… If applied to everyone, “they” would complete the leveling-up progress of equal dignity that “you” started centuries ago.
(Teresa M. Bejan, “What Quakers Can Teach Us About the Politics of Pronouns,” NYTimes, 11-16-19)
1. A person has to register early if he wants to vote.
2. A person has to register early if he or she wants to vote.
3. A person has to register early if they want to vote.
As a half-woke pedant I’ve stuck with version 2 until now, but version 3 is winning.
The history provided by Professor Bejan helps me. She notes that English nobles could call themselves “we.” (The Queen still does.) At that time “thou” was the proper singular, so commoners were required to address a noble as plural “you,” since he (or she) considered himself (or herself) to be more than one. (The Duke of York still does, though he “let the side down.”)
The Quakers leveled down by “thou-ing” everyone, including blue-bloods, but English eventually went the other way and leveled up. I got to be you, and you got to be you, like our blood was blue, too.
The fact that plural “you” crossed over to singular furnishes a respectable precedent for the migration of “they” to neutered singularity. It relieves one of the cross of pedantry they have borne. They’re chiefest concern now — our chiefest concern, or mine if I’m humble — is to get comfortable with the contracting of future “they-all” into “th-all,” where it will team up with “y’all” as a disambiguator for them, whoever it is.
(c) 2019 JMN
Separate and United
The Atlantic, KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS.
The two countries nowadays are united by a common divisiveness, an internecine feud over their respective futures. This excerpt from the NYTimes* is dated Nov. 18, 2019. Britain or America? The blanks are yours to fill.
*Jack Shenker, “Britain’s Election Is Not About Brexit.”
(c) 2019 JMN