boost: The Grammar of Singular They

[jesse_the_k]

Lingthusiasm is a monthly podcast about linguistics, hosted by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. It’s just the right level of technical for someone like myself, who’s fascinating by language and how it works but has no formal linguistic training.

The most recent episode with Kirby Conrod on The Grammar of Singular They is particularly germane as I watch the pronoun meme bounce around my d-roll.

I learned so much from the episode that I’m tempted to repost the entire transcript. Aural learners this way or grab episode 43 in your podcast app.

In addition to exploring the linguistic scope of pronouns, the show provides several exceptionally specific, actionable suggestions on how to get better at properly gendering people who use the singular "they".

[Context: on switching between gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns in the same sentence]

Kirby: This is something where it’s not the case that my friend’s date uses two sets of pronouns necessarily. The thing about “they” in particular is that it doesn’t tell you anything about the gender. It can imply things, but it can’t specifically tell you things. People have the option to use “they” pretty much all the time. People do use it to give you a little more detail and a little less detail. When they’re giving you more detail, sometimes that can give you additional of meaning of like, “I want you to know this is an important part of the kind of relationship that I’m talking about.” When they give you a little bit less detail, sometimes it’s like, “Well, gender’s kind of not relevant for this part. This is the part where I don’t think it’s important to talk about the specific gender of the person.” 

It’s not that the gender stopped existing. It’s just that we have this option of turning the dial up of how much we wanna include. This opportunity to switch and change pronouns in some contexts but not others is something that also brought up a bunch of questions for me as a student in graduate school learning about sociolinguistics because the other thing is that sociolinguists talk about gender, but they talk about it in the very binary way – or up until a certain point. They’re starting to really grapple with this. 

The show notes include formal references, where I learned that one of my WisCon heroes, bronwyn, helped organize a great event last June:

They, Hirself, Em, And You Conference
Nonbinary pronouns in research and practice https://educ.queensu.ca/they2019

Comments

[magnetic_pole]

Enjoyed, thanks! M.

[jesse_the_k]

<3

[sasha_feather]

Thanks, this was great! I like that they acknowledge that this is work. It seems like I've seen a lot of my friends on the internet saying "it's not that hard." These friends say this phrase in defense of non-binary friends, and I understand what they are doing. But it makes me feel like there is something wrong with me on those occasions when I struggle. I'm in the "older speakers" category the podcasters refer to.

Kirby also notes that our singular they is *different* from the Shakespeare use: referring to a single known person rather than a set of people.

[sasha_feather]

tldr: I appreciate how non-judgemental this was.

Indeed

[jesse_the_k]

The proposal to make "they" comfortable in our mouths by sitting folks down in a circle to describe the person is brilliant! Provides us with practice and the person under discussion doesn't have to waste their time watching us learn (or coping with a thousands "Oops, sorry to misgender you").

[mdlbear]

Thank you! I have only an amateur's interest in linguistics, but as a computer scientist I've always had an interest in syntax. (Actually since high school, reading my dad's copy of the Algol 60 report and eventually getting comfortable with BNF. Algol 68 was an altogether different matter.)

[jesse_the_k]

<3

[firecat]

Oh my gosh yes, this is wonderful! And thanks especially for posting the transcript.