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  • Flying Squid
    40•2 years ago

    Examples of the singular “they” being used to describe someone features as early as 1386 in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and also in famous literary works like Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1599.

    “They” and “them” were still being used by literary authors to describe people in the 17th Century too - including by Jane Austin in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49754930

    But really, what would Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jane Austen know about the English language?

    • diprount_tomato
      2•2 years ago

      Aren’t those cases referring to individuals you don’t know the gender of? Like “I saw a silhouette moving, they were going somewhere”

      • Flying Squid
        12•2 years ago

        'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear the speech.

        • Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3

        There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend

        • The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

        Sounds like the gender was known.

        • diprount_tomato
          2•2 years ago

          First one is plural, second one is refering to what I said in my previous comment

          • Flying Squid
            14•2 years ago

            No, both are the use of the singular ‘they’ with gender. Read them more closely.

            • diprount_tomato
              2•2 years ago

              First one talks about mothers in general, second one refers to being a friend of someone

      • Chozo
        5•2 years ago

        Yes, which is literally why many nonbinary people prefer “they” for their third person pronouns.