What verb goes with singular pronouns?

@Mimishu1995 I agree with you. I’m a native English speaker and i get confused by that as well.
If someone wants to use they, them or whatever as the pronoun then fully accept it and use the singular form of the verb when talking about a single person and plural when talking about more than one.
Another alternative is to use another word that does not specify gender. We invent words all the time, Surely someone can come up with a better option. he,she, ___. Fill in the blank.
Maybe the community can offer some alternative words.

I agree that what you wrote makes logical sense, but as a native English speaker “they is” is a combination that has sounded uneducated my entire life. It just sounds bad to my ears. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t get used to it, but it just sounds bad at this point.

The question doesn’t take into account that “they” has been used as a singular pronoun for centuries. https://www.scu.edu/media/offices/provost/writing-center/resources/Tips-Singular-Pronoun-They.pdf

For example, this sentence pretty well illustrates the common usage of the singular “they”: “When a child goes to school, they need to be prepared for different things.”
This is less awkward than the more modern “…he or she…”, “…he/she…”, or “…s/he…”.

The desire to resist the normal usage stems from a (maybe hidden) desire to resist acceptance of public acknowledgment of genderqueer persons.

The use of “it” carries a negative connotation that has been traditionally used to dehumanize the subject.

I disagree that “it” is not an insult. There is a book “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer. One of the worst cases of child abuse in California. His mom called him It to dehumanize him.
I don’t have an answer as to the verb that would go with the pronouns they, them, but I don’t find myself in conversations where I’m discussing they/them enough to be concerned about the issue.
@LuckyGuy There was a homeless person that came into our office building and down to the cafeteria where they were given free food. This person’s gender was unknown for years so everyone just referred to them as Shim. Part she, part him.

“It” would be a grotesque insult.

@canidmajor linked to an excellent resource that blows this argument out of the water.

This is a disgusting argument meant only to hurt human beings.

Language, thankfully, evolves to better represent our reality. Obviously, the same can’t be said for some of our fellow humans.

I failed to comment on the use of “it,” and I agree it’s dehumanizing. “It” is used for animals and inanimate objects. It would be similar to calling someone by a number rather than their name.

As a member of a congregation with many non-binary members, I can say that “they” is the pronoun used so trying to come up with an alternative is a fool’s game. Since pronouns are used to refer to an antecedent, there is no ambiguity once one gets used to the usage. And I’ve generally heard people say “they are” even when referring to a single person. Language is mutable and adaptable; it is people who need to adapt their thinking.

I go along with @JLeslie ‘s first comment that “they is” sounds awful.

There is another aspect to this. There may be cases where it is not known if there is one or more than one person being referred to. Using a plural verb allows for both possibilities.

Note that the pronoun “you” can refer to one or more than one person. In either case we use the plural form of the verb. Should we switch to “you is”.

I have a Trans friend who was born a bio female & was most of my life “she”. Then “she” says she relates as a male & prefers to be called “he”. She was very patient with those of us who were trying to use her preferred pronoun & didn’t get insulted when we forgot to say “he”. Then after a while, “he” told his closest friends that he was feeling very conflicted in that some days he felt like a female & other days a male. That’s when we were asked to switch to “they” because there was NO way to signal if it was male or female day & they was easier to remember. I had a particularly difficult time switching to “they” while looking at one person & expressed this to my friend. That’s when my friend explained it to me this way…Although you are looking at 1 body, there are 2 people inhabiting that one body, so “they” is very appropriate. Once that thought entered my head, it all became a bit clearer for me. I’m looking at 2 people & seeing 1 body, so “they” is actually plural in this situation. Wouldn’t that make “they are” correct when it comes to the rules of grammar???

BTW, I despise calling any of my friends “It”!!!

“they” is a copout. We need a better term.

When I am speaking, i will use “they” because anything else sounds weird and won’t be understood.

When I am writing, I will use he/she to be inclusive of any gender or gender combination.

Maybe I’m just being a neanderthal here, but when I learned to read and write, ‘they’ referred to a quantity greater than one. Bastardizing it to be refer to a singular term just isn’t right.

Writing “he or she” is awkward. “They” is easier. If they (he and she) were identified earlier in the writing, then “they” makes sense used in a plural pronoun.

To pretend that we haven’t used they/them as a singular pronouns forever makes it seems like you are trying to be offended by something.

@LadyMarissa Thank you for humanizing this.

