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There's one thing I'm confused about the use of singular they/them for a non-binary person. Is it:

  1. "Jake is my friend, and they are great."

or

  1. "Jake are my friend, and they are great."

The former sounds correct to me, but I don't know where to find confirmation that it is.

Ray
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  • When I hear this I think another object was added to the conversation and/or two things are being spoken about. I want to ask "what are great?" or "Who else is great?" – LUser Mar 02 '21 at 09:53

3 Answers3

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Singular "they" works in exactly the same way when used to refer to a nonbinary person as it does when used to refer to a person of unknown gender. In other words, "they" is used with plural verbs like "are", "have", etc, but "is" is used elsewhere:

If anyone has lost their wallet, they are advised to notify reception.

The rule isn't specific to nonbinary people. The scope of plural agreement is limited to the pronoun "they" (as well as to actual plurals, and so on).

So the correct sentence is:

Jake is my friend, and they are great.

rjpond
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    Note, that this is exactly parallel to you, which has been used in the singular even longer than they (1275 vs 1375 in the OED). At the time you started to be used in the singular, the true singular was thou art, but nobody ever used you art. – Colin Fine Feb 27 '21 at 16:53
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    @ColinFine "They" has gone through a number of changes over the history of the English language. Until several decades ago (in the 70s? 80s?), "I love my wife. They are wonderful." was not correct (even today, many people think it sounds wrong, although it is not grammatically incorrect). The change in the 1300s applied only to usages like "When one uses the restroom, they should wash their hands". The usage typically meant today when people say "they is a gender indefinite singular pronoun" actually is relatively recent and does not go back to the 1300s. – forest Feb 28 '21 at 04:57
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    @forest Your example is a gender indefinite singular pronoun, so I have no idea what it's demonstrating. – Matthew Wells Feb 28 '21 at 06:52
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    @MatthewWells Just that the origin of the "singular they" is not as simple as people often make it out to be. – forest Feb 28 '21 at 07:06
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    @forest But that is simple. – Matthew Wells Feb 28 '21 at 07:50
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    @forest: it's true that singular they has had its use extended in recent decades. But that is not what the peevers typically say: they generally deny that it exists in English at all, – Colin Fine Feb 28 '21 at 14:07
  • @forest Isn't it ungrammatical because you are supposed to use "spouse" instead of "husband" or "wife"? – Xwtek Mar 01 '21 at 07:40
  • @Xwtek I wouldn't call it ungrammatical (nouns in English don't really have a grammatical gender the way some other languages do, so the use of he / she pronouns is deliberate and can be adjusted to reflect the meaning - a pet, for example, can be an it or a he / she / they depending on how much you want to personify the pet), but some nouns, such as wife, imply gender, so the construction is generally a bit awkward - on one hand you're using gender neutral language with they, on the other you aren't with wife. – Maciej Stachowski Mar 01 '21 at 09:37
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    (that said, some people might want to be called a wife to reflect their role in a relationship, but wouldn't want to be called a she as far as gender goes - I don't think it's common, but it's not invalid). – Maciej Stachowski Mar 01 '21 at 09:40
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    using "they/them" for specific people known to both speaker and listener is relatively new (as opposed to using it for unknown, hypothetical, or otherwise non-specific people for which it's been commonplace since Middle English), and this is an accurate description of the way it is used (and points out the exact parallel with singular "you" well), in my experience as a non-binary person who uses they/them pronouns – Tristan Mar 01 '21 at 10:23
  • They both sound incorrect to me. They seem like you would track of the count of objects. Try changing great out with a very of they and the entire sentence is lost.

    Jake is my friend , they go to the store.

     – LUser Mar 01 '21 at 15:42
  • @LUser Perhaps you can help make “they is” a thing, then. It's non-standard English, but it really should be standard English. – wizzwizz4 Mar 02 '21 at 09:41
  • No , I am not interested in American politics/religions in changing a language to convolute it more. I suspect these rules will die off due to difficulty of adaption and constantly needing to remind oneself of such exceptions . "They is" sounds uneducated and using they for single objects sounds bad as well due to object count loss. To me, it seems they for single came about as a simplification for he/she , but this seems to hyperextend the difficulty of these terms. Even as writing this my grammar checker is correcting me. – LUser Mar 02 '21 at 09:51
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If Jake is your non-binary friend then you should ask Jake about this. Many people, including many non-binary people, don’t want to stand out and attract attention all the time. Jake might prefer you saying “Jake is my friend, and he is great”. Then Jake might not, that’s why you ask.

