Gender neutral pronouns are just so much more convenient; I tend to use them even when I know someone’s gender. I do wish English had some common-use ones that were explicitly singular, though.
I do wish English had some common-use ones that were explicitly singular, though.
In the long run I predict that “they” will follow the same path as “you” - it’ll become increasingly more associated with the singular, until it’s the default interpretation. I also predict that both “they” and “you” will eventually require a pluraliser to convey the plural.
“Vos” (you, singular) in Rioplatense Spanish followed a similar path.
If that’s correct, eventually there’ll be explicitly singular second and third person pronouns.
I believe I read somewhere that the singular for “they” used to be “thy”, but that makes language sound terribly old. Doubt it’ll get picked up in the mainstream
Gender neutral pronouns are just so much more convenient; I tend to use them even when I know someone’s gender. I do wish English had some common-use ones that were explicitly singular, though.
In the long run I predict that “they” will follow the same path as “you” - it’ll become increasingly more associated with the singular, until it’s the default interpretation. I also predict that both “they” and “you” will eventually require a pluraliser to convey the plural.
“Vos” (you, singular) in Rioplatense Spanish followed a similar path.
If that’s correct, eventually there’ll be explicitly singular second and third person pronouns.
my prediction is for th’all and y’all or just thal and yal in the long run
I have a soft spot for ‘yous’, personally.
youse guyseses
My first bet is roughly in this direction, too.
I believe I read somewhere that the singular for “they” used to be “thy”, but that makes language sound terribly old. Doubt it’ll get picked up in the mainstream
‘Thy’ is the disused informal ‘your’. There’s ‘thou’/‘thee’ but that’s still second-person.
Interesting! Do you have any etymological sources that go into this more? I’d be curious to learn
This looks like an alright starting place:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English