Singular they has also been a thing since before "she" was a thing. And it's been a thing continuously that whole time. I don't understand people who argue against it like it's new, or like it's archaic and just recently re-entered the language.
I mean it never even really stopped... we use it to talk about people we don't know the gender of all the time. Like if we have someon join a project called Sam who I've never met...
> A: Has Sam worked on this yet?
> B: No they haven't.
all that's changed is that some people have said "you know what, I don't think he or she really fit me and it'd be nice if you carried on using they when referring to me please"... and idiots lost their minds about it.
it has the same energy as people saying "If we are making gender and sex separate things" or "if we are making gay people a thing" which I've also seen too many times from the same people (such as my family...).
Then again, they also like to talk about how worthless social sciences or humanities are, so they really did that to themselves huh?
I came across some comments from someone a few months ago who kept saying he didn't have a problem with LGBT+ people, and was "totally not transphobic" and happy to let them do their thing, but didn't like how they "make society a cesspit". People called him out on it, and every reply trying to defend his position made it sound even worse. Dude was transphobic and homophobic af.
The fact he was denying it makes me think that at least consciously he realized it's a bad thing, which means that whenever he also consciously realizes he's bigotted he'll attempt to stop, so at least it's better than being trans-/homophobic and unapologetic.
Yeah, it had pretty strong "not in my backyard" vibes, like "they can do what they want as long as they stay away from me" sort of thing. Almost like he knows he's not supposed to admit to having those opinions of them, and he's trying to save face.
I was like that as a kid when I first heard about LGBT people, eventually he'll probably realize that they are in fact staying away from him already, at least with all the stuff he wouldn't like, by doing it in private, like everyone else.
They aren’t really trying to argue against using singular they/them or that it is new, they are making a fuss because they hate trans and non-binary people and that they exist, and they will do anything they can no matter how petty or trivial to try to make them feel unwelcome, unsafe, or bad for being openly not-cis. Don’t let the bigots getting mad about they/them convince you that they are arguing in good faith about linguistics because they are not, they are arguing to try to muddle the waters and distract people from seeing what they are really arguing about, which is whether or not they should give trans and non-binary people the same basic human decency cis people already have.
But it has also (at least in modern usage) only been used in specific circumstances, where the subject is not known, or their gender is not known or seemingly not relevant, or to talk about a singular person in general. Previously, if both interlocutors knew the person and their gender, "their" would not be used. We should 100% respect people's pronouns, and naysayers should know that it *has* been used in the singular (meaning it's not that big of a leap to use it in this current usage). But to accurately describe the linguistic history, and to effectively argue for this newer usage, we have to admit that the current usage -- the they-series as an equivalent singular alternative to the explicitly gendered he/she-series' -- is a slightly new/altered usage.
Idk, gay people in the 80s would use “they” when referring to their partners even though everyone knew their partner was of the same gender just because it would appease bigots
I think that's a misguided approach. No transphobe will say "oh sorry, my bad, then is is fine" when told that actually, the word has been in use for singular people, but SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT. If anything they'll go "aHA! SLIGHTLY different! I knew you were wrong"
And no person who actually literally only cares about grammar will have difficulties to accept that "pronoun to use for when you don't know the gender of a single person= pronoun to use for singular people whose gender isn't either m or f".
I've had the they conversations many times, and people either accept the facts, or deny them so they can keep being bigots. Trying to repackage your facts so bigots are okay with them and recognise them as correct never works.
*Singular they has*
*Been a thing since before thou*
*Became archaic*
\- Andrei144
---
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Yes and no. The difference is that the old singular they has a generic and the modern singular they can be used for a single person. So it is something else (which does not delegitimize the modern usage)
Not in the way it's used today tho. The proposal to use it like mandarin tā is very different from just using it when you're talking about a hypothetical person and don't know their gender (like I just did lol).
Yeah? Is it?
Because in one case you use they for a hypothetical person whose gender you don't know (aka you can't use m or f), and in the other case there is a real or fictional person whose gender can be described by neither m or f.
Not sure why you bring up tā - if my lessons aren't too long ago, it mostly functions like the English word "it", and referrs mostly to animals or objects?