Let’s all remember we are talking about living, breathing, walking, eating, smiling, crying, loving human beings. I sincerely hope our regard for our fellow humans is greater than our rigid grammar rules.

This may relate to transgender issues, but I think the larger issue is women’s rights. There are many cases where we are talking about a hypothetical situation involving someone who may be male or female or somewhere in-between. Traditionally, the pronoun “he” is used. I agree with those who think this shows male bias, and have made a point of using “they” in such situations.

@LostInParadise That’s a very good point. Misogyny is so ingrained in us that we often divert to male pronouns incorrectly. I wonder how many of our prejudices can be traced back to blaming Eve for wanting to taste a fruit.

Thank you, @Mimishu1995, for posting my question. I sure didn’t intend for it to expose you to controversy, much less harsh rebukes.

Jellies, @Mimishu is just the innocent bearer.

Being unable to initiate a question myself is really getting old by now. The Continue button stopped working for me more than a week ago, at the same time as when graphics disappeared for a number of us. This has happened before, but never for so long.

@Jeruba The only way to know this question would not be controversial would be to have lived in a cave for the past 5 years. You asked a similar question 7 months ago. The topic has not altered and in fact has become even more contentious with many anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans laws proliferating across the US alone. I am sorely lacking in knowledge of such laws in other places, but I know that such sentiment exists in places in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

@Hawaii_Jake, sorry, wrong emphasis. I sure didn’t intend for it to expose @Mimishu1995 to controversy, much less harsh rebukes. I thought she was going to name me as the source.

You’re right, I did ask it before, and I forgot. Both then and now, it’s the illogical (to me) use of the language that bothers me.

I’m old enough that all the way through school, it was understood that “he” included both genders when used in a general sense: “Everyone must bring his own pencils to the exam.” Sounds weird now, but it was the norm. The fact that it does sound weird shows that we have absorbed the change (after an awkward interval).

I was a senior in high school when Betty Friedan’s book came out. Later on, as a freelance book editor, I was tasked with eliminating gender bias from textbooks without a constant and grating “he or she.” I had several ways of doing it, usually with a simple rewording. A construction with “who” was often the solution. The example given by @canidmajor invites just going with the plural:

“When children go to school, they need to be prepared for different things.”

I am a native speaker of English too, by the way.

@Jeruba I’m also from a generation that was taught to use “he” to refer to all unknown people. I learned it in the backwaters of rural Oklahoma, a place that was openly hostile to a gay child.

I am thrilled with how language is evolving. It is giving more compassion to persons who are deserving of it. The logic of the matter should never trump the love we should all give to humanity.

@Hawaii_Jake, I agree with you there. I confess to being a bit baffled by people saying we can strangle this construction here, regardless of literal meaning or standard usage, but oh, no! we can’t change that one there, because it wouldn’t sound right.

Similar Q asked in Nov 2022

A generation that doesn’t know the difference between your & you’re plus don’t know how to use punctuation aren’t going to stress over grammar rules!!!

Well, then, @Jeruba, since you insist on being picky about my general example, let’s go with this: “When the teacher enters the (specific) classroom, they need to be prepared for different things.”

Referring to a single, as yet unnamed, person.

When entering the classroom, the teacher needs to be prepared for different things.

@Jeruba For me at least, it comes up more in speech than in writing and follows from how a gender neutral person wants to refer to themselves or be spoken about. So one can “edit” and proscribe all one wants but what we have in this situation is an established “is” or perhaps more correctly, “are.”

@Jeruba If you didn’t understand the point of my original post, I would be very surprised. Your resistance to all of this is a bit perplexing.

Done.

I think we have to try to be flexible and learn new ways. What may sound unusual to some will start becoming more commonplace and our way of looking at it will evolve. Language evolves just like everything else, technology, fashion, culture, etc. so we have to go with the flow.

@Jeruba You rewrote the example from @canidmajor to prove a point. Is this the hill you want to die on?

Human beings are more important than grammar.

My child is more important than your rules. They are a real, flesh-and-blood, breathing, loving person who is deserving of your respect.

Fin.

I am fine with “he” meaning both genders, but in America I don’t think it was working out that way.

As a young girl in the ‘70’s, there was a push to not assume all doctors, lawyers, and many other professionals were to be male, so I think he/she became popular, and I still use it.

