this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
201 points (96.7% liked)
Fediverse
17717 readers
3 users here now
A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.
Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Getting started on Fediverse;
- What is the fediverse?
- Fediverse Platforms
- How to run your own community
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Singular they goes back at least as far as Shakespeare. Also, "you" was originally a plural pronoun.
Cant "you" still be used to mean many people? "do you all" "you guys" etc...
Also, there's a lot of Shakespeare speech that is kind of incomprehensible today.
Yes, it can, but my point was that it used to only mean multiple people and we don't have any trouble using it to refer to just one
yeah like thou for the second person singular is pretty odd... wait a second
I don't think anyone is suggesting that we eliminate the plural "they", either.
If Shakespeare's English is too hard to comprehend today, then we can make it easier by switching one part back. It also proves that they're ;-) not just trying to sound more important or whatever transphobic bs.