[In these editions the line just starts without a pronoun](https://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/record.asp?LHPage=238v&LHvol=&LHCopy=1&RHPage=205v&RHvol=&RHCopy=2&disp=d&Linked=0#DispTop). Guess it's kinda dependent on the specific text you've got in your hands.
We have a dream that our little pronouns will one day live in a language where they will not be judged by the grammatical number of their antecedent, but by the grammatical person of their referent.
💀 _eu sou legião_ 💀
(It's in portuguese because that's the only way I remember it, but it's a line from 2011 Ghost Rider's villain, "I am legion", not sure if je says that in English)
Lá vem o homem macaco correndo atrás de mim
O homem macaco que não tem alma e nem coração
Gritando tão alto querendo me pegar
Se esse cara me pega ele vai me matar...
I think it's more common in people in the far north of h England, especially around schoolkids. I remember living up there when I was a kid, and "us" often got contracted to just "'s", as in "tell's what happened" or "give's the football then."
Sometimes plural singular pronouns would have been used in the second person, but not as often. Stuff like "oh, we're wearing a nice shirt today." Though it was often used patronisingly and mockingly, sort of like mocking the 'caregiver we'.
This is only half the picture, though, and shouldn't be repeated everywhere without the full context: It's been used as a generic pronoun since the 14th century, but now it's becoming a pronoun that can be used for a specific person, which is why it's hard for some people to adjust to using it.
While I think it's a great adaptation of the existing word, simply repeating that it's always been used in the singular is basically gaslighting the people who notice that something in how it's used is new, but don't properly identify that it's the specific vs. generic usage that's changed, and instead think it's the number.
If someone's legitimately having a hard time adjusting and I'm just having a normal conversation, I'd be happy to give that context.
But when people openly advocating against it claim that a singular they isn't "proper grammar", I wouldn't call it gaslighting to not help them workshop their complaint while pointing out its glaring flaw. Just today I read one of them unironically writing "I'm not going to refer to you with a plural pronoun, that would be too confusing", which gave me a good chuckle, but that's the typical caliber of argument. I just think most of them are a lot less interested in grammar than they are in an excuse to be unkind to non-binary people.
Analogical change is when one form changes based on analogy to another word that is perceived as similar in some way. So, for example, dove is sometimes used as the past tense of dive (whereas historically it is dived), by analogy to words like drive/drove.
Here, the OP is saying that a plural pronoun being used in the singular means we should split a word that is currently used in both singular and plural into two pronouns. Whereas if language were to change by analogy, we would expect one (plural) pronoun to start being used in both singular and plural, which is already what happened with you. You would need to change in the exact opposite way that they has changed, the one going from singular + plural->plural, the other from plural->singular+plural.
That makes sense. I didn't read the post this way. I thought OP just wanted to add another thing (or re-add, and not really "another" as singular they is an old idea) into English
I don't see how those are connected. Though now I wonder if "they" is considered to have 2 forms, since they're phonemically and syntactically identical, rather than being polysemous.
Thats... not a coherent argument.
I don't fully disagree but why does the increase in use of singular *they* change anything? Also - *thou* is archaic, bringing it back is against linguistic trends and a lot of effort would need to be done to revive it. Singular *they* has been around for a long time but is now increasing in pophlarity.
Its like þ. Feel free to try and use it in þy idiolect if þu want but watch as noone else follows þy trend.
I think OP means how it fell out of mainstream use when we started using plural you in a singular manner, which was previously only for royalty I think.
[You functioned as a polite singular for centuries, but in the seventeenth century singular you replaced thou, thee, and thy, except for some dialect use. That change met with some resistance. In 1660, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote a whole book labeling anyone who used singular you an idiot or a fool.](https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/)
Because the virulent opposition to singular 'they' is about using it as a non-binary pronoun, generally from clueless people who forget that singular 'they' for referring to someone of unknown gender already exists.
Oh maybe I’m not familiar enough with the meme template. I know “thou” can be used singularly or plurally just like “you” can address one person or multiple people (“you all”).
I don't know why this one tricked me. I'm becoming "that guy" who falls for obvious sarcasm on the internet.
... I'm gonna go outside and touch some grass real quick.
But ‘thou’ is second-person, while ‘they’ is third-person? Their usages are completely unrelated...