I think people need to not be so offended when an incorrect pronoun is used. I understand that some people are being hateful when they refer to a transgender person by a different pronoun than they have requested, but a lot of people just innocently screw it up or are confused. Does RuPaul prefer he or she? I have no idea, but I see him as a man and also I see him in drag, as far as I know he hasn’t transitioned. What about the hosts on the show We’re Here? I wouldn’t know whether to call them he or she, and they is tough to put into some sentences.

I want to address people as they prefer, but I realize I might screw it up. I don’t mind being corrected by someone I am with, and I hope I get it right the next time. I do try to use she for someone who is trans female, or I would ask what they prefer, but I do hope they don’t prefer they for every time I refer to them, because it’s awkward, even though I easily used they and them in this sentence and it wasn’t awkward to me at all.

My husband uses the wrong pronouns sometimes, not sure why, that’s not a typical Spanish speaker mistake. There is certainly no malice.

I wouldn’t be upset if someone called me Christian, lesbian, Hispanic, Italian, just to name a few that are incorrect for my identity. I just correct them. I’ve been mistaken for all of those things. Why is being mistaken for the wrong gender so offensive? It’s an interesting thing to ponder. I’ve seen moms get very upset when someone refers to their infant as the wrong gender and some moms just correct it with ease. My husband had long hair when he was a young boy and sometimes people thought he was a girl. His family would just correct the person.

Lastly, I think encouraging people to be offended and upset does them harm. Having some understanding that it is difficult for some people can create mutual understanding and less upset and we can still try to be better and work on it.

Well, my thinking was that if we want to see “they” adapted for use with a singular reference, it makes sense to treat it as any other singular pronoun and give it a singular verb. That’s not me enforcing grammar rules. That’s me recognizing—and affirming—the change and suggesting how it might be a little more elastic for the situation by treating it as singular with the use of a singular verb.

It’s a simple way of distinguishing the two senses of “they” that didn’t used to exist in the word outside of colloquial use; it reduces or eliminates ambiguity.

I also think “they” is a much better alternative than “s/he” and “hesh” and “ze” and some of the other substitutes that have been proposed over many, many years.

I’m really sorry to have pissed so many people off, especially when I wasn’t expecting it (and especially especially when it’s under someone else’s name). I treat everyone I meet with courtesy and respect until something causes them to forfeit it (not usually the case), and this goes for the people in the homeless camp or county shelter just as much as the professors in the classroom or the judges in the courtroom. I would always affirm rather than deny someone’s humanity, regardless of the circumstances.

But I also wholeheartedly support the right to ask honest questions. A question may be controversial without being driven by a desire to arouse controversy.

@Jeruba I think it was clear to many of us that it was you asking the question especially since Mimi put in the details that she was asking it for someone and we knew you were having trouble posting Qs. I wasn’t pissed off by it but a bit bemused as the question seems to have been settled already by common usage.

I’m sorry if you were upset by any of my responses.

First I want to say, Mimi your written English is wonderful, I would never guess it is a second language. So your approach as a non-native speaker helps us all think about our words.

I did not read the whole thread before. I just wanted to say:
1) Singular “they” has long been common in America. it has become much more common recently, but it is not new. It sometimes sounds odd to me, too, but I will adapt.
2) “It” is for objects, not people
3) Call people what they want. Respect is free, give it accordingly.

@Call_Me_Jay, as explained in the thread (and in Mimi’s intro to the question), Mimi was posting a question as a favor to me because I’ve been unable to post for more than a week.

@Call_Me_Jay yeah, like @Jeruba said. But her question is actually intriguing I want to know the answer myself too. That is something that bewildered me when I first came here, seeing you guys use “they” for one person. Here in my country we are taught to use he and she for one person. And if you don’t know who that is, you have to use “he or she”. I was so confused I actually thought this was a new pronoun altogether and said “they is” because, you know, only one person :D

@Jeruba , As I pointed out, we have a similar situation for second person. We have a single term “you” that covers singular and plural and in both cases the plural form of the verb is used. Wouldn’t it then be more consistent to use “they” with a plural verb for both singular and plural?

They/them/their as a singular pronouns have become immensely more prevalent in US writing in the past couple of years.

It was mostly used to refer to a generic theoretical“person”, where gender was unimportant or not known:

“When your guest arrives, it is polite to offer them coffee or tea.”

Today it is commonly referring to a particular person with unambiguous gender.

It still sounds odd to me, but it is my responsibility to respect other people’s wishes, not to impose my old conventions in them.

