How They Became THE Gender Neutral Pronoun 

hell yes!!!!!1!1!!

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Happy Pride!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

*THEY instead of the.

Nope

@@user-lh8px9cx4r SHUT UP, MISERABLE BIGOT WITH NO LIFE! TOUCH GRASS!

Oh yeah. It's because we had a Tu Vous thing like french One is informal the other is formal... And also plural for some reason

​@@DragonTheOneDZA Like, the "royal we" is still a thing... in the increasingly rare situations where relevant. I wonder if formal plurals are intended to make the individual "more" than.

Appeal to tradition

Thou hast made a good point.

​@@C_B_Hubbs Too bad that the old forms have almost been forgotten.

I would be in favor of using thou again.

I'm grateful that we've gathered around a gender-neutral pronoun, but I absolutely hate that we don't have distinct singular and plural words for they and you. I personally use you and y'all for the later, but I'm not aware of a such an alternative for singular and plural they.

So instead of getting a new word for "you"? We're making our pronouns even more confusing?

@@droebitiuseri3669 You already know how to use singular they. "oh no. someone lost their wallet. i hope they find it!" "you got a phone call. oh, what did they say?". just do that.

Mann? Literally a TF2 reference

It's the same with latin hominem. In latin, it meant any human person. In the romance languages, its derivations can mean a human or a male.

Partly correct. In English, man = male human is from Germanic roots, man = human comes from Latin.

@@laser8389 manns, the germanic root of man, meant human. Guman and weraz were germanic roots that meant male. The wer- in werewolf and world means male and is cognate with latin vir, also meant male.

My dude, people have been using language to distinguish between groups for a long time, and they still keep doing it everywhere. A single emoji can make the difference between perceiving you as a goofy weird boomer or as a cool and hip twitter activist or whatever is cool with kids these days. And some people think of you negatively if you use punctuation and proper capitalisation in texting. Like, if you're not a car mechanic and you try to pretend to be one, another mechanic can figure it out just by listening to how you use jargon. There's nothing shocking or revelatory about the fact that groups of rich people do the same thing. It'd be weird if they didn't. And it really doesn't qualify as THE reason behind language education. Humans are pretty good at analysing someone's language, they don't really need to artificially force language changes for that.

Omg what. XD

Are you Norwegian/Danish? Cause I think they spell it "hun" but in Swedish it's actually "hon"! It's also interesting that we kinda borrowed "hen" from the Finnish pronoun "hän", where they just straight up don't have gendered pronouns, and it also fits very nicely with "sounding like a pronoun" in Swedish (since y'know, you keep the "h-n" part of the others). What's a bit trickier is what the other forms should be (the "him/her" and "his/hers" equivalents) since it's like "han - honom - hans" and "hon - henne - hennes". I think what's usually used is "hen - henom - hens" but they're not as clearly "right in the middle" as switching out the vowel in the base forms!

Id argue the singular and plural they is easier to understand with context than the singular and plural you. Ive mixed up the singular and plural you due to literally forgetting the plural you even exists, and I wouldn’t be shocked if countless people have done the same. As you said, tons of people default to the singular they, it would most likely be harder to forget the two theys than the two yous. Im all for the singular they too. Singular they for the win 🔥🔥🔥

Then why is male generic and female not🤔🤔🤔? There's no explanation outside of default male thinking.

​@@burner555 Male forms are often shorter, especially in German. A teacher is either a 'Lehrer' (m) or a 'Lehrerin' (f) which would translate as 'teacheress'. Instead of writing 'Leher:innen' when teachers in general are meant, I'd rather use 'Leheriche' if someone explicitly means a group of male teachers.

and turkish

Azt gondolom, hogy ő nem tudná...

so does this mean that a female werewolf is actually a wowolf

@@professoryeetus8955 should be. Werewolves are one of those monsters made by mismatching expected terms, like, for example, "cockatrice" (the term for a male bird followed by a female suffix). "Jackalope" may also qualify, being as it is a mixture of "jackrabbit" with "antelope".