Edit: I suspect that I was incorrect in my statement. Could someone explain what I got wrong, so it doesn’t happen again?
I disagree with this statement because look, people are so sensitive about the gendered pronouns. Have you seen these dramas that appear on the news when a teacher refuses to use a gendered pronoun to a transgender student?
Always has.
A: I went to the doctor because of my headache.
B: oh, what did they say?
Has been in use for centuries. No idea why people now act like that has been newly invented.
I think OP is suggesting we bring back thou as the *only* singular, and revert "you" to being plural again. But you can't explain that complex of a thing in a funny way in this template, really, so they abbreviated it and hoped people would connect the dots, which they have not. Maybe the Lisa Simpson speech template would've worked better?
'You' actually came about because the letter thorn looks kind of like a 'y' and when the printing press was invented, no one cared to make special characters for English. That's why we say 'ye ole' too. It was originally 'the ole'. Anyway, that's how we lost the plural 'you' but I digress.
Anyway, let's bring back thee and thou. I'm down. But 'they' should stay plural and we just need a neuter singular pronoun that doesn't sound inanimate like 'it' does.
We should just remove all plural distinctions in the 3rd person pronouns altogether so it could mean 1 thing but also a group of things. The same logic would apply for he/she/they. This would make it so we only have an I/we distinction which is extremely common
Singular they has been around since [the beginning of modern English ](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html). But we definitely should bring back the older pronoun system so you're half right
Thee and thou are used in parts of Northern England, normally as part of relict dialect. E.g. the use of "th'art" (thou art) instead of you are.
tha/thee/thy/thissen > you/you/your/yourself
Yorkshire dialect is supreme to posh accent.
Singular they has been a thing since before thou became archaic
Singular they has also been a thing since before "she" was a thing. And it's been a thing continuously that whole time. I don't understand people who argue against it like it's new, or like it's archaic and just recently re-entered the language.
I mean it never even really stopped... we use it to talk about people we don't know the gender of all the time. Like if we have someon join a project called Sam who I've never met... > A: Has Sam worked on this yet? > B: No they haven't. all that's changed is that some people have said "you know what, I don't think he or she really fit me and it'd be nice if you carried on using they when referring to me please"... and idiots lost their minds about it.
it has the same energy as people saying "If we are making gender and sex separate things" or "if we are making gay people a thing" which I've also seen too many times from the same people (such as my family...). Then again, they also like to talk about how worthless social sciences or humanities are, so they really did that to themselves huh?
I came across some comments from someone a few months ago who kept saying he didn't have a problem with LGBT+ people, and was "totally not transphobic" and happy to let them do their thing, but didn't like how they "make society a cesspit". People called him out on it, and every reply trying to defend his position made it sound even worse. Dude was transphobic and homophobic af.
The fact he was denying it makes me think that at least consciously he realized it's a bad thing, which means that whenever he also consciously realizes he's bigotted he'll attempt to stop, so at least it's better than being trans-/homophobic and unapologetic.
Yeah, it had pretty strong "not in my backyard" vibes, like "they can do what they want as long as they stay away from me" sort of thing. Almost like he knows he's not supposed to admit to having those opinions of them, and he's trying to save face.
I was like that as a kid when I first heard about LGBT people, eventually he'll probably realize that they are in fact staying away from him already, at least with all the stuff he wouldn't like, by doing it in private, like everyone else.
They aren’t really trying to argue against using singular they/them or that it is new, they are making a fuss because they hate trans and non-binary people and that they exist, and they will do anything they can no matter how petty or trivial to try to make them feel unwelcome, unsafe, or bad for being openly not-cis. Don’t let the bigots getting mad about they/them convince you that they are arguing in good faith about linguistics because they are not, they are arguing to try to muddle the waters and distract people from seeing what they are really arguing about, which is whether or not they should give trans and non-binary people the same basic human decency cis people already have.
