The Singular They

Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2019 was “they”, as a pronoun for a person of nonbinary gender. For me, it’s only recently, well into 2020, that I’ve noticed it cropping up. I first noticed it reading a Washington Post story last week, and a few days ago it caught my ear for the first time on a This American Life podcast. I have to admit that I found it a bit jarring, but it wasn’t the gender that threw me so much as the number. The stories were talking about a specific person, so when the pronoun “they” was used, I was momentarily confused. Who all were “they”? Admittedly, nonbinary persons are unfamiliar ground for me, but I’m sympathetic and have no objection to the concept. As a cisgender gay man, I’m quite comfortable with “he”, and also comfortable with a camp “she” to playfully refer to cis males. But even gender-bending depends on a binary view of gender, so for those who feel themselves alienated by the whole binary construct, I can see why they would want to distance themselves from “him” or “her”. The only admittedly very small taste I’ve had of the experience of being misgendered was trying to pick out a song for my wedding that wasn’t singing about “him and her”. (We chose “I’ll Cover You” from “Rent”.) So I understand why a nonbinary person would want to use “they”. It’s the grammar I’m struggling with. This is a singular “they”, so should we be saying “they is”? (That sounds wrong on multiple levels.) Happily for grammar pedants like me, Merriam-Webster had a very helpful article on this very issue. They noted that the pronoun “you” was once exclusively plural (with “thou” being the second person singular), but has evolved to serve as singular or plural, so that today we don’t think twice about speaking or hearing “you are” with one person in mind. Even though “are” is technically the plural form of the verb, there you are, dear singular reader, that doesn’t hurt at all, does it? Though “they” isn’t quite there yet, there’s no reason it can’t be. Moreover, it’s been heading in that direction for centuries. Even before Shakespeare, “they are” has filled in for non-specific singular referents. For example, “no one is truly free if they are imprisoned by their grammar”. The “they” in that sentence is perfectly singular, and the “are” is perfectly natural. It’s not jarring in this context to map “they are” onto “no one is”. The same thing works for singular corporate referents, as in “Apple is working on a new iPhone, which they are planning to roll out in September.” Interesting side note: my Irish friends use plural verbs with corporate entities, as in “Google are launching a new smartphone”. That was jarring to me when I first heard it, but I eventually got used to it, and now sometimes I even say it myself. Language evolves to meet our lived experiences. We can learn and adapt (even an old grammar pedant like me). I’ll experience some discomfort with the “misnumberedness” of the singular “they”, but my discomfort will be a small act of solidarity with those who feel profoundly misgendered by “he” and “she”.

July 4th, 2020

In recent years, I’ve felt increasingly dissonant about Independence Day. I still hold to idealistic beliefs about the principles this country was founded on, and the patriotic songs and symbols still have power to stir me, even as my realizations of the ways in which this country falls short of its ideals deepen each year. This year especially has brought new understanding of the way that racism carved channels in our history that still affect our present. It has been a year of national reflection and reckoning, perhaps because we have all been quarantined with more time to reflect, leading to an extraordinary pulling down of monuments and symbols once considered venerable, and the consideration of ideas formerly inconceivable. As I put up the flag tomorrow, how can I help but think about the reference to slaves in the less-than-admirable third verse of The Star Spangled Banner or the odious racism of its author, but also of the redeeming fifth verse added during the Civil War. It is fitting that the anthem should be considered amendable like our Constitution, a work in progress like our country itself. Our founders recognized their principles as aspirational when they sought to form a “more perfect union”. And as our country was nearly torn apart, Lincoln, standing among the fresh graves of Gettysburg, called upon us “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” and that this nation “shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Seven score and seventeen years later, we still have much unfinished work. It can be discouraging to assess how far we yet fall short of our stated ideals. But it’s worth looking back to see how far we’ve come, and it’s worth looking around to see where we are relative to the rest of the world. As I put the flag up tomorrow, I’ll be thinking of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and of all the recent protests. But I’ll also be thinking about living in a country where we can have such protests, and where monuments can sometimes be toppled, even as citizens of Hong Kong are losing their freedoms before our eyes, as Uyghurs suffer cultural genocide in China, and as much of the world suffers under dictatorships, oligarchies, and theocracies. It may be tattered, but the banner yet waves.