WEBVTT

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- [Voiceover] So you may have
been hearing a lot of talk

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about this thing called
singular they recently

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not knowing entirely what
it is or whether or not

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it's okay to use in a
sentence or in formal writing.

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Um, it's been in the news
a lot lately, you know

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we're seeing publications
like The Washington Post

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and The Economist putting
it into their style guides.

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It was the American Dialect Society's

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Word of the Year in 2015

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but like what is it,
and is it okay to use?

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I know that I got dinged all the time

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for using "they" as a singular pronoun

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in papers in high school, along with "is,"

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I got in a lot of trouble for using "is,"

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which would always be circled.

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Some teachers of mine
just really hated "is."

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I get it now, it's kind of weak but

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anyway we're not talking about that today,

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we're talking about they, singular they.

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So they is more commonly known as

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the plural third person pronoun in English

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so if we say, you know,

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Rolando and Phil

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go to the park we can switch out

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Rolando and Phil and say

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they go to the park,

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and that's one usage of they but you may

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have also seen sentences
that look like this.

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Like, "When a journalist files
a story they should always

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"make sure their sources check out,"

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or "Anyone will tell you the truth if you

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"ask them the right questions,"

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and you may have noticed
that these sentences

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use the word "they" to
agree with a singular

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antecedent like journalist or anyone.

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Now for some of you, you
might not have noticed

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and for some of you, you
might have, your immediate

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reaction might have been, oh
wait, eh, let me get my red pen

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but before you do, in order to explain

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the context and the history

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around this usage, around singular they,

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I would like for a moment
to talk about "you."

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Not you the person, you the person

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are a vast unknowable ocean
but I mean you the pronoun

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and how weird and transgressive

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and transformative it is.

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In many languages today there are

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second person pronouns for both

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singular and plural usage.

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In French, for example,
we'd say tu for singular you

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and vous for plural you.

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Tu to one person, vous to many.

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There's also a social distinction here

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that was once more pronounced,

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where you'd say vous to social superiors

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and tu to close friends.

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Now in those languages
the vous form is formal

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and the tu form is informal.

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You're addressing someone you don't know

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very well, you use vous.

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You're addressing your
best buddy, you use tu.

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All of this is to say
that English used to have

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the same distinction so this kind of

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lines up with tu and vous.

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Once upon a time the
singular second person

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subject form was thou, the object form

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of the singular was thee.

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The plural second person subject form

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was ye or ye and the object form was you.

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This is where you comes in, all right,

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and so we, it's funny because we think

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of thee and thou as being more fancy

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and formal but really
it was the opposite way,

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this was the informal

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and ye and you was the formal.

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Now you may recall from our video on

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who versus whom that I said whom

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was on its way out of the language.

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Its usage is being overtaken by who,

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it is now usually permissible
to use who as an object,

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as in the song Who Do
You Love by Bo Diddley.

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Well the same thing
that's happening to whom

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happened to ye.

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Over the years its
function decreased as "you"

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took over, it took on a
subject and object role

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as well as singular and plural functions

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but it was still reserved
for the highborn,

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it was the polite form of address

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used for addressing social superiors.

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So even though there's only one king

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you would refer to that king as "you"

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because apparently he was better than you.

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He wasn't, but we'll get to that.

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But something marvelous
happened in English,

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the social distinction
between you and thou

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fell away and you overtook thou and its

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subject form thee so now
for both the singular

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and the plural, for the
informal and the formal,

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for the subject and the
object, all we have here

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is you, you, you and you.

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It would be as if I, me
and we were all replaced

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by us, I cannot emphasize
how revolutionary this is!

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In English you address
a king and a peasant

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with the same address, under
the language they are equal.

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Mind you the existence of a single form

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of direct address did not annihilate class

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distinctions or prejudice in
the English-speaking world

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but it is no longer possible to encode

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a power relationship in English

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in the very specific way it once was.

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I cheer this development, I think it's

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awfully democratic and affirming

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of the principle that all human beings

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are worthy of respect,
which brings us to "they."

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This didn't really used to be a problem

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in English composition,
people were writing

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sentences like, "Everybody
has their failing,

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"you know, and everybody has a right to do

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what they like with their own money,"

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which is a Jane Austen quote by the way

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from Northanger Abbey.

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Austen used this construction, Chaucer

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used this construction,
Shakespeare used this construction,

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C.S. Lewis used this
construction, these are the people

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that we look to as paragons of correctness

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and of style in English literature,

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and they used this form
without any compunctions.

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There is a class of
grammarians who thought

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it would be a great idea
to make English adhere

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to Latin grammar rules, which is where

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we get silly language superstitions like

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the prohibition on ending sentences

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with prepositions, making it ungrammatical

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to say a sentence like,
"He's a guy you can rely on,"

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or spreading the spurious rumor

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that you couldn't split
an English infinitive,

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as in, you know, to boldly go.

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These are falsehoods
and they are confusing

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and they are needless,
pompous class markers

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and defeating them, and making you feel

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more comfortable with English is why

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I got into this profession
in the first place.

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Anyway, that group of
grammarians, that group

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decided that when speaking
of a generic person

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we should say "he," a
hypothetical person in

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a sentence was always
"he" on the grounds that

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according to 16th century
grammarian William Lily,

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"The masculine gender is more
worthy than the feminine,"

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so you'd be, you'd get
sentences that began

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"Any judge worth his salt,"

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or "Anyone that would say
that is out of his mind,"

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which presumably was
supposed to refer to anyone.

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Now for centuries arguments raged over

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whether or not the generic "he" erased

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women from consideration and now with

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the benefit of hindsight we can say

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of course it did!

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The generic "he" isn't generic.

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When referring to a person whose gender

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is unknown or undefined by he or she,

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it is elegant to call
such a person "they,"

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as opposed to the ungainly "he or she"

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or she, like s/he,

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which on their own look alright

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but in context and especially when they're

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repeated tend to get a little
clunky and distracting.

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What happened to the word "you"

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is happening to "they," the plural

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is expanding into the realm
of the singular again.

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The language is changing because that's

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what languages do, and
now this is something

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that's already done unconsciously,

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you see it in literature,
you see it in the Bible,

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in formal as well as informal speech.

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But formalizing this understanding is what

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undergirds the decisions of The Economist

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and The Washington Post

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to start using singular they formally.

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Like if you had to ask me right now,

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"David, is singular they grammatical?"

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I'd say it's as grammatical as "you"

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but yeah, this is some of
the context of singular they.

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This is where it comes from, this is why

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it's used, this is what it's replacing,

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it's replacing this generic "he" and this

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kind of a clunky "she or he."

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You can learn anything, David out.