Singular "they" on Facebook

[Benjamin Barrett]

There are parents who get in a huff about the infantile "it," so you're not going to score any points there. And since the use of "they" for singular nouns goes back at least to the sixteenth century, it would be useless to try to put the "they" horse back in the barn.

As for not selecting a pronoun on social media, the reason is not only shyness; I don't select a sex because I don't consider it anybody's business regardless of how apparent it is.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/videos

On Aug 10, 2013, at 9:34 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Fer cryin' out loud, we already got a gender-neutral singular pronoun. Why
> don't we use it?  (I.e. why don't we us "it".) Like we defaultedly do with
> babies. And Cousin Itt. If shy facebook friends choose to neuter
> themselves, then call them its.

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