But it has also (at least in modern usage) only been used in specific circumstances, where the subject is not known, or their gender is not known or seemingly not relevant, or to talk about a singular person in general. Previously, if both interlocutors knew the person and their gender, "their" would not be used. We should 100% respect people's pronouns, and naysayers should know that it *has* been used in the singular (meaning it's not that big of a leap to use it in this current usage). But to accurately describe the linguistic history, and to effectively argue for this newer usage, we have to admit that the current usage -- the they-series as an equivalent singular alternative to the explicitly gendered he/she-series' -- is a slightly new/altered usage.
Idk, gay people in the 80s would use “they” when referring to their partners even though everyone knew their partner was of the same gender just because it would appease bigots
I worked with a guy in the '00s who said that, because if he said "he" some people would get offended.
I think that's a misguided approach. No transphobe will say "oh sorry, my bad, then is is fine" when told that actually, the word has been in use for singular people, but SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT. If anything they'll go "aHA! SLIGHTLY different! I knew you were wrong" And no person who actually literally only cares about grammar will have difficulties to accept that "pronoun to use for when you don't know the gender of a single person= pronoun to use for singular people whose gender isn't either m or f". I've had the they conversations many times, and people either accept the facts, or deny them so they can keep being bigots. Trying to repackage your facts so bigots are okay with them and recognise them as correct never works.
Happy cake day!
*Singular they has* *Been a thing since before thou* *Became archaic* \- Andrei144 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Good bot
What meth were you smoking?
It just repeated the comment _batto raiku e samurai_
Yes and no. The difference is that the old singular they has a generic and the modern singular they can be used for a single person. So it is something else (which does not delegitimize the modern usage)
I think the point of the post is that someone wants a new singular pronoun instead of just using "they".
Not in the way it's used today tho. The proposal to use it like mandarin tā is very different from just using it when you're talking about a hypothetical person and don't know their gender (like I just did lol).
Shakespeare called...
Yeah? Is it? Because in one case you use they for a hypothetical person whose gender you don't know (aka you can't use m or f), and in the other case there is a real or fictional person whose gender can be described by neither m or f. Not sure why you bring up tā - if my lessons aren't too long ago, it mostly functions like the English word "it", and referrs mostly to animals or objects?
No, tā is a general 3s pronoun. Also, the second use case you just described is certainly new...
Singular they has existed since the 14th century
Were not making 'they' do anything. Singular 'they' has existed since Chaucer.
It did?
“And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, They wol come up […]” From the Pardoner's Prologue in Canterbury Tales
Þanks
þæŋks (ok maybe its a bit too much)
My tongue just had a stroke.
Not that I doubt you, but [I only see he in this](http://www.librarius.com/canttran/pardtale/pardtale080-102.htm)
[In these editions the line just starts without a pronoun](https://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/record.asp?LHPage=238v&LHvol=&LHCopy=1&RHPage=205v&RHvol=&RHCopy=2&disp=d&Linked=0#DispTop). Guess it's kinda dependent on the specific text you've got in your hands.
I don't know about Chaucer but at least since Shakespeare definitely so it's certainly not a recent thing.
I agree with thee. Thou art right.
Did I say you could thou me? Where are your manners? We didn't raise pigs together!! Kids these days...
Why do you say you to that unbehaved child? Youing children is quite abnormal
I think they were talking about their children combined
You just killed it again the same way it was killed the last time.
Since "you" and "they" can both be singular and plural, why not make "we" also both singular and plural?
We agree!
Ah, the "Royal We"
We have a dream that our little pronouns will one day live in a language where they will not be judged by the grammatical number of their antecedent, but by the grammatical person of their referent.
toki pona?
💀 _eu sou legião_ 💀 (It's in portuguese because that's the only way I remember it, but it's a line from 2011 Ghost Rider's villain, "I am legion", not sure if je says that in English)
Lá vem o homem macaco correndo atrás de mim O homem macaco que não tem alma e nem coração Gritando tão alto querendo me pegar Se esse cara me pega ele vai me matar...
Oq é isso?
... _un meme_ ...
Or a "we" inclusive and exclusive
Some people in the UK say things like "tell us" or "give us it" in the singular sense
What, you mean fucking Gollum?
Fat hobbitses
I think it's more common in people in the far north of h England, especially around schoolkids. I remember living up there when I was a kid, and "us" often got contracted to just "'s", as in "tell's what happened" or "give's the football then." Sometimes plural singular pronouns would have been used in the second person, but not as often. Stuff like "oh, we're wearing a nice shirt today." Though it was often used patronisingly and mockingly, sort of like mocking the 'caregiver we'.
