far * they* is winning in a landslide.
“However, the unofficial dress code of first class is still pretty formal, so jeans and casual top are not making folks happy, even if they say nothing. People who qualify for free upgrades tend to dress at least business casual.”
No, not in the least. You’re going to have to trust me on this. I have the highest level of frequent flyer status on both United and American, and fly internationally frequently - was in India earlier this year, Japan in August, flew back from France just this past Monday, am leaving for Brazil tomorrow night for a week, and will be going to the UK in 2 weeks. I qualify for free upgrades all the time, such as the one I was on yesterday. Because my business is such that I am not stepping off the plane and going to meetings, I dress casually - jeans, sweater, etc. – just like everyone else in the cabin. I’ll even wear long yoga pants with a long tunic or sweater if I’m sleeping overnight, as I’ll be doing tomorrow night on my way to Brazil. There is no such thing as a dress code for first or business class, and hasn’t been in a long, long time. Yes, you may find people wearing dress clothing in first class - but that’s the nature of their particular business and you’ll find people wearing dress clothing in steerage too, if they are in jobs such that the nature of their job calls for that kind of dress (which is rarer and rarer these days).
Sure it can, and we already have a pronoun like this: you. I confess that using “they” in this way seems inelegant to my ear, but it’s pretty common now in ordinary speech.
I like the idea of “they” as a new singular, whereas “ze,” “heir,” and other inventions seem unlikely to catch on. And “heirm”? Sounds like a good pronoun for someone like Colbert to ridicule, by rolling the r.
sorghum’s post #378 amused me, because as an undergrad, I used to routinely convert professors’ last names that ended in “man,” to versions ending in “person.” Not when speaking to them, though.
I agree with PG about clothing in first class–it is no different from anywhere else on the plane. As someone who often flies “steerage,” I have to object to the use of that term. Seems like a microaggression against those of us whose employers won’t pay for first class, and who don’t fly often enough to have lots of free upgrades. 
Sort of.
“Common” does not mean “right”; I’ll stop there. I’ll let go of it, but we really should have a unisex singular pronoun so “they” can go back to its rightful job as a full-time plural. Either that, or lose the sensitivity surrounding the use of “he/his” or “she/her” to refer to singular antecedents.
Anyone witnessed a microaggression today?
To further state the obvious in PG’s example, even if PG’s dress made it less likely that she belonged in that line, it’s not the job of other passengers to police who enters with Group 1. Acting like you’re appointed to judge who belongs in the group is a sign of misplaced entitlement, and a microaggression, if you ask me.
I’m sitting in first class right now, with the cabin only partially loaded. Out of the ten people I see, five are wearing jeans, oops six, someone else just came in. And some of the ones in rows further back, I can’t see their pants, so maybe more. It may be more of a function of where you’re going to, and we’re off to Seattle, the home of the casual dresser.
I’ve been car shopping lately, and the last time I went, I was wearing very casual clothes. At a couple of luxury dealerships, nobody greeted me or offered to help me, even though there weren’t many people around. If they assumed that my appearance meant that I wasn’t seriously considering one of their cars, they made a potentially costly mistake. I was actually pretty surprised.
Flying into rage easily is not restricted to people on college campuses.
However, Delaware may have some background tensions that put people on a hair trigger easily. Delaware’s two public universities show a legacy of racial segregation, with UDel 79% white and DSU 77% black. DSU students also tend to come from poorer families, but DSU has worse financial aid (an in-state student from an EFC = $0 family with a 3.0 HS GPA and 500/500/500 SAT scores will see a net price of $7,000 from UDel and $11,662 from DSU, according to their net price calculators).
I think Miss Manners had a good approach for Pizzagirl 's situation as well as many of these interactions being coded as microaggressions. Her recommendation was simply to look directly at the person and calmly (not sarcastically, that’s the hard part for me) say “Excuse me?” Most of the time, the person apologizes in embarrassment.
However, she still did not say if she was cutting in line or not…and if you’re just sliding in front of people in line, I call anything they say to you fair game.
As already pointed out, yes it does: they. Not a new one, either—singular they has been part of English for centuries. Not years, not decades—centuries.
And yes, they is plural, but they is also singular. Why is this so hard for people to grasp? It doesn’t seem to phase those same people that you acts as both singular and plural, so why the brainblock with they?
ucbalumnus, when historic racial tensions exist, the acting president has even more responsibility to be factually correct and prudent in speech. In this case, the acting president did the opposite and took a misunderstanding into a very big, ugly thing.
“However, she still did not say if she was cutting in line or not…and if you’re just sliding in front of people in line, I call anything they say to you fair game.”
I wasn’t cutting in line. People were lining up in the designated group 1 section, and I simply took my place in that line. I don’t know why this guy thought I didn’t belong there, but that was his problem. I had the boarding pass to prove it. I know what I’m doing; I’m not some newbie who is confused as to where to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
I am sorry, I just can’t use heir/heiress … and the use of they solves a lot of the sexist and presumptuous he/she usage issues.
If someone studies engineering, they have a good chance of getting a well-paid job right out of school.
I am not ready to use heir and am not going to presume peoples gender or lack thereof based on visual clues or anything else for that matter. I can take up they in almost all circumstances, barring some odd gramatical issues like the phrase in the chart
Each child feeds themself. (nonstandard)
He has never been a good non-gendered pronoun, I feel somewhat microaggressed if it is used forever.
“I agree with PG about clothing in first class–it is no different from anywhere else on the plane. As someone who often flies “steerage,” I have to object to the use of that term. Seems like a microaggression against those of us whose employers won’t pay for first class, and who don’t fly often enough to have lots of free upgrades.”
Don’t worry, I was just kidding with the word steerage
“They” is different than “you” in one critical sense:
- "You" is used in second-person singular and second-person plural verb conjugations.
- "They" is used only in third-person plural conjugations -- for it to be understood as singular, adequate context to support that must be provided. "They eat" means that (plural) people eat, per se.
That is probably one reason, anyway, why there is no (was there ever?) opposition to using “you” as both the singular and the plural – except in Philly, where the plural is “yous”. hehe
I, at least (and there must be others), was conditioned to define “they” as plural-only because without context, it is understood to be plural when conjugated. In order to recognize a singular conjugation using “they” as singular instead of plural, context must be provided to tip off the reader that it is not the standard plural meaning.
“I wasn’t cutting in line. People were lining up in the designated group 1 section, and I simply took my place in that line. I don’t know why this guy thought I didn’t belong there, but that was his problem. I had the boarding pass to prove it. I know what I’m doing; I’m not some newbie who is confused as to where to go.”
Just asking. And it’s not the newbies who are cutting in line because they are confused, all types of people do it. Makes me very irritated, so I can see someone saying a snotty comment.
To try to turn this discussion of pronouns back to more of a discussion of microaggressions, here’s a hypothetical: You are a store clerk, and your last customer has stepped away without taking the change from the purchase. In the past, when this happened, you would typically say, “Excuse me, ma’am [or sir], you forgot your change.” Should you continue to do this, if you think you can identify the gender of the person by appearance and dress? Should you come up with a non-gendered way of saying this? And, if you are the customer in this scenario, how should you react to a person who gets it wrong?