say it with me, kids
they/them is a valid gender-neutral singular pronoun
this has nothing to do with the gender binary/etc
it’s just fucking correct English
????? they/them is plural, not singular.
Wow. Just wow. Good try. But again, what is acceptable in common speech/slang doesn’t cut it.
um like isn’t the idea of language itself “what is acceptable in common speech”?
Heh…
I’d really like to see some nice sources that definitively consider the word “they” not an acceptable use as a singular genderless pronoun, if you wouldn’t mind…
See college board.
I’m pretty sure you’re the one making the counter-argument, I’d like to see more than just a textless reference somewhere.
Maybe a link to an article or an academic thesis regarding your point?
Something like:
From The Telegraph:
“The first of use of "them” for “him or her” is a rather later 1742 (“Little did I think… to make a… complaint against a Person very dear to you,… but dont let them be so proud… as to make them not care how they affront everybody else”, from Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded). “Themselves” goes all the way back to 1464 (“Inheritements, of which any of the seid persones… was seised by theym self, or joyntly with other”, from the Parliamentary rolls). And “their”, Allan’s particular dislike, was recorded at an unknown year in the 1300s (“Bath ware made sun and mon, Aiþer wit þer ouen light”, from Cursor Mundi).“