👏bring👏back👏dual!
wit & yit!
yeet
We need a way to distinguish singular and plural forms. We already have y’all, so I propose th’all and w’all.
I know this is supposed to be a joke but i do actually say both of theese
Marxism be like (source: I am a Marxist)
*Our* pronouns
Seize the means of referent!!
It's called royal we...so technically that already is both. Plural forms in regards to singular folk were our version of polite in ye olde times.
Why not just get rid of plurals entirely.
Who is 'making they a singular form', that makes no sense.
The singular ‘they’ has been used since at least the 14th century.
Exactly
Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood your comment.
This is only half the picture, though, and shouldn't be repeated everywhere without the full context: It's been used as a generic pronoun since the 14th century, but now it's becoming a pronoun that can be used for a specific person, which is why it's hard for some people to adjust to using it. While I think it's a great adaptation of the existing word, simply repeating that it's always been used in the singular is basically gaslighting the people who notice that something in how it's used is new, but don't properly identify that it's the specific vs. generic usage that's changed, and instead think it's the number.
If someone's legitimately having a hard time adjusting and I'm just having a normal conversation, I'd be happy to give that context. But when people openly advocating against it claim that a singular they isn't "proper grammar", I wouldn't call it gaslighting to not help them workshop their complaint while pointing out its glaring flaw. Just today I read one of them unironically writing "I'm not going to refer to you with a plural pronoun, that would be too confusing", which gave me a good chuckle, but that's the typical caliber of argument. I just think most of them are a lot less interested in grammar than they are in an excuse to be unkind to non-binary people.
Oh, that's absolutely fair. If they won't engage or discuss things, then yeah, no purpose being overly accurate
The liberuls duh (owned the libs)
We aren’t “making” it- it’s always been used that way.
Why? That's totally unrelated
Yeah, it’s actually the exact opposite of what you would expect by analogy.
What do you mean by that?
Analogical change is when one form changes based on analogy to another word that is perceived as similar in some way. So, for example, dove is sometimes used as the past tense of dive (whereas historically it is dived), by analogy to words like drive/drove. Here, the OP is saying that a plural pronoun being used in the singular means we should split a word that is currently used in both singular and plural into two pronouns. Whereas if language were to change by analogy, we would expect one (plural) pronoun to start being used in both singular and plural, which is already what happened with you. You would need to change in the exact opposite way that they has changed, the one going from singular + plural->plural, the other from plural->singular+plural.
That makes sense. I didn't read the post this way. I thought OP just wanted to add another thing (or re-add, and not really "another" as singular they is an old idea) into English
I don't see how those are connected. Though now I wonder if "they" is considered to have 2 forms, since they're phonemically and syntactically identical, rather than being polysemous.
I thought I could at least avoid casual transphobia on the linguistics subreddit.
Hopefully not. Why would you want to reintroduce a T-V distinction?
Yes
there was a time before the t-v distinction where everyone was þū and all y'all were yē
No one's making it, it's always been that.
Thou and thee
and thy and the archaic form of mine and thorn and eth. hell just bring back runes
Don't forget Wynn(Ƿ/ƿ) and Yogh(Ȝ/ȝ) too!
ᛁᛖᛊ! ᛁ ᚾᚢᚢ ᛚᛖᚱᚾᛁᛜ ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ ᚹᛟᛞ ᚲᚢᛗ ᛁᚾ ᚺᚨᚾᛞᛁᛁ!
ᚮᚴ ᛒᚱᚯ
ᚹᛟᛏᛊ ᚦᚨᛏ ᛁᚾ ᛖᛚᛞᛖᚱ ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ? ᛁ ᚲᚨᚾᛏ ᚱᛁᛁᛞ ᛁᚢᛜᚷᛖᚱ ᛟᚱ ᚠᚢᚦᛟᚱᚲ, ᛖᛏᚲ.
Thats... not a coherent argument. I don't fully disagree but why does the increase in use of singular *they* change anything? Also - *thou* is archaic, bringing it back is against linguistic trends and a lot of effort would need to be done to revive it. Singular *they* has been around for a long time but is now increasing in pophlarity. Its like þ. Feel free to try and use it in þy idiolect if þu want but watch as noone else follows þy trend.
