Posted: Oct 02, 2014 9:17 pm
Clive Durdle wrote:French has tu and vous. English has you for both. There is no law about using they for singular he and she!
You is unlikely to have the same problem of confusion as I said about they, because when you address someone in the second person you can only be addressing one person (or group of people) at a time. Whereas when talking about people in the third person you could be talking about many individuals or groups.
However I admit that my problem with they as third person singular pronoun is more to do with it being inelegant and just not feeling right, than actual confusion as per my example. It just often sounds wrong, to me.
"My teacher is coming to the party with their partner".
"I offered to pay the plumber by cheque, but they'd only accept cash".
"Who's her best friend, and what does she like about them?"
I dunno, I feel a jarring between the singularity of the person and the pronoun that I can't help hearing as a plural.
