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"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

“They left their wallet on the table” it sounds like you’re referring to multiple people instead of a singular person.

Does it? If multiple people left multiple wallets on the table, it would be, "They left their wallets on the table." Multiple people can't really leave a single wallet behind. Or at least that would be very unusual and unintuitive.

[–] DharkStare 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

True. I'll change it to a (hopefully) better example.

[–] idiomaddict 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

“A customer forgot to pay their bill” sounds totally normal to me though, you just need a reference before throwing a pronoun out there, if the context doesn’t clear up the number of people referred to.

[–] DharkStare 1 points 2 years ago

I agree.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"They forgot to pay their bill" it sounds like you're referring to multiple people instead of a singular person.

This sounds normal to me, how else would you word it?

[–] DharkStare 2 points 2 years ago

If it was a singular customer, I would say "He forgot to pay his bill" (or she/her depending on the gender).