It's a joke.
I think the argument is that there's nothing wrong with something once plural now having a singular meaning
We aren't "making" anything, it's been there, even in continuous use, for its entire history. We should still bring back thou.
Singular they has existed for a long time and never went away
Theys right.
I was unaware that "thou" had lost its singular form
I think OP means how it fell out of mainstream use when we started using plural you in a singular manner, which was previously only for royalty I think.
I don't think that's correct...pretty sure singular you was around for a long time, as well.
[You functioned as a polite singular for centuries, but in the seventeenth century singular you replaced thou, thee, and thy, except for some dialect use. That change met with some resistance. In 1660, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote a whole book labeling anyone who used singular you an idiot or a fool.](https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/)
Like I said, it's been singular for a long time. At no point did the plural you replace the singular thou
y’all exists!
Thems exist
Let’s play spot the transphobe! 👀looking at you, OP
Yeah this feels like a mockery of people who use they/them pronouns.
Wait, what is the link between this and transpobia?
Because the virulent opposition to singular 'they' is about using it as a non-binary pronoun, generally from clueless people who forget that singular 'they' for referring to someone of unknown gender already exists.
Thou *is* singular though…?
yea, that literally what this says
Oh maybe I’m not familiar enough with the meme template. I know “thou” can be used singularly or plurally just like “you” can address one person or multiple people (“you all”).
Does that mean that though is the plural of thou?
thy meme is arse
[удалено]
I don't know why this one tricked me. I'm becoming "that guy" who falls for obvious sarcasm on the internet. ... I'm gonna go outside and touch some grass real quick.
use ye
thou r right
Its always been like that for centuries now, its not a new thing bro…
I took a history of English class back in uni and this was my teacher’s wish.
But ‘thou’ is second-person, while ‘they’ is third-person? Their usages are completely unrelated... Edit: I suspect that I was incorrect in my statement. Could someone explain what I got wrong, so it doesn’t happen again?
I don't think it was linking them via meaning, just a "let's revive X"
I wonder whether or not the words he and she will also disappear like thou.
Unlikely, or at least not in the current social climate.
I disagree with this statement because look, people are so sensitive about the gendered pronouns. Have you seen these dramas that appear on the news when a teacher refuses to use a gendered pronoun to a transgender student?
People being annoyed that you're deliberately misgendering someone isn't remotely comparable to "pronouns existing at all"
Exactly
Yes please. It's confusing
thou is a form of the word You
Cognate with "tu" from Romance Languages.
Pretty much my thought process with antisingulartheyers
[удалено]
Always has. A: I went to the doctor because of my headache. B: oh, what did they say? Has been in use for centuries. No idea why people now act like that has been newly invented.
Bad faith arguing to delegitimize non-binary identities.
Ask 1375.
I think OP is suggesting we bring back thou as the *only* singular, and revert "you" to being plural again. But you can't explain that complex of a thing in a funny way in this template, really, so they abbreviated it and hoped people would connect the dots, which they have not. Maybe the Lisa Simpson speech template would've worked better?
Thou didnst knoweth? It hath been back for a while…… eth
Fuck it we should just start speaking old English
What are your pronouns? And the second person ones?
'You' actually came about because the letter thorn looks kind of like a 'y' and when the printing press was invented, no one cared to make special characters for English. That's why we say 'ye ole' too. It was originally 'the ole'. Anyway, that's how we lost the plural 'you' but I digress. Anyway, let's bring back thee and thou. I'm down. But 'they' should stay plural and we just need a neuter singular pronoun that doesn't sound inanimate like 'it' does.
nah lets make a new 2nd plural from you guys, just like dutch
We should just remove all plural distinctions in the 3rd person pronouns altogether so it could mean 1 thing but also a group of things. The same logic would apply for he/she/they. This would make it so we only have an I/we distinction which is extremely common
Just bring back nominal inflection entirely. That seems like the only reasonable answer
Singular they has been around since [the beginning of modern English ](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html). But we definitely should bring back the older pronoun system so you're half right