We refer to people with "they" all the damn time. "Hey! Where did Steve go?" "They went to the store."
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For me the answer on that one is yes. I actually prefer using 'they' as a term of reference partially because of this kind of discussion. The entire movement hasn't made me resent trans folk or the like, but there's enough illogically angry folk to make me discard pronouns wherever viable. I will use he/she sparingly when I can help it, regardless of indication of others. That being said I get your point and it can be emblematic, but I disagree with using it to attempt to ascertain who is being hateful and who is not, that's too brown-shirt for me.
When I hear hoofbeats I think horse, not Zebra.
idk why you of all people are playing coy after everything else you've said in this thread
Yeah, the "they" argument isn't very good, though I also agree with the rest of the points. I feel like there are two camps of people, those who really dislike using the pronoun "they" for singular persons and then those who are completely fine with it. The first group refuses to use the word in even those situations where it should be used, for example when the gender of a person is unknown, or with non-binary people, etc. The second group freely uses the word whenever.
It's a nice pronoun. I'm not a native speaker, but I find it neat, it helps avoid unpleasant mistakes and confusion. It helps to not misgender as well. Or at least it used to. Is it wrong to use now? I thought it's an ambiguous, genderless word. Sort of how "dude" is also okay to use for everyone.
To the credit of Squig, the use of 'they' in the US has become a contentious topic as some people consider its use to be a tacit attempt to not use a persons chosen pronouns. Thus a generally innocent statement has become a point of possible conflict. It's not something a non-native speak generally needs to worry about.
If you want to refer to me (a person who has been critical of Sena Bryers voice acting skills as well as her unhinged behavior on twitter) as a transphobe or whatever label you chose so bad, then please, feel free to do so. If you feel better afterwards, so be it. This word is so devoid of any meaning by now, that I literally couldn't care less. I actually don't think anybody here does.
Because it doesn't change the facts, and those are:
-her voice acting as Wuk Lamat still was terrible
-she is NOT a good person
-she apparently hates (cis)women and is very misogynistic
-she is trying to start a twitter war with her dumb tweets, calling people racist about a song
-she is a liability to SE right now with her weird behavior
Why do I suddenly feel my age....since when are people so easily offended by anything ? In my time, we had no internet, hell even a tv was a luxury most could not afford. -yes, I am that old- And now with the coming of internet and social media, people get offended over lliterally nothing...I am too old for this shit.