[Gala-l] question on specific singular 'they'

[MONICA MACAULAY]

Hi all,

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 http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/gender-neutral-pronouns-singular-they):

1. General singular ‘they’ - when we don’t have a particular referent in mind
e.g. “Tell the next caller they won a car”

2. Specific singular ‘they’ - when we do have a particular referent in mind, but we’re observing a person’s pronoun preference
e.g.

And here’s another one. This time from a review of the TV show Billions.<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/arts/television/billions-season-2-episode-2-recap.html> There’s a character named Taylor whose preferred pronoun is they, so a sentence describing someone named Axe pitching an idea to Taylor reads like this:

Axe’s pitch to them shows a surprisingly progressive understanding of the value of workplace diversity.

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.

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).

Thanks for any suggestions!

- Monica
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