I was going to say the same Singular they has been in use since at least the 1990's and nobody had a problem with it until now.

I don't think that's so. I learned my grammar in the 1960s and 70s, and all my teachers were pretty firm on "they" being only for plural.

Saying 'they are' for an individual is not the same as the new attempt at compelled speech. It would be 'they is'.

​@@BMTroubleUYou *_are_* dumb

@@BMTroubleU You are probably right, both on the attempt at compelled speech and the "they is". But my ear for the English language is in distress.

Umm, uhh, ermmm B-B-B-B-BUT I W-WONT USE IT B-BECAUSE MY IDIOTIC BRAIN CAN'T PROCESS THE FACT THAT THE WORLD ISN'T EXACTLY MY SCIENTIFICALLY AND HISTORICALLY DISPROVEN BLACK AND WHITE WORLDVIEW!!!

What's the Polish word for degenerate?

@@Anti-Taxxer STOP ACTING LIKE ONE AND BEHAVE LIKE NORMAL HUMAN BEING! GET A LIFE!

This isn’t one of them, but there are a few rules that grammarians just made-up in an attempt to make English more like Latin. For example, split-infinitives weren’t considered incorrect by anyone until the 19th century.

You did forget "you all" plural and "you" singular. They have no any alternative for those cases, it can generate ambiguity so problematic even more that not include all genders.

pd: obviously "you" is singular and plural.

"What is ^one^ doing?" "What happened to ^one^?" "Do you like ^one^?"

The thing is one uses "one" in a different way than one uses "he", "she", or "they". "One does not simply walk into Morder" is different then "They do not simply walk into Mordor"

I'm grateful that we've gathered around a gender-neutral pronoun, but I absolutely hate that we don't have distinct singular and plural words for both "they" and "you'. I personally use you and y'all for the later, but I'm not aware of a such an alternative for singular and plural they. It's not a worldview complaint, but a language clarity complaint.

@@im.empimp that's fair. Our language can definitely use improvement!

Happy pride and thanks for the superchat!

Seguimos sin pronombres neutros y con lenguaje con genero por palabra Most i can think of for neutralizing is ommiting it all together Pense que estaba ahi (I thought was there) Pense que estaba ahi (I thought there )

Prescriptivists are a plague upon linguistics.

Pluralizing the singular you is hilarious to me. XD Full circle. Youse is excellent, tho for regional reasons I prefer y'all.

Thou is the singular form of you.

It's because they don't actually know/care about language, they just wanna spread their political rantings

HAVE EVER THOUGHT LOOKING AT CONTEXT!? START DOING IT!

But you use it everyday

Yep, when few people were literate, and most of the literate people were of particular social classes, written language represented a pretty narrow sample of spoken language. (It also doesn't even represent their spoken language accurately, because people do not write exactly as they speak - take it from someone who does transcriptions and once wrote out an entire thirty-minute interview response that was all one sentence.) Add in that old-but-not-ancient writing is almost all located on perishable materials, and the further back you go, the smaller the sample size gets. It's entirely likely that many of the words and turns of phrase we attribute to Shakespeare's "invention" were actually in common use already but were not written down or didn't survive the centuries.

Linguists do not like it. Maybe woke, brainwashed linguists do, but everyone else can see past this nonsense.

@@Anti-Taxxer YES THEY DO! GET A LIFE FOR ACTING LIKE UNHINGED LOSER!

@@Anti-Taxxer I get that you're the officially designated spokesperson for all linguists and all but as someone with a decent knowledge of linguistics this is just false. Linguist don't exist to dictate how language ought to be and delete words they dislike for political reasons. They exist to describe how language functions and evolves and don't try to prevent said change for the sake of upholding an archaic social structure. That's not to mention the fact that singular they has been used for hundreds of years. So no, linguists don't dislike singular they, just because a fact hurts your worldview doesn't make it false. Facts don't care about your feelings darling.