Neil Gaiman on the negative connotations some people put on “politically correct” speech:

[Imagine] a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”...

…I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”

Contrary to what the question title implies, there is no single verb form that goes with each singular pronoun. We can demonstrate this by looking at the verb “to be.”

I am
You are
He/she/it is

As we can see, each singular pronoun gets its own verb form. There is no single verb form that is shared by all of the singular pronouns. Nor is this limited to irregular verbs. Let’s take the verb “to jump.”

I jump
You jump
He/she/it jumps

"I" and "you" share a verb form in this case, but he/she/it has its own verb form. So again, there is no single verb form that attaches to each singular pronoun.

Moving on to the underlying question, it makes no more sense to say “they is” than it makes to say “you is,” and for the exact same reason. Originally, “you” was solely a second person plural pronoun (!!!). The original second person singular pronoun (thou) was dropped in the 17th century, and “you” took on double duty. Fun fact, though: singular “they” has been standard English since before there was such a thing as standard English (going back to at least the 14th century), which leads us to this lovely poem:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Singular “they” predates
Singular “you.”

The fact is that singular “they” already exists, no redefinition required. It requires zero contortions—and is not a “bastardization” of anything—because it is already standard English, and people have no trouble using it in practice (to the point that one famously anti-“they” pundit accidentally used it four times over the course of two sentences while explaining why he would never use it).

Also, “he/she” is not inclusive. Some people are neither a “he” nor a “she.”

So to answer the question: singular “they” takes the same verb form as plural “they,” just as singular “you” takes the same verb form as plural “you.”

That is something that bewildered me when I first came here, seeing you guys…

Ha! How about using “guys” for women and men. That has never sounded wrong to me, but I’m a guy.

I would like to hear how it sounds to you folks.

Here is the opinion of the Oxford English Dictionary on this matter.

Not to sidetrack this question but all this talk about pronouns and verb forms got me to wonder how you choose a verb form if you have two pronouns joined by “or”. Consider the sentence, “I am going to be there”. Now replace “I” with “you or I”. Maybe the first pronoun should be dominant, giving “You or I are going to be there”, or else maybe “You or I is going to be there”. They both sound a bit awkward.

Now, I’m wondering what other languages are doing for this. That could be a separate Q.

Devil’s advocate, even though we historically use they are, it doesn’t mean English can’t evolve to include they is. English adopts words, spelling, grammar, that baffle me all of the time. I’m in the camp of they are, but the Q is not a crazy question. English has so many exceptions and irregularities.

@Call_Me_Jay Guys doesn’t bother me, but if I remember correctly, I think Southerners aren’t fond of it when women are included. They use y’all or all y’all as their slang in similar situations.

@LostInParadise I think I would say “you or I will be there” and make it simple. I think using “or” you would usually use the verb that agrees with the subject that is closest to it, but “I” is irregular since we use “I am” not “I is.” Although, a little girl I used to babysit said I are for years. Lol. I’ll be interested to know the correct answer. If we reworded to “one of us is going to go” it’s easier.

@JLeslie , According to this article, you are correct that the subject closest to the verb determines the verb form. That can’t be quite right, because the example I gave would become “You or I am going to be there”. Your solution of using future tense works in this case, but what if the original sentence had been, “I am ready to go”? My guess is that in this case, the order of the subjects should be altered, so you end up with “I or you are ready to go”. I don’t think sentences like this come up very often.

@LostInParadise I think “you or I” is correct, I don’t think you can switch the order. Am is irregular and so it is not surprising that it is screwy in multiple grammatical situations. “You or I am” sounds completely wrong to me. Maybe it goes back to middle English or German that the very to be is irregular, or just evolved that way for some reason. To be in Spanish for a permanent state is irregular also, so maybe it is from the Latin? Spanish actually has two forms of to be, it’s so confusing for me even after all of these years.

I was thinking if I was just talking off the top of my head would I say, “either you or ME is going there.” I notice when people use “I” as the object of a preposition, but in your example I am not sure what sounds right to me. I would probably put the either in front. Another way to state it is, “one of us is going there.” Just thinking that through, us is first person plural for me, we is first person plural for I. That is how I usually double check myself for whether to use I or me, if we sounds correct then it is I. For instance, the chair was between my husband and me, I know it is me because between is a preposition, but also because the chair is between us sounds correct, not the chair is between we.