Tweet Round-up: Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021

This week’s round-up features one tweet and a reply on an important language topic — “it” and “they”…

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

An interesting question…

So…

There’s a pronoun that’s often badly taught by English teachers, and that pronoun is “they.”

It’s clear that saying “he/she” is inelegant, and could be offensive by not being exact.

But don’t worry, “they” is to the rescue. Take this sentence:

I don’t know who “they” were, but “they” left us a large sum of money in our post-box.

Who is the “they” here? The answer is either: 1. Several people 2. An unknown person of unknown gender.

Perhaps we don’t feel gender is important, as indeed, when is gender really that important to a great many things in life?

And when we don’t know someone’s gender, or it is irrelevant to our discussion, or the person we are speaking to does not want to be called “he” or “she,” then let’s get into the habit of saying “they.” And teaching “they” to students.

“It” can work, admittedly. But considering its use for objects, things and generalities, “they” is better. Plus “it” can cause confusion, as this reply to the above tweet points out:

Knock, knock, “it’s” your mother.

It is also worth remembering that the “it” described here is being used with its introductory function, and not saying the person at the door is an “it.”

You see the same thing in other European languages. It’s not making a claim about gender or personhood. It’s merely a way to point attention to something, or creating what’s known as an “empty subject clause”:

It’s raining.

It’s time you told your boss you are going to quit.

It’s a new species, but may be endangered.

A final thought — I think in English we should be grateful that we have the ability to avoid gendered language when the gender is not important or unwanted, whilst also having a pronoun that still gives someone personhood.

Using “they” is not the neologism that right-wing contrarians would have you believe, despite their facile attacks on someone’s choice to be “non-binary.” “They” has been around for a long time and it is perfectly acceptable to grammarians.

Here’s hoping “they” get over “it.”