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OpenSuse I think I will be in the office tomorrow morning if you want to come over and help me out with the mouse and pasting it by pressing the middle mouse button on the phone to the right of the door

Yeah, it’s silly. I think the whole linguistic discussion is irrelevant. It’s a new phenomenon, which is great. I love how language evolves.

Take a chill pill, read the article you linked and have a nice day.

Oh sure, I use singular they a lot too. And I have no problem using it for non-binary people. I just don’t like wrong information being posted online without it being disputed.

Yeah, those examples are precisely what I mean. The article you linked to explains exactly what I mean, even stating that Shakespeare wouldn’t have used “they” if he knew the gender of the person he referred to.

The referents in these cases are general, not specific people. “Not a man” - no one, not referring to a specific person. “Some more audience than a mother” - someone else than a mother, not a specific person. “Each one” - not a specific person but every person.

If you look at dictionary definitions over the centuries, you’ll find singular they mentioned, but always specifically for this general meaning.

As an added note I don’t think it makes a difference if the current use is new or not, and it shouldn’t matter in this debate. Language changes all the time, even if people resist it.

This is only true if the referent is unknown. The new thing about singular they is that it is now being used for known referents. Which is perfectly fine of course, but not centuries old.

What usually also works on Linux is selecting text with the mouse and pasting it by pressing the middle mouse button (or scroll wheel). You’d still need the mouse, but it’s at least a little quicker ☺️