@@jumpydashgd4699 Keep believing your woke bullshit, the rest of us will keep thinking you’re a moron.

😊

@@mingfanzhang8927 #Islam #KFC

@@mingfanzhang4600 #Islam #KFC

@user-in8qh3zf9d No it doesn't, it comes from Wifman, wif=wife, man=human.

@user-in8qh3zf9d Yeah, you really did type a lot of bollocks.

@user-in8qh3zf9dit does not

nah. you still say "you are" even when you is singular

@@greatestaxolotl4933 when "you" is treated as a singular pronoun, yes. not when "you" is treated as a word. you wouldn't say "you are a word", you'd say "you is a word". "the word 'you' IS a pronoun", Not "the word 'you' ARE a pronoun".

@@DoroNijimaru ohhh i didn't understand what u were saying lol

Degenerate.

@@Anti-Taxxer SAY ONE IRONICALLY BY SELF-PROJECTING! GET A LIFE AND STOP HARASSING OTHERS!

@@klemenhudobreznik3421 Imagine thinking that basic human biology is “harassment.” That’s how delusional you people are.

@@Anti-Taxxer YES YOU ARE HARRASSING THEM, YOU MISERABLE BIGOT! GET A LIFE OR BE HARRASED BACK!

​@@Anti-Taxxerbasic human biology? what about advanced human biology? 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase lll deficiency 45,X/46,XY mosaicism Aarskog-Scott syndrome Ablepharon macrostomia syndrome Androgen deficiency Androgen insensitivity syndrome Aphallia Aromatase deficiency Aromatase excess syndrome Barber-Say syndrome Bifid penis Campomelic dysplasia Clitoromegaly Clitorophallus Cloacal exstrophy Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome Congenital adrenal hyperplasia Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 11β-hydroxylase deficiency Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 17α-hydroxylase deficiency Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency Cryptorchidism Cytochrome b5 deficiency Cytochrome P450 oxidoreductase deficiency Denys-Drash syndrome Diphallia Estrogen insensitivity syndrome Gonadal dysgenesis Hyperandrogenism Hyperestrogenism Hypergonadism Hypergonadotropic hypergonadism Hypoestrogenism Hypogonadism Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism Hypospadias Isolated 17,20-lyase deficiency Kallmann syndrome Klinefelter syndrome Leydig cell hypoplasia Lipoid congenital adrenal hyperplasia Micropenis Mild androgen insensitivity syndrome Müllerian agenesis Opitz G/BBB syndrome Ovotesticular syndrome Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome Penoscrotal transposition Persistent Müllerian duct syndrome Poland syndrome Polyorchidism Prader-Willi syndrome Precocious puberty Progestin-induced virilization Pseudohermaphroditism Ring chromosome 18 SCARF syndrome Seaver-Cassidy syndrome SERKAL syndrome Turner syndrome Uterus didelphys WNT4 deficiency XX male syndrome XXXXY syndrome XXXY syndrome XXYY syndrome XY gonadal dysgenesis And also the fact that gender isn't the same as sex and is something you are born with, according to scientific research! And also how there were thousands of cultures with third genders! Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that's too much for your bigoted brain to process, so sorry!

😊

well, ok. some people use multiple pronouns. and some of those people prefer you actually use all of their pronouns. so, maybe said girlfriend is a demigirl, or whatever other thing, who asks people to use both she and they in said flip flop manner. so maybe it’s weird to police how others use pronouns. HOWEVER, once someone knows which pronouns you use, and you don’t use singular they for yourself, that person shouldn’t be using it for you. I know there’s a significant proportion of transgender people who find the use of singular they about them by someone who knows their pronouns is a huge no-no. In the minds of these people, and justifiably so, they fought so hard to be the gender they are and to use the pronouns they use, so it feels like erasure of said hard work to use a term that removes that gender from them. This is also not to mention the rising problem of transphobes using they/them for binary trans people, and maybe neopronoun users if we’re lucky to even be acknowledged, so they can claim “I’m not *mis*gendering you” whilst actively intending to not have to correctly gender people.

