English has Rules, Just Like Japanese!

[Hysterior]

"They" often refers to Lalafells

e.g:
They rule Uldhah
They are cute but mischevious
They ride Rogadyn mounts
They spam emotes when they see you
and so on...

[MaraD_]

And how would that work with the examples given in the Wikipedia article I linked earlier?
Could you write those sentences with "it"? Would that seem appropriate? Would it be better English?
It might be grammatically correct, but it's not the normal word you use in that situation.
There's nothing new or remarkable about using "they". You probably don't even notice it in most contexts.

"Seem" is almost subjective in this case, due to what Ive said prior.
Obviously it seems wrong (though partly because it wasnt done correctly) but none the less, their, they, them are proper plural versions of it.
Theys, thems, and theirs, should be incorrect, just as "its" should be incorrect.
(Not possessive, but plural neutrals.)
also, im going to adjust what you wrote a tiny bit. (the last 2 were fine, but ironically should have been plural in patient/journalist)

"It left its umbrella in the office. Would it please collect it?"

or

"Someone left ones umbrella in the office. Would one (or that person) please collect it?"

("He" would have been gender neutral in the past and fit rather well too, before it was corrupted to mean adult male. But this only applies if the person is limited to the adult age.)

"The patient should be told at the outset how much one will be required to pay."

"The patients should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."

-

"But a journalist should not be forced to reveal ones sources."

"But journalists should not be forced to reveal their sources."

Back to the point, inserting "it" sounds wrong to us, because we've made it wrong.
But this never should have been the case. We ascribed the word "it" to mean objects/animals, because we assume we werent animals (we are) and because we didnt see nongendered people in the past. Even more so when we were far more focused on gendered roles back then.
So how could there be a situation where a person doesnt have a gender? Only when a situation had an unknown person, or will have an unknown person. but again, due to gender roles, this also limited the number of people that could meet the requirements, usually by gender.
example: "Once the position is filled for the job "the person" will be required to this list of activities."
the job was already long since decided which gender was going to be doing the tasks.

but in the case of something like theft, the perpetrator could be referenced genderless, if it was a crime that was considered to be common among both genders.
The word "it" would be used so rarely, it would come off as jarring. (along with how people didnt want to be associated with animals.)
The dog went and got "its" bone.
The dog can be male or female. Sometimes the gender is known, and it still works fine.

They/Them/Their applies to the only situation in which humans can be multiple genders, when in a group.
So no one batted an eye when the use of they, them, their started being used for people.
And it grew in use for singular pronouns.
But it was slang, and eventually considered normal use of the word.

[Jonnycbad]

They is used in conversational english. Consider the following sentences:

"Hey Barbara, where is the candidate that we are interviewing today?"
"They're across the hall getting coffee"

[MaraD_]

They is used in conversational english. Consider the following sentences:

"Hey Barbara, where is the candidate that we are interviewing today?"
"They're across the hall getting coffee"

This has been repeated twice on the 1st page. (Technically 3 times if you count a link)

[Eloah]

If the OP is so concerned with proper English, why dont we go back to using thou as a colloquial term for you.

Also to set this straight, since some people might be confused. It refers to something that either lacks a gender or has not been assigned a gender. They refers to something that has no gender distinction but has a gender. Basically, it is genderless, and they is gender neutral.

[Mhaeric]

Singular they has been a thing in modern English due to the fact that the language doesn't have a third person singular pronoun that is both gender neutral and of indefinite number that can be used to refer back to another s. The plural pronouns they, them, their and themselves are commonly used by someone using English when they have need of such a pronoun. For example, the previous sentence made use of it to refer to the pronoun "someone."

Fun fact:

Just this week, Merriam-Webster officially added the word "they" to their dictionary as a singular pronoun for someone whose gender identity is non-binary.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they

[AnimaAnimus]

College English class might be getting to your head a bit or you've got to be trolling.

One of my degrees is in literary criticism and writing, if they were an actual academic linguist and not just an armchair linguist they would know this is a perfectly proper way to use the term "they".

Don't blame higher education on this one, just like most ppl claiming to be an expert, they likely got this info from a meme or a facebook post.

[Rongway]

Just this week, Merriam-Webster officially added the word "they" to their dictionary as a singular pronoun for someone whose gender identity is non-binary.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they

It may also be relevant to note how Merriam-Webster's editors decide what to put in the dictionary

To be included in a Merriam-Webster dictionary, a word must be used in a substantial number of citations that come from a wide range of publications over a considerable period of time. Specifically, the word must have enough citations to allow accurate judgments about its establishment, currency, and meaning.

This means there isn't a magic judge of all things arbitrarily deciding to "make changes to the English language". MW adds words to the dictionary when the words have enough staying power, demonstrated by both recent and extended widespread use from a variety of sources.

They're not changing our language; they're documenting how our language naturally changes with society.

[Zyneste]

It may also be relevant to note how Merriam-Webster's editors decide what to put in the dictionary



This means there isn't a magic judge of all things arbitrarily deciding to "make changes to the English language". MW adds words to the dictionary when the words have enough staying power, demonstrated by both recent and extended widespread use from a variety of sources.

They're not changing our language; they're documenting how our language naturally changes with society.

Agreed. A word is nothing more than something that conveys meaning between two people. As those people change, the words can change as well with enough common use.

[Mhaeric]

It may also be relevant to note how Merriam-Webster's editors decide what to put in the dictionary



This means there isn't a magic judge of all things arbitrarily deciding to "make changes to the English language". MW adds words to the dictionary when the words have enough staying power, demonstrated by both recent and extended widespread use from a variety of sources.

They're not changing our language; they're documenting how our language naturally changes with society.

Which in this case, the use of the word they in a singular sense has been around since roughly the 1300s. The use of word they to refer to someone who identifies as gender non-binary has been documented as early as the 1950s and likely was used long before that since we have been naturally using the singular form of it for centuries. Both are considered correct English.