English has Rules, Just Like Japanese!

[Ananisapta]

I'm appalled to see the wholesale devastation of my native tongue as the Shadowbringers expansion unfolds. We have a set of clear pronouns, including they, them, and their, all plural. Starting to use them as singular pronouns for reasons unclear is destructive and very disrespectful to English speakers, no matter who does it. It also obscures meaning and arrests the player's attention in ways that will be considered wholly risible as time goes by.

"The King decreed they have earned immediate execution!" is a representative trope. So you tell me, who is they? Are they the King or one of their subjects or all of them? I vote for the fool(s) who made this linguistic blunder. Off with their head(s) forthwith!

[MistakeNot]

I'm appalled to see the wholesale devastation of my native tongue as the Shadowbringers expansion unfolds. We have a set of clear pronouns, including they, them, and their, all plural. Starting to use them as singular pronouns for reasons unclear is destructive and very disrespectful to English speakers, no matter who does it. It also obscures meaning and arrests the player's attention in ways that will be considered wholly risible as time goes by.

"The King decreed they have earned immediate execution!" is a representative trope. So you tell me, who is they? Are they the King or one of their subjects or all of them? I vote for the fool(s) who made this linguistic blunder. Off with their head(s) forthwith!

While English does indeed have some rules, it mainly has exceptions.
One rule it does NOT have is that they can only be used in plural. The use of singular they is perfectly correct English, and isn't a new invention either - it has been used since the 14th century or so.

[Iscah]

Singular "they", a valid part of the English language since the 14th century according to Wikipedia, highly useful in all situations where you need to refer to a person without knowing their gender, and following all the same grammatical rules as the plural version.

Pixies are genderless, so you have a choice of "they" or "it". Except not really a choice, because we have social rules about not referring to a person as "it".

[Mimilu]

So you tell me, who is they?

Boy complaining about the rules of English but is asking "who is they?" and not "who are they?"... >w>
No one ever asks "How is they?"... >n>

[Gula]

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

[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.

[MaraD_]

I do find it odd that "they" became singular.
We used "person" and "one" to be singular, along with "it".
("Man" also used to be a neutral word, not referencing a gender, but an adult. There was only a word for a female adult, "woman" which means people HAD to use he word man for male, but they could choose between the two for females. As time went on, we shifted to using "man" to solely mean "male" simply because there was no word to only reference a male adult. I dont know when this took place, as it was a VERY slow transition, but was within the last 200 years or less. (Id imagine closer to 80-100 years)

While "it" is technically more correct, it oddly became considered rude to refer to a person as "it", even though "they" had the same context at the time.
But since occurrences of multiple people happened more often, "they" became more normal than "it" in singular cases.
Peopel came up with a counter to say "A person is" or "that person is" for referencing a singular person. Along with "One" such as "One would be remembered if".
But both of those seem to have died off in favor of "they".
(Despite "they" being the plural version of "it".)

It is a strange occurrence.

[Wyvernheart]

When I don't know someone's gender I say IT or THING. As in, "what is it!?" Or, "look at that thing!"

[Iscah]

When I don't know someone's gender I say IT or THING. As in, "what is it!?" Or, "look at that thing!"

And how would that work with the examples given in the Wikipedia article I linked earlier?

"Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Would they please collect it?"
"The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."
"But a journalist should not be forced to reveal their sources."

Could you write those sentences with "it"? Would that seem appropriate? Would it be better English?

"Somebody left its umbrella in the office. Would it please collect it?"
"The patient should be told at the outset how much it will be required to pay."
"But a journalist should not be forced to reveal its sources."

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.

[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.