[chrisweekly]

(tangent to scrabble per se)

I like the idea of "ze" (gender-neutral pronoun), but this is the first I've come across it. Hopefully it'll catch on as IMHO it's a big improvement over alternatives like "they".

While on the topic of "missing" words, when will our language finally get something reasonable for "you (plural)"?? Extant "y'all" (southern) and "yous" (NJ) are not cutting it!

[oh_sigh]

Why is it a big improvement over 'they'? Singular they has become popular naturally, whereas 'ze' has existed for years without anyone naturally using it(except for trolls on the internet).

[Wowfunhappy]

Singular "they" still sounds wrong to me every time I see it. Which is a shame since it would be very useful.

Perhaps more importantly, I don't think singular "they" would be considered proper in formal writing.

[mattkrause]

If it is good enough for Austin, Byron, and Chesterfield, not to mention Shakespeare, then it is good enough for me.

The catch is that it sounds best when there's no specific antecedent: "Every user of the workshop must be responsible for their own safety."

It sounds odder when it is deliberately used to avoid (mis)gendering a specific individual: "Pat does not discuss their* gender." I think this is the niche that 'ze' is supposed to fill.

[stordoff]

> It sounds odder when it is deliberately used to avoid (mis)gendering a specific individual: "Pat does not discuss their* gender."

I suspect it depends on dialect. "their" just sounds more informal to me, "his"/"her" sounds slightly more formal.

[mattkrause]

Hmmm, interesting idea.

I looked at some older examples of singular-they and they almost exclusively refer to an unknown or unspecified person ("Everyone loves their mother"). Using it for a specified person seems to be fairly new: Time Magazine had a piece describing how their (in this sense) was the 2015 word of the year.

http://time.com/4173992/word-of-the-year-2015-they/

[caseyohara]

I've heard of 'ze' as a gender-neutral pronoun, but I've never really seen it used. How would you substitute 'ze' in that sentence: "Pat does not discuss their gender"?

[dragonwriter]

“Ze” (like “they”) is a subject pronoun, it has been suggested with various object pronouns (like “them”), possessive determiners (like “their”) and possessive pronouns (like “theirs”), including at least these patterns: ze/hir/hir/hirs, ze/mer/zer/zers, ze/zir/zir/zirs; ze/zem/zes/zes.

So, the “their” could change to any of “hir”, “mer”, “zir”, or “zes”, depending on which “ze” pattern was used.

[wiredfool]

The singular they is quite old:

> The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf.

from https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...

[kermitismyhero]

If singular "they" was good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for me.

There's not a man I meet but doth salute me/ As if I were their well-acquainted friend.

[jolmg]

"They is having a great time."

It does sound wrong for some uses of he/she.

[kmm]

"They're having a great time"

The accord with the verb is still as if it's a plural pronoun. Just like with "you" which technically also used to be plural, doesn't take the old singular second person forms: "you have" not "you hast"

[BRAlNlAC]

Don’t force the verb form.

“I’m worried about my kid at summer camp”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they are having a great time”

Sounds very natural to my west coast ears.

[Rapzid]

I believe it's typically only natural when the name/gender hasn't been established.

[wiredfool]

Y'all is often singular. Y'alls and All y'alls are plural.

There's also youse, seen in Irish english. (at least in the Dublin dialect, can't say I've heard it much in the north)

[paulmooreparks]

I grew up in the South, and I never encountered the use of "y'all" in a singular context (I'm 48). I'm not sure where that idea started.

Edit: I should instead say I never encountered it among actual locals using the word in normal speech. Later on, the plural was sometimes used jokingly after the idea that "y'all" was plural had taken hold in popular, non-Southern culture.

[rsynnott]

‘Ye’ is also used in some parts of Ireland (and was used in archaic English).

[wiredfool]

Yeah, definitely see that (mainly from a Donegal speaker), but I think it's more an indeterminate number. "How're ye getting on" is pretty common in verbal and informal written forms, directly to one person.

[epanchin]

Scotland too, frequently spelt ‘use’

[ken]

I've always heard it said that you can identify a True Southerner because they use "y'all" as singular. "All y'all" is the plural form.

[sdegutis]

> when will our language finally get something reasonable for "you (plural)"?? Extant "y'all" (southern) and "yous" (NJ) are not cutting it!

We still have ye.