I remember growing up in the closet. Oh how much fun that was! Answering question about someone you were dating, seeing, or interested in. I hated using the word she and didn't dare use the word he. What's the next best choice?
THEY.
Oh how I used they. I think the last time I talked about someone I was dating to someone else, I did use the word they. It became second nature and first response. Of course it has been way too long since I have dated someone seriously, but I would love to be back off the market some day and then use the pronoun "he" to describe the person I am dating.
Now I may be comfortable using the word "he" instead of "they," there are other people that they still works for just fine, and it's not to describe people, but a singular person.
Singular "they," the gender-neutral pronoun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 linguists at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday evening.
In a landslide vote, the language experts chose singular they over "thanks, Obama," ammosexual, "on fleek," and other contenders for this annual award given to the most significant term or word in the past year.
Singular they, which The Post officially adopted in its Style guide in 2015, is already a common habit in American speech. An example: "Everyone wants their cat to succeed."
Earlier, the so-called proper way to say it would have been, “Everyone wants his or her cat to succeed.”
But what gave this word new prominence was its usefulness as a way to refer to people who don't want to be called "he" or "she."
"We know about singular they already — we use it everyday without thinking about it, so this is bringing it to the fore in a more conscious way, and also playing into emerging ideas about gender identity," said linguist Ben Zimmer, language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who presided over the voting this Friday afternoon.
Old-fashioned grammarians will be disappointed. But others will be shouting: YAAASSSSS! (intj. “expression of excitement, approval or strong agreement”)
Earlier Friday, Zimmer said a win for singular they would also symbolize how mainstream culture has come to recognize and accept transgender and gender fluid people, some of whom reject traditional pronouns. – washingtonpost.com
To read more about this "they" honor, head over to washingtonpost.com.
Did you ever use the word they in this supposed newly accepted way?
What do you think about the "they" honor?
h/t: washingtonpost.com