703
they don't mind (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I think you misunderstood what I’m saying.

I’m not saying you can’t use “they” when referring to a single person; I’m saying that when you do that you haven’t deviated from the simple usage in any way shape or form.

I’m saying there’s no “singular they” because using “they” in that context is just the same as any other usage of “they”. It isn’t any sort of exception to the base rules and so doesn’t require any special treatment.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

you did though, it was your first line:

My hot take: there’s no such thing as “singular they”

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

They are saying plural means 1 or many while singular means only 1. So 'they' was always plural and plural always included singular.

Sadly dictionary definition says plural does not include 1.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

pedantic language nerds on Lemmy? no way!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

nm, the rest of the thread is the same.. you are not alone.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It’s obvious what I meant from that is the opposite of how you are construing it. You need to actually read the entire comment.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

it's not obvious, sorry. if it were, people would be agreeing with you

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Oh, I get what you're saying.

However, I'm kindly informing you that posting who are professionally pedantic don't agree with this.

Perhaps I've missed a style guide that does agree with you, in which case I would be happy for you to bring the receipts.

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
703 points (97.7% liked)

Microblog Memes

8574 readers
2971 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS