A proud dad was showing me pix of his family. "They are so talented!" he gushed. "They sing, they play piano, they're great at sports..." I was flipping through the pix, and the person in each photo seemed to be the same person. "Are they twins?" I asked. No, they're non-binary, was the answer. "Ah," I uttered. I was still unsure how many kids he had, or if all of the pix were of his one non-binary child. Shouldn't he have said "They is great at sports"? That would've tipped me off. Love the idea of using "one." The primary purpose of language is clear communication. We need to get some buy-in from the non-binary crowd. Unless, of course, they're editors or royalty, or like to think of themselves as such.
I had never thought of "one" for that context. Great solution. It resolves all of my problems with "they," which are purely grammatic as a plural pronoun. I respect a person's request to use a particular pronoun, of course, but it grates on my brain for the mismatched singular verb. "One" in its place would have no such problem.
Ultimately, I'm not the one to whom this matters though. I'm just a language user. Assuming we're all willing to use a preferred pronoun out of politeness to the requesting party, it's the non-binary requestor who would need to embrace this.
To that end: I would suggest the Victorian throwback gives it an air of intrigue too, where "they" sounds generic and implies just part of a crowd, "one" is a unique individual. Plus, "they" often has a negative Big Brother connotation. Who's controlling our lives? They are.
None of us are by nature non-binary. All humans have characteristics of both sexes, so in essence we are all "they/them". Alternatively, there are only two descriptive genders-male and female. In terms of sex, there are only two sexes-male and female. Using the "They/them" as a general descriptive term for a singular human in general seems reasonable to me. Using it referring to someone's sex/gender makes no sense at all.
We need to remove that grammatical stick up our asses, admit that language is constantly evolving, and evolve with it. “They” is (are?) with us, and as we practice using our newfound useful pronoun, we’ll keep our aging brains fresh. Time and usage march onward!
A proud dad was showing me pix of his family. "They are so talented!" he gushed. "They sing, they play piano, they're great at sports..." I was flipping through the pix, and the person in each photo seemed to be the same person. "Are they twins?" I asked. No, they're non-binary, was the answer. "Ah," I uttered. I was still unsure how many kids he had, or if all of the pix were of his one non-binary child. Shouldn't he have said "They is great at sports"? That would've tipped me off. Love the idea of using "one." The primary purpose of language is clear communication. We need to get some buy-in from the non-binary crowd. Unless, of course, they're editors or royalty, or like to think of themselves as such.
I had never thought of "one" for that context. Great solution. It resolves all of my problems with "they," which are purely grammatic as a plural pronoun. I respect a person's request to use a particular pronoun, of course, but it grates on my brain for the mismatched singular verb. "One" in its place would have no such problem.
Ultimately, I'm not the one to whom this matters though. I'm just a language user. Assuming we're all willing to use a preferred pronoun out of politeness to the requesting party, it's the non-binary requestor who would need to embrace this.
To that end: I would suggest the Victorian throwback gives it an air of intrigue too, where "they" sounds generic and implies just part of a crowd, "one" is a unique individual. Plus, "they" often has a negative Big Brother connotation. Who's controlling our lives? They are.
None of us are by nature non-binary. All humans have characteristics of both sexes, so in essence we are all "they/them". Alternatively, there are only two descriptive genders-male and female. In terms of sex, there are only two sexes-male and female. Using the "They/them" as a general descriptive term for a singular human in general seems reasonable to me. Using it referring to someone's sex/gender makes no sense at all.
We need to remove that grammatical stick up our asses, admit that language is constantly evolving, and evolve with it. “They” is (are?) with us, and as we practice using our newfound useful pronoun, we’ll keep our aging brains fresh. Time and usage march onward!