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This is NOT a question about whether they/them is acceptable as a singular pronoun. I know some of you will have to die before you give that argument a rest, but I am starting here with the presumption that them/them IS an acceptible alternative to refer to non-binary gendered people. On to the question...

I was writing about a person who prefers the pronoun "they/them":

Talk to Abigail when they are a resident.

After I wrote it, I realized (assuming here in 2016 that "they" can serve as a singular pronoun - and more so here in 2017) that technically there is a lack of subject verb agreement. More correctly, I should write:

Talk to Abigail when they is a resident.

But of course that sounds terrible and wrong to my ear.

As they/them becomes an acceptable singular pronoun, do we amend the subject-verb agreement rules to use a plural verb with this singular subject?

Wes Modes
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    I can only speculate but I think that if "they" becomes accepted as a third person singular form in English we may use the plural verb form. In cases I know of where this sort of substitution has occurred, for example in German and Italian polite forms of "you", the verb agrees with the pronoun. In fact the same thing is true in English where "thou art" was replaced by "you are" not "you art". – Al Maki Jun 14 '16 at 15:59
  • Yeah, don't say they is unless you also say you is. – Anonym Jun 14 '16 at 16:04
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    I have used the singular they in informal speech since I was a child in the 1960s, and it has been used in English for the last 400 years, so I would say they is already accepted as a third person singular form, and has been for quite a while. The only people who currently use "they is" for the singular form also use "they is" for the plural form, and this is not going to change. – Peter Shor Jun 14 '16 at 16:33
  • One more comment: one of the rules I absorbed for singular they is that you can't use it when the referent is somebody's name. I am actually in favor of an exception to this rule, but only for non-traditionally gendered people. So I'd recommend using her in your sentence if Abigail identifies as female. – Peter Shor Jun 14 '16 at 16:39
  • Your sentence is ambiguous: is "they" referring to Abigail or to someone else? Also, depending on other context, you could perhaps omit "a" and use "resident" as a verb: "... when they are resident." – TrevorD Jun 14 '16 at 16:40
  • @TrevorD: it probably sounds ambiguous to you only because of the rule that the antecedent of singular they can't be a name. If they were replaced by she, I don't think there would be any question that she refers to Abigail. – Peter Shor Jun 14 '16 at 16:43
  • @PeterShor We don't know - the previous sentence could have been about 'Chris' and the reply could be "Talk to Abigail when [Chris] is a resident." – TrevorD Jun 14 '16 at 16:48
  • They may be used as a pronoun for any non-specific indefinite noun phrase, singular or plural. But the referent has to be nonspecific and it has to be indefinite. – John Lawler Jun 14 '16 at 17:56
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    I don't necessarily buy @JohnLawler's claim that the antecedent needs to be nonspecific and indefinite (although I only have a vague understanding of what these conditions are). The following seems fine: "The person you've been thinking about all day arrives in your shop. They order a coffee from you." The person you've been thinking about all day is (I think) both definite and specific, and they sounds fine (to me). – DyingIsFun Jun 14 '16 at 18:43
  • It may in fact be definite and specific in the mind of the addressee (i.e, you), but it's non-specific in the grammatical sense, since that's the addressee's mind, not the speaker's -- the addressee is sposta do the specifying and determining. If it's changed to first person (I've been thinking .. my shop .. from me), then it can be either specific or non-specific (the speaker can have an individual in mind or not) and only the speaker knows; but if they use singular they, they're signaling that it's nonspecific (i.e, identified by description only, like Smith's murderer). – John Lawler Jun 14 '16 at 18:59
  • @PeterShor what about if you know the name but not the gender? – Chris H Jun 14 '16 at 19:17
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    @Chris H: According to my internal grammar, you still can't use it. "Somebody named Leslie called; they said to call them back" sounds fine to me. But "Leslie called; they said to call them back" does not. – Peter Shor Jun 14 '16 at 20:20
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    I don't see how the earlier questions that this one supposedly duplicates are more than tangentially relevant. They focus on the issue of the legitimacy (or not) of singular "they"; this one asks whether singular "they" logically should take a singular verb. It is thus closer in spirit to (but not a duplicate of) "The hidden flaw in 'singular they'—what to do about reflexive pronouns?" I have voted to reopen the question. – Sven Yargs Dec 19 '17 at 00:37
  • Meh. "Like singular you, singular they takes a plural verb" comes straight from the CMOS quoted in the answer updated in Oct 2017 – Arm the good guys in America Dec 19 '17 at 01:10
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    More relevant: Why isn’t singular ‘they’ used with 3Sg verb forms?, subject-verb agreement for singular they. Does either of those provide a satisfactory answer to your question, Wes Modes? – herisson Dec 19 '17 at 06:44
  • @sumelic: You have identified two earlier questions that do indeed seem to ask the same core question as the one here. It follows that this question should be closed as a duplicate—just not as the duplicate of the two questions cited in the original close question. – Sven Yargs Dec 19 '17 at 16:27
  • Though note that one of those is tagged as being a dupe of https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/207502/why-isn-t-singular-they-used-with-3sg-verb-forms which doesn't ask the question as succinctly or clearly as I have here. I suggest vote to open. Still a relevant and unanswered question. – Wes Modes Dec 20 '17 at 05:37
  • @PeterShor, in your suggestion to use "her" as the pronoun, how do you know (or think you know) Abigail's gender? – Wes Modes Dec 20 '17 at 05:41

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