RE: TerryM1, Trisor and Trenners...16 Dec 2025 16:56
Trisor, and tbf many others, often make foolish assumptions where it comes to the usage of the word 'they'.
Incorrectly assuming that I'm doing this to be in keeping with the modern usage of 'they' for those situations where gender is 'unknown'. It's an uneducated assumption of course and I'll explain why...
There are in fact many other uses (all grammatically correct), when it can be perfectly reasonable to utilise the word 'they':
Overview:
"they" can absolutely be used for one person, a practice known as the singular "they", which is grammatically correct, similar to how "you" can refer to one or many people.
Historical Usage: Singular "they" has been in English for centuries, used by Shakespeare and in older texts.
Convenience: It's more concise and natural than "he or she" or other constructions.
Reflexive forms include "themself" or the more common "themselves" (e.g., "They sorted it out by themself/themselves").
Presumably, you're a big fan of ol' Bill Shakespeare Trisor? After all... they don't get much more English than Shakespeare themself! (see what what I did there with my usage of 'they' again!?)