>people who use "they" as a singular pronoun

>>8190851
>Unevolved Straight, Cis Scum tries to stop the next evolution of humanity.
Welcome to the future fucker.

>>8190851
there's nothing wrong with them.

>>8190851
I wonder how socialism works for these neckbeards when their parents cut them off

>>8190851
Aw he's cute in that I feel sorry for him way not in the I want to fuck him way
Aw

>>8190851
He doesn't look nearly normal enough.

>>8190888
It's grammatical horseshit. They means plural.

>>8190851
i wanna beat the shit out this nigga

>>8190851
>How to know if your language is fucked?
>No T–V distinction
>Calling everyone same way
>Degeneracy par excellence

>>8190991
>language doesn't evolve

You don't truly use "they" as a singular unless you also use "they is" and "they uses"

>>8190991
words mean what society agrees that they mean.

>>8190991
Is English your second language?

>>8191130
>>8191477
>>8191515

You're Marxists right?

>>8192847
No, but you're certainly a dumbass. Language is a mean of communication and its primary feature is to be understandable and useful. And people create it, shape it all the time. Well, we no longer use the "thou" pronoun for example, because it turned out to be inconvinient and hard to pronounce as it seems. Unfortunately for you, no institution can fully control how people talk and change it for any political reasons.
Singular they isn't such a new thing by the way – it has appeared thorough literature already, so even if you want to police people's language for some idiotic "it was always like that!" reason, just remember it.

>>8193324
It really is Marxist thing to take established words and then completely redefine them on the spot. Kind of like Marxists tried to redefine "imperialism" to mean "export of capital" and "bourgeoise" to mean "capitalist". Then they claim the language just evolved. No, fuck you Marxist faggot, they = multiple people.

>>8193344
Except I didn't redefine anything, it's you who call other people's language incorrect according to your politically influenced definitions and rules. Just admit it.
Singular they is USEFUL and many people already use it to sound neutral and not have to say "he or she" everytime and sound like a retard. It's people who want to use it and it doesn't harm anyone.

>>8193344
this isn't the dumbest thing i've ever read, but it is by far the dumbest thing i've read today

>>8193392
Sod off Marxtard

>>8193463
>criticising people's opinions by calling them marxists instead of using any logical arguments
>not knowing what marxism even is (and that it has nothing to do with the matter because it's a fucking economic idea)

>>8193463
i'm not even a marxist, but based on this >>8193344 i really doubt you've ever read any lenin, or anything aside from some summary someone posted on /pol/

>>8193474
>>8193478
>Marxists pulling the y-you haven't read Marx shtick
So predictable. Do they make you faggots in factories or something?

>>8191477
I don't think most people agree on having “they” a singular pronoun.

>>8193504
Eh lol, i don't want to do this anymore. Consider this debate won in your deluded mind… at least that will make you satisfied and temporarily happy. If you're bored, maybe get interested in some historical philosophic debates, learn something about logic and argumentation. Stuff is fun and it's a better hobby than going to 4chan and calling people random things to make yourself feel better.
>>8193521
Maybe it's quite weird to directly call someone "they", but nobody would argue that a sentence like
"Someone said that they had lost their job"
sounds better than
"Someone said that he or she had lost his or her job".

>>8193551
Either the gender of the person is determined and it's “he” and “she”, or it's unknown and it's “he”.

>>8193556
"He" doesn't imply unknown gender in English.

>>8193559
Of course it does, it has absorbed the neutral value. People say “a good singer must train his voice regularly” or “whatever the customer requires, give him”. It's a feature common in many languages, especially in our family, and there's nothing worth the debate. Grammatical gender has little to do with sexuality, there's no sexism in calling a star “der Stern” in German, or a tie “la cravate” in French. It's free from such a connotation.

>>8190851
>Shakespeare is a queer socialist

>>8193566
Hmm, good point to be honest, but to me your example sentences sound kind of old-fashioned… but you may be right because English isn't my first language.
In my native language (from Slavic family) "oн" (he) is in fact a neutral pronoun and every noun has a gramatical gender too. But well… now when I primarily have to speak English, I noticed that the "he" does carry some gender-related connotations. Like if I told someone a story and called someone of unknown gender a "he" and then it turned out it was in fact a "she", it'd be like "oh! so it's a woman!".

>>8193586
Such sentences are very common, and it isn't sexually loaded in this context. By the time the agent is defined and its gender revealed, it's a genderless concept. When you say “this cat has lost his tail!” you don't purposely visualise the cat as a tom. Discussing the use of “they” is an artificial debate that didn't sparkle from an actual crisis in the usage, moreover a futile one, for we want to provisionally assign two genders on structures that have none.

>>8193608
Hmm, okay, but I'd be able to find sources which claim otherwise – that it does lead to misunderstandings and is in fact a problem. Singular they is used quite commonly in recent years for some reason it seems. I can't imagine it's a result of any political actions or campaigns. Anyway, I'm sorry for my ignorance.

>>8193621
There are many sources and heated exchanges on this question, indeed, but I'm still personally waiting to have a text that properly addresses the genderless neutral denomination without referring to previous usage—similarly to the post above mentioning William Shakespeare—obsolete nowadays, and whatever my opinion is, or yours, it's still the way people currently speak. There's roughly 800,000,000 people speaking English as a foreign language, which is often taught in a much more conservative fashion, focusing on British English and older rules. I have little hope it will change soon.

>>8193633
Well, the Shakespeare argument is usually only used to respond to people claiming singular "they" is artificial and "made up". People do use it naturally in daily conversations though, because it sounds more clear and neutral, especially today, when gender roles aren't so strict, which lessens the need of such separation.

>>8190851
>>8193344

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Usage

It's been in use since the 16th century by both regular people and numerous prominent authors in their published works. Language is defined by its speakers and not by some sort of mystical set of rules that separates correct and incorrect grammar.

>>8191435
The use of the prototypical third-person plural personal pronoun with a singular meaning is also present in many other languages, often used to denote politeness. For example, "vous" in French, "Sie" in German. In those cases, the verb is conjugated as it regularly would with the 3rd person.

>>8193700
I totally disagree. Such a purpose is shared by a minimal fraction of English speakers, and doesn't reflect a confusion of gender but number. It's used with a pronoun antecedent in the vast majority—I wrote this, but I think it has never even happened otherwise—like in “anybody could think they may have won”, which indicates incertitude in the agreement with the antecedent, rather than the intention to be “gender neutral”. Do you think it's common to hear “a dog ate their bone”?