Pronouns and grammar

[PamDenick]

Ok, need help here...
If a girl now identifies as ‘they’ and you are looking for her, what is the (supposed) correct way to do this?
Is it ‘Where is they?’

Id probably say where are they
But really all rules are out of the window when it comes to this

The (supposed) correct way would be whatever she (annoyingly) demands; but the usual way would be "Where are they?", on the model of

• "Someone's waiting to see you"
• "Where are they?"

Don't overthink it- just conjugate the singular 'they' as you always would in any other situation. So, 'where are they?' 'they have it', etc

But it’s inaccurate.
It’s a child at school and she wasn’t in the right place...
‘Where is she? Is she in her lesson?’ whereas if I asked, ‘Where are they’ it implied that there was more than one child in the wrong place and I needed to convey the message quickly. ‘Where are they’ would be wrong so would ‘Where is they’ but if I could have asked ‘where is she’ I would have asked an accurate question.

I might say “where is they/them”, but more likely than not I’d be deliberately making a political statement.

If I were feeling intimidated I’d fall into line and say “where are they”.

I have always cringed at they are rather than she/he is (not because of eye rolling at N-B ; way before that). But it's the third person plural in English and is non-gendered. As for the fae, xe stuff. They can fuck off.

Try being a French teacher in a class containing a 'they'. Ils sont? Elles sont? Ils sont grand/grande/grands/grandes? It's an absolute minefield.

The French apparently use i/el in this situation, but nobody can tell me how they do adjectival agreements or past tense verbs using être.

Where is Kim? No grammar rules broken.

Yes, I’ve always cringed at the they and their being used instead of he/her, even before all the gender woo woo. For instance when FB kindly reminds us that it’s Sam’s birthday today, wish them a happy birthday I always want to get a red pen out and correct it to her/him...
And now this is compounded by all this rubbish...

@winchfem

Don't overthink it- just conjugate the singular 'they' as you always would in any other situation. So, 'where are they?' 'they have it', etc

Precisely this :)

Is Sam in Room 2? Sam was asked to go there straight after break. Where on earth is they?

I don't think you can say "Where is they?", and yes, "Where are they?" sounds like a crowd. Much better to use the child's name.

Singular they has been around around for ages n situations where the person's gender hasn't been specified. Just use it like that.

"The substitute teacher in my geography class is horrible."

"Oh, no.What did they do?".

"They've finally hired someone for that vacancy on my team."

"At last! When do they start?"

"Freddie's bringing a friend over for dinner, but I don't know if they have any any dietary requirements".

While I don't disagree that using 'they' for a person of known sex is silly, so is this quibbling about grammar. We all use 'they' as a singular for a person of unknown sex without thinking about it. It's been in common use for centuries.

'There's someone on the phone for you' 'oh... what do they want' . That sort of thing.

That's not so bad:

• "Would you give this to Aspen?"
• "Where are they? Are they in their lesson?"

Where it gets really confusing is when there's more than one person previously mentioned.

Because if I had used ‘they’ my 40+ years of trying to use language with accuracy screamed out at me...
If I was asking where they are, it implied that more than one child was missing.

I blame Sam Smith. 🙉

Of course it's "Where are they?" not "Where is they?"

Say you saw a person walking along the street, and didn't know if it was a man or a woman, then this person went into a shop or a side alley, what would you say? You'd say, "Where are they?" wouldn't you. You wouldn't say, "Where is they?" That would just be weird.

Is Sam in Room 2? They were asked to go there after break. Where on earth is Sam?

Where is Kim? No grammar rules broken

Let’s just hope that Kim hasn’t become a deadname since Kim went missing

Interesting points , Daisy but I think I use language differently to you.

If my child told me their supply teacher was horrible I would respond with What did he or she do?

Where it gets really confusing is when there's more than one person previously mentioned.

It can be. Otoh, 'you' being singular and plural can also be confusing but no one seems to mind that.
Early in my career, my boss said 'would you like to come to dinner'. Which I did on the appointed evening, and we sat around talking for quite a while, until eventually he asked when my other half would be arriving.... This was before we were married, and it simply hadn't occurred to me that the 'you' was intended as a plural!

@PamDenick

Interesting points , Daisy but I think I use language differently to you.

If my child told me their supply teacher was horrible I would respond with What did he or she do?

Tbh I think you're unusual in not using the singular 'they' in that context.

Perhaps it’s harder for me as my education pre-GCSE... but I always try to use he/she rather than they and so this is harder for older people...

If there was someone on the phone for me I would ask what does s/he want... In fact, we were asked to write like that at University... maybe that’s why I’m finding this harder than younger people...

Interesting points , Daisy but I think I use language differently to you.

If my child told me their supply teacher was horrible I would respond with What did he or she do?

I would interpret someone asking me "what did he or she do?" as inviting me to confirm whether I was talking about a he or a she.

Whereas if they asked "what did they do?", I might switch to 'she' or 'he' in my reply, but I wouldn't feel the need to do so for the other person's benefit.

To be fair, ‘they’ has a long history of usage as a singular pronoun and has always been used with the plural form of the verb in those cases. Most people use it without even realising when referring to people they’ve never met with ambiguous names, e.g. ‘Alex from X company emailed about changing tomorrow’s meeting to 3pm’, ‘sorry, can’t do 3, see if they can make Friday instead’

I agree that you have to fight against your natural instinct to use it when the sex of the person in question is perfectly bloody obvious though!