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Comment by regularfry | Hacker News Reader

"They" can be singular.

Thanks, I have never heard about it.

Not a problem. Every so often this otherwise unremarkable grammatical point becomes somewhat contentious, but it's easy to see how it can be confusing if English isn't your first language. There's more here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.h...

I just love the line

"This use of they isn't ungrammatical, it isn't a mistake, it's a feature of ordinary English syntax that for some reason attracts the ire of particularly puristic pusillanimous pontificators, and we don't buy what they're selling."

Is it common? I have never seen it in singular context in English grammar textbooks.

Actually incorrect in textbook sense, but widely accepted in recent years to avoid specifying gender.

Also in less recent years. They has always been used in the singular in cases where gender is not apparent (e.g. with babies)

And also where it is:

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

- A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

Widely accepted back at least as far as Shakespeare. The objection that it's incorrect is what's recent.

For example "they must have forgotten to add the catch all redirect in the .htaccess file"

English grammar textbooks started excluding it because doing so made the language more like Latin and this was considered a good thing.

It's misused for that. It's not correct grammatically and leads to confusion for non-native english speakers.

The Oxford English Dictionary disagrees with you: https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...

Not really.

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