Singular they rule

FlowerTree@pawb.social to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 666 points –

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"
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Isn't "You" always singular? The words it's accompanied by make the overall statement plural. Like "you guys" or "you all". My brain might be slow this morning, but I can't think of any instance where it's plural without an accompanying word.

You used to be just second person plural, thou was second person singular. At some point, thou fell out of favour and we started using just you

Alright, I can think of a few instances given that context. Funny how it's original usage is now relatively uncommon.

You can see it's still grammatically plural even when used as a singular with the other words that go around it too. "You are" instead of the singular "is".

It can even make singular things kinda behave like they're plurals. Like "The Lemmy user is posting comments" vs. "you, the Lemmy user are posting comments"

Back in the day it was "thou art posting comments" (singular) and "ye are posting comments"(plural). With "ye" becoming "you" over time. Although they also had more funky letters like ȝ and þ and stuff.

Nope, "you" can be 2nd person plural on its own. You can refer to a group of people as just "you"

For example, imagine a security guard saying to a group of shoppers "everybody listen up, you need to leave the store". You might use "you all" but it's not grammatically necessary, it just adds specificity.

I find this kinda fascinating because if you've thought this your entire life, you would have had to have read every intended plural "you" as singular and there would be nothing to inform you otherwise without very explicit context.

For the record, every 2nd person pronoun in the preceding paragraph can be singular or plural and still be grammatically correct while remaining socially correct for my speaking to an audience of unknown size. "You all" and "you guys" are slang phrases that don't appear in formal writing.