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Hi all,
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<div class="">I have a student who’s looking at the specific singular ‘they’. It took us a while to clarify exactly what he meant, so here’s a brief recap (examples from <a href="http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/gender-neutral-pronouns-singular-they" class="">http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/gender-neutral-pronouns-singular-they</a>):</div>
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<div class="">1. General singular ‘they’ - when we don’t have a particular referent in mind</div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>e.g. “Tell the next caller they won a car”</div>
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<div class="">2. Specific singular ‘they’ - when we do have a particular referent in mind, but we’re observing a person’s pronoun preference</div>
<div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>e.g. </div>
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<p class="" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 15px; direction: ltr; font-family: Raleway-Regular, Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">
And here’s another one. This time from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/arts/television/billions-season-2-episode-2-recap.html" target="_blank" class="" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 102, 204); text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit;">a
review of the TV show <em class="" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Billions</em>.</a> There’s a character named Taylor whose preferred pronoun is <em class="" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">they</em>, so a sentence
describing someone named Axe pitching an idea to Taylor reads like this:</p>
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<p class="" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 17px 40px; padding: 0px; font-size: 15px; direction: ltr; font-family: Raleway-Regular, Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(10, 10, 10); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">
Axe’s pitch to them shows a surprisingly progressive understanding of the value of workplace diversity.</p>
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<div class="">The student wants to add a factor to the second type: when we have a particular referent in mind, but we don’t know their pronoun preference. It’s a subtle distinction, but I can see it as an added factor.</div>
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<div class="">So my question is, does anyone know of literature on the second usage (with or without his added factor)? When he's done searches, he finds tons of stuff on the first kind, but almost nothing on the second (which isn’t surprising, since I think
it’s a fairly new use).</div>
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<div class="">Thanks for any suggestions!</div>
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<div class="">- Monica</div>
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