Gender Neutral Pronouns: They're Here, Get Used To Them

This comment section was reasonable a few years ago when I put this video up, but now it seems like there's a lot more kneejerk-reaction boors who comment without watching the video. Everything's already been said and I'm sick of banning jerks, so I'm closing these comments. (And yes, I accidentally trimmed the "very first sentence" that I refer to while I was editing. I regret the error!)

Funny and sad at the same time that years later people are still arguing about if those some people (the ones that are they) exist. I ran into this through recommend videos, thought about people I run into who would be all offended over the concept, and then read a few comments and was basically like "Oh. Of course they've been here being clueless and hateful. Why wouldn't they?"

I agree he or she was always bad, but they/their is plural usually. Grammatically speaking, a formal rule change is needed somewhere.

"Some people are 'they'
Get over it"
Brilliant

Some people are "they", get over it. XD Oh thank you I needed that laugh, you don't understand how brilliant that is

A lot of times when someone doesnt really know if a person is female or male 'they' say 'they' this isnt a new thing at all but people are acting like it is.

ENGLISH IS SUCH A SEXIST, RASCIST, TRANSPHOBIC, HOMOPHOBIC, LANGUAGE! DOWN WITH PRONOUNS!

Haha, just kidding.

"there are folks who don't want to be identified as either he or she and if that surprises you, you need to get out more." I LOVE YOU AND THIS VIDEO

Yes! Thank you! Something I have argued for a long time.

I had a heart attack when the bus came through

This video says a lot and it's really important to spare this message

I love this guy for this video. i could honestly cry rn

Sorry to stonewall? dude I'd be surprised if they didn't use this as a resource!

So much <3!

The English speaking countries have it easier, they don't have grammatical genders like Italians, French, Spanish, etc etc etc. I can't think of a neutral gender in my own language, because we don't have one. However, when it comes to objects, we don't really mean a bottle is a girl or the sun is male, it's just how romance languages evolved.

I enjoyed the video except of course the part where you insult entire nations by calling a part of their language "such a stupid concept". I don't recall people in my country having a vote on how their language is going to work.

In Norwegian, most words that are primarily "female" words (ending in -a (-er) (-ene) you can chose do make the word "male" (which is still grammatically correct and change the ending of -a to -en, and since male words also end in -er and -ene you can change the words gender (in MOST cases). You cannot, however, change the gender-neutral words to a gendered word. So any word ending in -et stays neutral and you can't do anything.

But then you have the other Norwegian (Yes, there are two separate Norwegian languages, and most people don't speak the other one that well, due to the fact that they are VERY different), where the words gender is final, and you can't change it. And words in this Norwegian often have a different gender than in the other Norwegian. So a lot of times a word that is male in "bokmål" (one type of Norwegian) is more often than not female in "Nynorsk" (the other type of Norwegian).

I'm glad finnish language doesn't have any of these or articles.
"Hän" is for everyone.
Though we use "se" more often which basically means "it" but it sounds more natural than "hän" :D

Minne se meni? (Where did it go?)
Se meni kauppaan. (It went to the store.)

Just use "that person" since it's 3rd person
And using they is weird cause they is plural
Maybe bring back an old word like thou, that would be really cool

It's fine with me but I always slip up because I'm not used to calling people 'they', guess I'll just get used to it.

We like They and We as singulars...

de, het en een.

I love the fake sources. I also didn't know the blond(e) thing but that explains so much.

isnt they plural?

"She" in german is "Sie". The formal version of "you" is also "Sie". And "They" is also "sie". I think we got a problem.

i know you're a descriptivist but technically isn't it "masculine" and "feminine" not "male" and "female"? correct me if i'm wrong, and it certainly doesn't detract from the rest of the video, which is, i must stress, fantastic

Is calling someone "they" a relatively recent thing? I've never heard someone use "it" to describe male or female or other in all my life. Odd.

i wish there were genderless pronouns in spanish :(

The linguistic mafia will run you over a bus if you break your oath of descriptivism, eh? Seems like they're trying to enforce aspects of language.

Love this, I was expecting that you would be talk about all of the fake ones, such as anything comprised of the letter x or y. You made a great point, with well reasoned arguments and without expecting the entire world to automatically add 124 pronouns for 'beings' preferring to be referred to as organisms and the like. You've managed to fit yourself in to a very sensitive topic without offending either well informed party. Love your work mate

In Filipino we don't have grammatical genders, not even he or she. We also have a difference between 'we' as in both speaker and listener (tayo) and 'we' as in the speaker and others not in the conversation (kami). But there's also the complicated grammar; 'laro' (play) can also be naglaro, naglalaro, maglalaro, maglaro, panglaro, laruan, laru-laro, naglalaro-laro, maglalaro-laro, maglaro-laro, paglaro, paglalaro, etc.

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I'm sure this comment section will go over well.

Yey I finally understand why all the monsters said "they" in Undertale :D

dress in spanish vestido = masculine shirt = camisa feminine

i love how she/he/him show how old english used to have grammatical Ginger and na accusative case. you can really tell how a language was just by how it is

Are you saying that there are more then 2 sexes?

never expected this sort of video from you tom.

YES THANK YOU

Mandarin is interesting here: 他(ta1): He, 她(ta1): She, 它(ta1): It. Same word in spoken language but distinguished when written.

A lot of things about language are clunky and weird. Language evolves through a messy process of evolution, not elegant design. Get used to it.

this is the best video on the Internet

It must be nice to have a language so simple you can basically do whatever you want with it and it still sounds okay-ish.

You forgot that in French, they have the word "they" but using that would be pointless as it is also classed into male in female. "Elles" is used when talking about a group of females while "Ils" is a group of males OR a group of males and females, which is even more sexist

I don't hey why people don't like being called "they". I'm 100% biologically male and completely identify as such, and I don't even notice when some refers to me as "they".

"They", under 99% of circumstances, is used to refer to a 3rd party that isn't present or in attendance. Saying "they" to refer to the viewer, for example, would be confusing.

I use they/them pronouns so I quite like this video :)