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Chelsea Hopkins's avatar

We use the singular “they” quite a bit in conversation, I think, because we often don’t know (and don’t need to/want to ask) the gender of a subject we didn’t bring up ourselves. Consider:

“Sorry I’m late, I was visiting my friend in the hospital.”

“Oh no, I hope they’re okay.”

“I hope your friend’s okay” is too repetitive for the brief exchange, and “I hope… *pause for name* or ‘wait, is it a man or a woman?…’” is too invasive and/or just tacky. “They” flows pretty naturally in this instance.

I suppose the written form leaves less room for ambiguity—why wouldn’t you just say the name or the gender if you could? (There are good answers to this, but for the sake of argument...)—but when most people complain about how awkward or painful the singular “they” is, I don’t think they’re fighting for clarity so much as being an asshole. And in that case, bring up a “friend” and wait for the inevitable “oh, where are they from?” flavor of question. Then point out, “well that wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”

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DH's avatar

The mustache rule is amazing.

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