Tuesday 28 March 2017

Gender-Neutral Singular They

Gender-Neutral Singular They: On January 8th, 2016, approximately 300 linguists crammed into a room to vote on the American Dialect Society’s 2015 Word of the Year. From microaggression to man bun to emoji with x-rated connotations, dozens of lexical items were debated, but only one could take home the ultimate honor of Word of the Year. This year that title went to they, or more specifically, to the gender-neutral singular use of they. The current discussion of they touches on two distinct conversations: grammar usage and gender identity. Many style guides instruct editors to never use they with a singular antecedent. ... (Read more)

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