@@IsaacMyers1 To be clear, I have no problem using a person's choice of pronouns. The issue is, occasionally ,only about following who the conversation is actually about. If in doubt, use the person's name where possible. X

I’ve always felt like the neopronouns in this family have two major downsides: pronunciation isn’t obvious just by spelling and they tend to follow the conjugation pattern of one of the preexisting gendered pronouns leading to what feels like a masculine/feminine leaning. I don’t understand why those are some of the most popular neopronouns, but to each their own.

@@IsaacMyers1 I've been using the "ee" pronunciation Zi zim zir zimself

It’s for the same reason that we use “you are” for one person instead of “you art”

Because "they" is plural NOT singular.

@@stapuft NOPE, IT IS BOTH! GET A LIFE!

Its not though. I have one unlike you. Why so salty? Is it because reality refuses to conform to your idiocy?

​@@stapuft By that logic, wilt thou correct thy usage of the plural "you" to refer to a single person? Wilt thou attempt to argue with _royalty_ when they use "we" for only themself?

As a trans person, please, go to rehab

ITS MAAAAAM 👰🏻‍♂️

As an NB masc person, I agree

I've also heard somewhere that some people use "Sier" as a gender neutral pronoun in German

There's something similar in French, too. I recently received an email addressed to "Cher•e•s collègues, cher•e•s étudiant•e•s". I find it interesting that German decided to use "die" for Bürger*in, thanks for sharing. I used to study German seriously but had to put it aside for a while. I really miss it.

@@PurelyCoincidental Trust me, despite being a German native speaker, this article was just a guess of mine. Just based on the rule that article and suffix ought to go together.

Americans seeing how Germans call people "Bürger": "I wanna go to germany"

@@matercan5649 Well, "Burg" just means fortress, so the transition from "feudal subject" to "royal subject" to "republican citizen" was rather smooth.

YET EXPERTS OF LINGUSTIC DEFEND THIS USAGE BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE WORDS HAVE USAGE MAINLY, NOT MEANING! GET A LIFE!

It doesn't take a decade to learn english. It takes like 6-8 years.

@@Quartz512_ In some countries it's mandatory to learn English since the 2nd or 3rd grade all the way to the end of highschool, which at least in my country means 11-12 years.

@@janslavik5284 STILL DOESNT MEAN SINGULAR THEY IS STUPID USAGE OF WORD! MAYBE LEARN TO READ THE CONTEXT OF CONVERSATION!

Indeed. Especially if you consider other languages, which feature grammatical gender, rather than natural gender, like English does. Inanimate objects are gendered, regardless of their physical characteristics. In at least some of these languages, this carries over to names - for example, in Polish, all female names end in an -a.

Agreed! Your speech is very clear. I’ve had some speech therapy too so I understand that self consciousness, though!

Most people in Northern England don't say TH but F instead. Making deaf and death pronounced identitically

@@modmaker7617 there are 3 th sounds. The f like one, in thor and death. A v like one in together. And a d like one, in the and they.

Skill issue

Except people with DID, why would someone refer to themself as "we"

@@burner555 Royal we is the most well known, but there are other contexts, like in various forms of formal writing such as scientific papers.

@@angeldude101 singular we

Even if there was such a thing as LGBT ideology they has been used as a gender neutral singular pronoun for centuries.

No by evolution of language

Ah yes, the ideology pushed by _William Shakespeare._ We can't have that. The ideology pushed in the 20th century by people whining that English wasn't Latin is clearly a much more reasonable position. /s

Any particular reason why you need to downplay discrimination against gender non-conforming people?

Too bad that’s not how language evolves especially when these thing existed for centuries if not millennia

Nice wompussy

The fact that that's what you took away from this video tells me that YOU'RE the one that hasn't experienced many hardships.

You mean "discrimination".