Whatever pronoun you use, Jake is one person. On the other hand, the third person singular “they”, like the second person singular “you”, is used with plural. So if you want to use “they”, the correct way is “Jake is my friend, and they are great”.

gnasher729
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Both examples are simply wrong.

"Jake is my friend and Jake is great" is what you need…

Broadly, "singular plural" is today much more a political than a linguistic subject… as your own example shows.

Robbie Goodwin
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    No, this answer is wrong. Thy politicians might be squabbling about this, but Stack Exchange is an international forum, and “singular they” has been attested prior to the wholly ungrammatical “singular you”. So it's “thine own example”, thank thee very much. – wizzwizz4 Feb 28 '21 at 21:40
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    In fact, I'm betting thou hast “they” as generic singular in thine own vocabulary, and hast used it often. – wizzwizz4 Feb 28 '21 at 21:58
  • I remember the great RNB politician Mario Winans, in his speech (some say it is a song) named "I don't wanna know" using this political "singular they" in the line "Somebody said they saw you"... – Hilder Vitor Lima Pereira Mar 01 '21 at 07:38
  • @wizzwizz4 Ho ho. "Singular they" attested by you now isn't about "singular you"… though rightly bringing that up shows how most of the people can get things wrong most of the time, and still claim they're "right."

    "Somebody said they saw you" is a fine example. Winans' wording could be correct if it meant "a person or persons unknown". I suggest the audience should assume that even if "somebody" isn't specifically identified, that one's gender is known, which makes the phrase wrong.

    This boils down to whether you can conjugate "to be", showing the use of "they" in all tenses? Do try!

     – Robbie Goodwin Mar 02 '21 at 02:40
  • I forgot to mention, none of what either of you Posted has anything to do with binary/non-binary persons. – Robbie Goodwin Mar 02 '21 at 02:42
  • @RobbieGoodwin Ah, but the gender is known; it's just not one adequately specified by “he” or “she”. (English is a gendered language, as you know, though we've got rid of most of the gender in most dialects.) How wouldst thou say “Mackenzie covered themself with their coat, but they didn't wear it or their rainhat.”? – wizzwizz4 Mar 02 '21 at 09:35
  • Additionally, if thou wouldst proscribe language, why canst thou not evidence thy claims? – wizzwizz4 Mar 02 '21 at 09:39
  • @wizzwizz4 Ho, ho, ho do stop it. How wouldst thou see Mackenzie's coat on topic?

    When the gender is known; just not adequately specified by “he” or “she” can you give any examples?

    What does "a gendered language" mean to you? Google, for instance, hardly recognises the concept and when it does, explains how some languages change other parts of speech depending on the gender of the subject.

    So far, so good and English, as you should know, doesn't do that.

     – Robbie Goodwin Mar 02 '21 at 22:32
  • @RobbieGoodwin Thou only must check Wikipedia. It is still present in several dialects (which I can confirm from personal experience, shouldest thou doubt Wikipedia). I see Mackenzie's coat on-topic because there are plenty of cases where pronouns are useful; this is one of them. I uphold my challenge: if thou claimest thy solution grammatical, wilt thou reword my example sentence naturally? – wizzwizz4 Mar 02 '21 at 22:48
  • If you really don't see how your Mackenzie example is both off-topic and in itself inane, there's little hope for you.

    Either way yes, do please avoid extended discussions in Comments. Would you like to take yourself to Chat?

     – Robbie Goodwin Mar 02 '21 at 22:56
  • Thy proposed solution sort of works for the example sentence in the question. It does not work for my example sentence, and is therefore not an acceptable solution. In addition to being factually incorrect, this answer is useless. – wizzwizz4 Mar 03 '21 at 08:47
  • Well, wizzwizz4, good luck in Chat. – Robbie Goodwin Mar 03 '21 at 16:29