ALT TEXT:
- Panel 1: A person with the text “Singular ‘they’” written on them smiling with open arms.
- Panel 2: “Singular ‘They’” beaten up by others who said, “Singular they is ungrammatical. It’s too confusing,” “How can anyone use plural pronouns for singular,” and “Every pronoun should only have one purpose.”
- Panel 3: “You” hiding from the mob who was beating “Singular ‘They’”
- Panel 4: “German ‘Sie’” hiding with even more fear next to “You”
To be clear, this example, where the singular they is used for a person of any gender, is confusing to you.
Based on the above questions, the confusion is about attempting to identify if the singular they or plural they is being used.
But these variants with a person with an ungendered name or description are fine. Example with ungendered name:
Bob - “Hey Jo, Kelly thinks we should tweak widget X.”
Me - “Yeah well, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”
Example with ungendered description:
Bob - “Hey Jo, the engineer thinks we should tweak widget X.”
Me - “Yeah well, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”
If that is true, that the second and third examples are not confusing, then determining whether the singular they or the plural they is being used is not the source of the confusion. As in all three examples, we have a person who was previously referenced excluding the possibility of the plural they. In the first example Frank, in the second Kelly, and the third the engineer. All that has changed in the first example is that the singular they has no restrictions based on name or description. If that grammatical distinction is the source of the confusion, so be it, but let’s be clear on what the confusion is.
Source I used to unpick this, specifically the first table in section 3: https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/5288/
The root of the problem is that it’s an indirect reference to an individual. They/them is commonly (until very recently) referring to a party (singular or plural) that isn’t present. When you use it as a direct reference to someone who is present, most people feel like it’s incorrect because of the common usage of the term being indirect.
When speaking to someone about Joe: “Joe doesn’t know what they’re talking about” While directly: “Joe, you don’t know what you’re talking about”
Both are correct, and possibly the most correct forms of the statements. Substitute Joe for whatever name and it still works. Meanwhile, it’s uncommon, in Joe’s presence, when not taking to Joe, to refer to (assuming Joe is using gendered pronouns) him as a he/him. “Joe doesn’t know what he’s talking about”
Both cases are singular, but the difference of Joe being there changes “they” to “he”, and not taking directly to Joe changes “you” to “he”.
The problem isn’t plural vs singular, the problem is direct vs indirect reference.
To the best of my knowledge, using pronouns like he, she, they for a person who is present in the room during the conversation is not part of the most recent change to the singular they. That would be confusing, but I am not aware that that is happening. He, she, and they are still only for indirect references to a person as far as I know.
I don’t think you’re wrong here; it’s just uncommon to refer to someone as they/them even indirectly while they are present and engaged in the conversation that’s happening, but may not be the directed recipient of the statement. In almost all cases, at least until recently, the pronouns he/she or him/her would be used instead; therefore it’s sort of awkward to use it as a direct pronoun in that context; but using they/them as a direct singular is not new in any capacity and I believe you’re correct on that. It’s just uncommon, and IMO, would generally come across as mildly dismissive or insulting toward the individual in question.
I believe the (former) dismissive/insulting nature of the context of referring to someone as they/them directly is the root of the discomfort most people (especially cis-normative persons) have around using the term for direct reference of a singular individual. Their brain is uncomfortable at the fact that they’re using (mildly) offensive language towards someone who they likely mean no offense to, meanwhile to use he/him or she/her instead is likely going to be far more offensive to someone who is non-binary, so the discomfort only lies within the speaker and their expectation of how what they are saying will be understood.
Your Kelly example is similarly confusing. The “engineer” example is also confusing, but because English already conflates those two meanings, I at least know that I’m parsing a confusable sentence and can pick up on context clues.
If I were writing that, I’d say “Yeah well, that engineer don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.” The “they’re” is then not confusing at all.
In this example, the engineer is the antecedent, the thing that is being referred to previously by the pronoun they. The only difference between the above example and this example
is that the antecedent is in a previous sentence said by a different person. This is a common use case for pronouns in general during a conversation and also a common use case for the singular they. My point is this is not confusion related to the most recent change to the singular they, that restrictions to name and description have been lifted. That’s fine, but I think a lot of what people are saying about Shakespeare is relevant to this particular form of confusion, singular they vs plural they, because we have been using the singular they for quite some time.