What's with the use of singular they?

submitted by [deleted] from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman🇬🇧🌳🟦 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

'They' is seen as an impersonal personal pronoun, which can be used to refer to people in vague, non-specific ways:

In Japan they drive on the left.

which is likely what happens when people use 'they' when referring to things like 'OP' in Reddit threads. There's also no way of explicitly knowing someone's sex on Reddit threads, so it's likely a reflex to refer to 'OP' using 'they'.

[–]HelloMomo 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

'They' is seen as an impersonal personal pronoun, which can be used to refer to people in vague, non-specific ways:

Yeah, sometimes "they" is used to indicate an unknown person, even if the sex is known. Like when I was about to get a college roommate I found myself saying, stuff like, "Yeah, I should ask them about it before I go and get a fridge." The one and only thing I knew about my future roommate was that she'd be female. But my native-English-speaker inclination was still to use "they" to indicate the vague, unknown quality.

In the same way, I've heard non-bisexual people use "they" to refer to their future spouses.