Singular use of "they" now in American Heritage Dictionary

[ghostjmf]

Yee-hah!

That's as in "they took their hat & left" when you're only referring to one person

They also put "spaetzle" in. Which they had previously somehow left out.

Source: Here & Now prog on NPR. Also Amer Her Dict.

[Bob Juch]

Yee-hah!

That's as in "they took their hat & left" when you're only referring to one person

They also put "spaetzle" in. Which they had previously somehow left out.

Source: Here & Now prog on NPR. Also Amer Her Dict.

They're known for being the most liberal of dictionaries.

[elwoodblues]

If you look up "literally" in the dictionary it now says this:

lit.er.al.ly (adv.)

1. In a literal sense or manner

2. So many people are using this word to mean the opposite of what it actually does that I give up. Use it any way you want. I hate all of you.

[BackInTex]

Why is those a good things?

[Estonut]

Yee-hah!

That's as in "they took their hat & left" when you're only referring to one person

The only reference for a single person that I see in the AHD is:

b. Used as a singular personal pronoun for someone who does not identify as either male or female. See Usage Note below.

Usage Note:
The recent use of singular they for a known person who identifies as neither male nor female remains controversial; as of 2015 only 27 percent of the Panelists accepted Scout was born male, but now they do not identify as either traditional gender.

[ghostjmf]

That's funny; though interviewee agreed it was useful for people who didn't gender identify, the example they gave was the "took hat & left" one. Maybe on-line doesn't yet reflect change.

[elwoodblues]

I have seen the singular "they" used mostly as shorthand for "he or she" as in, "If someone wants to make a right turn they should be in the right lane."

[ghostjmf]

"He or she or someone who doesn't gender-identify" is how I've been using it for years in any situation in which gender is not a part of the story & is not already generally known.

[TheConfessor]

The full usage note is quite comprehensive. Like the usage panel, I find some of these examples more acceptable than others.
https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=they
Usage Note: The use of the plural pronouns they, them, themselves, or their with a grammatically singular antecedent dates back at least to 1300, and such constructions have been used by many admired writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray ("A person can't help their birth"), George Bernard Shaw ("To do a person in means to kill them"), and Anne Morrow Lindbergh ("When you love someone you do not love them all the time"). Despite the apparent grammatical disagreement between a singular antecedent like someone and the plural pronoun them, the construction is so widespread both in print and in speech that it often passes unnoticed. There are several reasons for its appeal. Forms of they are useful as gender-neutral substitutes for generic he and for coordinate forms like his/her or his or her (which can sound clumsy when repeated). Nevertheless, the clash in number can be jarring to writers and readers, and many people dislike they with a singular antecedent. This includes much of the Usage Panel, though their resistance has declined over time. Resistance remains strongest when the sentence refers to a specific individual whose gender is unknown, rather than to a generic individual representative of anyone: in our 2015 survey, 58 percent of the Panel found We thank the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments unacceptable. A sentence with a generic antecedent, A person at that level should not have to keep track of the hours they put in, was rejected by 48 percent (a substantial change from our 1996 survey, in which 80 percent rejected this same sentence). As for the use of they with antecedents such as anyone and everyone, pronouns that are grammatically singular but carry a plural meaning, by 2008, a majority of the Panel accepted such sentences as If anyone calls, tell them I can't come to the phone (56 percent) and Everyone returned to their seats (59 percent). For those who wish to avoid the apparent clash of number, some of these sentences can be recast in the plural: People at that level should not have to keep track of the hours they put in. Unfortunately, the option is unavailable when the referent must be singular: Lindbergh's sentence cannot be recast as When you love people, you do not love them all the time without drastically changing its meaning, nor can the sentence about the anonymous reviewer. · The recent use of singular they for a known person who identifies as neither male nor female remains controversial; as of 2015 only 27 percent of the Panelists accepted Scout was born male, but now they do not identify as either traditional gender. With regard to this last sentence, the Panel's responses showed a clear generational shift: the approval rate was 4 percent among Panelists born before 1945 and 40 percent among Panelists born later. See Usage Notes at anyone, he1.

[Estonut]

"He or she or someone who doesn't gender-identify" us how I've been using it for years in any situation in which gender is not a part of the story & is not already generally known.

Bullshit. You are now saying that every time you've used the term "they" for a single person, that that person doesn't gender-identify themselves as either male nor female to the rest of the world? I submit that it is you who has muddled their gender-identity here, not them.

[ghostjmf]

Estonut:

Every time I've used "they" for a singular person it was because the person's gender was not known to most of you ("you" being used, an aceepted usage, I hope, collectively here) & is not pertinent to the discussion or story.

So, what part of "he or she or someone who doesn't gender-identify" do you pretend not to understand?

Looks like its the "he or she" part. Because only after those binary options did I link "or people who don't gender-idenfify", which is the option you've gone ballistic over.

How well did you do in whatever math class you took (presuming you did take one) that covered mathematical logic? I am hoping not to have to define "or" in my statement.

I don't care how stridently someone parades their gender identity, or lack of any, for that matter. If I'm writing the post, what I focus on in deciding whether to include it is whether its important to the subject under discussion.

[ghostjmf]

Oh heck, I need to remember I can't get into the end of a long post to edit it on this tablet. Can't literally get the window to open wider, & can't scroll down.

Anyway, if someone were *really* strident about their gender identity, it *becomes* part of the story. And if someone appears in a gender-significant unexpected role, such as "1st male Victoria's Secret bikini model" that becomes the story too.

How am I "muddling" stories, especially stories from my own life, by not putting in genders of characters whose gender is in no way significant to the story?

We could *all* work on more-coherent sentence structure, but, frankly, a story with 3 men or 3 women in it is not made clear by use of "he" or "she". You have to clarify *which* he or she, & you'd equally have to clarify which "they".