ALT TEXT:

  • Panel 1: A person with the text “Singular ‘they’” written on them smiling with open arms.
  • Panel 2: “Singular ‘They’” beaten up by others who said, “Singular they is ungrammatical. It’s too confusing,” “How can anyone use plural pronouns for singular,” and “Every pronoun should only have one purpose.”
  • Panel 3: “You” hiding from the mob who was beating “Singular ‘They’”
  • Panel 4: “German ‘Sie’” hiding with even more fear next to “You”
  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have normally used “they, their and them” when referring to a singular person for about twenty years because I thought that “he/she” and “his/hers” looked ridiculous in emails.

    For example; “Next time the engineer feels like he/she needs to overhaul the code…” versus “Next time the engineer feels like they need to overhaul the code…”. Clean and simple.

    Example of current use:

    Bob - “Hey Jo, Frank thinks we should tweak widget X.”

    Me - “Yeah well, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

    I don’t think that sounds weird.

  • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 year ago

    So, to explain the German „sie/Sie“, it can be used as one of the following:

    • formal version of both singular and plural you: used whenever you have or want to maintain a distance from someone, or with persons who demand respect/authority. Generally speaking, whenever you would say Mr/Mrs/Ms it’s „Sie“, if you’re on first name terms it’s „Du“. Fun fact: addressing an LEO, judge, etc. informally („Du“) is considered an insult, insulting someone is a misdemeanour (not kidding) in Germany, and you will usually be fined on the spot for doing so.

    • Used to reference a woman/girl who has been mentioned before: What about Sally, is she coming today?

    • Same as above but for inanimate objects or animals that are gendered female: Have you seen my camera, I have misplaced her. Look at the cat, she’s so cute. (In this case it’s a cat of either female or unknown gender, if you were talking about a male cat specifically, you’d use the male version of „cat“…)

    • Same as above, but for all groups of people, animals, objects, regardless of gender, like plural they: Look at the guys/nuns/politicians/cats/helicopters, they’re drunk as fuck!

    Great language, isn’t it.